#vermont townscape | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

talbottocarucci-blog · 5 years

Text

Gregory Crewdson: ‘Beneath the Roses’ and ‘Sanctuary’

Gregory Crewdson's work can be found on his website here

In this paper I will be exploring two bodies work by of Gregory Crewdson, Beneath the Roses and Sanctuary. His project Beneath the Roses was contains 49 color images shot between 2003 and 2007. The photographs were shot on location in various towns in Massachusetts and Vermont, as well as on specially built soundstages. Sanctuary contains 41 black and white images, shot over one month in Rome, in 2009. The two projects share various underlying similarities and yet feature striking differences, all of which will be explored throughout this paper.

Beneath the Roses was shot on a large format camera using color film. The prints are also large scale- 30 inches by 60 inches. They were shot on location throughout Massachusetts and Vermont, as well as on special built soundstages. Hallmarks of these images are Hollywood-style lighting, utilization of a large stage crew, detailed sets, models/actors as subjects, etc. The dramatic, near perfect sets remain the main focus of the images, despite stark, sometimes nude figures that are placed in them, as if they are simply props. Crewdson utilizes many film techniques including lights rigged on cranes, fog machines, rainmaking machines, etc. The scenes prominently feature anonymous townscapes, broad desolate streets, forest clearings, and highly detailed interiors. The tension is created by the dramatization of everyday environments via cinematic lighting, theatrical staging, detailed prop placement, special effects, and heavy digital retouching. All of these choices serve to convey an elaborately staged, yet intensely real experience which maintain undertones of sadness, isolation, fear, anxiety, alienation, beauty, repression, angst, longing, and desire. Underlying themes include the recesses of the American psyche, the secrets lying beneath the surface, which stems from his habit of eavesdropping on his father’s psychology sessions, which took place in the house basement, with clients in which he utilized freudian analysis.

In Beneath the Roses Crewdson creates a genre that is a blend of documentary and fiction, which moves the viewer to ponder the lines between dreams and reality, past and present, perfection and reality, creation and fabrication, nature and artifice, etc. The sense of mystery and wonder is created by utilizing the iconography of the American landscape in a style that is both unique and familiar- we are not used to seeing such common settings lit and staged in such a theatrical, cinematic tone. The atmosphere becomes tangible, and deeply disquieting. It instills in the viewer with a sense of haunted urgency emerging from a sense of isolation, fear, and/or anxiety created. There is a strong sense of dislocation- stemming from the lack of identifying details of time and location. These images could have been taken anywhere in America, at any point in modern time. The landscapes balance a fine line between every day American scenery and the dystopia of “anxious American imagination.”

The landscapes and interiors become staging grounds for bizarre human scenarios and interactions, it is stripped of any sentimentality we so frequently find in American landscapes, leaving behind stark locations devoid of human emotion, even highlighting cold physical intimacy between individuals, which serves to create an image that is both bleak and darkly comical. The image creates a larger narrative, which is limited by a single moment framed within the image, leaving the viewer with far more questions than answers.

Some people interpret this series as an artistic representation on the working poor or middle class in American, who are surrounded by lost hopes and failures; robbed of the American dream and the life that they were promised. Personally, I found myself leaning towards a mixture of interpretations- I do believe one layer of these images is the socio-economic struggle of America’s working class and the disconnect of the American dream and people’s reality. After all, one of Crewdson’s major topics in his images is the lines between reality and dreams, and the blurring of those lines. I believe another interpretation is the interpersonal struggle that families and communities face, each unique in their roots, yet unifying in their tension.

Untitled, Beneath the Roses, 2004 (Mass or Vt.)

Untitled, Beneath the Roses, 2004 (Soundstage)

Sanctuary was shot on a digital camera in black and white, with minimal reworking and exclusively shot on-location with a skeleton crew. The prints were relatively small in scale at 24 inches by 30 inches. This project was shot at Cinecitta Studios in Rome on an abandoned outdoor set, which serves as the subject and setting. In fact, in contrast to much of his other work, only one image contains people, creating a location seemingly devoid of human presence. The intimate scale of the photos brings a palpable melancholy into focus- utilizing distinct shafts of sunlight, and natural cloaks of shadows to draw attention to the scenographic architecture and near documentary characterics of the images. Crewdson seems to be showing us the hidden life of the artifacts and spaces remaining after productions cease.

