639 Life

This movie "Life" (2005) is a very unique and impressive work. Unique because it focuses on the relationship between one of the most extraordinary actors of all time and a great photographer. Impressive because it shows the simple fact that there is (not always, but most likely) a story behind a great portrait. I have never seen a film of James Dean, and I know little about what he