The decaying sets, ruined statues, exposed scaffolding, underlying structures, plant overgrowth, and presence of puddles and debris emphasize the lack of human life and effects of time on former grandeur. The mid-grey tones achieved via ambient light from shooting at dawn and dusk seem to suspend time, and this technique creates an illusion in which the past seems to be fitting itself into the present, slowly turning what was once a concrete idea of past into a present illusion. This illusion extends into the blurred lines between cinematic fantasy and real life, life and death, desolation and energy, and the planes of awake and dreaming. The skyline is zigzagged and inconsistent, keeping the focus on the buildings themselves, the buildings in the distant background lead the viewer to question their reality- are they real buildings from the Eternal City or are they part of the sprawling set?

The tension in Sanctuary exists in the decay of the set and the dream-like tones, the presence of the camera (and the feeling of being drawn into the image) and the lack of human life, the material presence and clear fabrication of the buildings, the death of artifice and the flourishing life of the natural. The interpretation of these works is the exploration of realism and naturalism within the artificial leftovers of a cinematic reality.

Untitled, Sanctuary, 2009 (Rome)

Throughout all of Crewdson’s work we can see various themes- the tension of opposing forces, the exploration of artifice and reality, blurring the lines between photo and film, and the balance between beauty and sadness. He tends to contrast between man (or man-made) and nature. One technique he uses in many images is frame-in-frame, in which he utilizes a doorway or foreground object to frame a distant, background scene.

Bibliography

Bitici, Valerie, et al. “The Eternal Stage Set.” Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair, 12 May 2015, www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/09/gregory-crewsdon-slide-show-201009.

Crewdson, Gregory, and Russell Banks. Beneath the Roses. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., a Subsidiary of La Martinière Groupe, 2008.

Crewdson, Gregory, and A.O. Scott. Sanctuary. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., a Subsidiary of La Martinière Groupe, 2010.

“Free Talks: Gregory Crewdson.” Film Society of Lincoln Center, HBO, www.filmlinc.org/events/free-talks-gregory-crewdson/.

“Gregory Crewdson.” Guggenheim, www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/gregory-crewdson.

“Gregory Crewdson.” Scripps College, Claremont, California, rcwg.scrippscollege.edu/blog/2009/04/30/gregory-crewdson/.

“Gregory Crewdson.” R . E . W . I . R . E . D, 10 Dec. 2015, rewired.edublogs.org/art/preliminary-hsc-art/case-studies/gregory-crewdson/.

“Gregory Crewdson: Beneath the Roses, Beverly Hills, May 21–July 16, 2005.” Gagosian, 12 Apr. 2018, gagosian.com/exhibitions/2005/gregory-crewdson-beneath-the-roses/.

“Gregory Crewdson: Sanctuary, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, September 23–October 30, 2010.” Gagosian, 12 Apr. 2018, gagosian.com/exhibitions/2010/gregory-crewdson-sanctuary/.

“Gregory Crewdson: Sanctuary, The Epic Photographer Shoots Rome’s Fabled Film Studio Cinecittà.” NOWNESS, www.nowness.com/story/gregory-crewdson-sanctuary.

Hodgson, Francis. “Sanctuary – Gregory Crewdson.” Francis Hodgson: Writing About Photographs, 25 Mar. 2012, francishodgson.com/2011/06/27/sanctuary-gregory-crewdson/.

Lim, Mike. “Book Review: 'Sanctuary', Gregory Crewdson.” Light Documents: On Photography, Documentary, Cinema, 20 May 2014, lightdocuments.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/crewdson-sanctuary/.

Reaves, Jessica. “Beneath the Roses by Gregory Crewdson.” PopMatters, Chicago Tribune, 25 Feb. 2018, www.popmatters.com/beneath-the-roses-by-gregory-crewdson-2496166147.html.

Sorace, Domnick. “Gregory Crewdson, beneath the Roses and Ambiguity.” DOMNICK SORACE, 27 Apr. 2017, domnicksorace.wordpress.com/2017/05/06/gregory-crewdson-beneath-the-roses-and-ambiguity/.

-Lauren F

0 notes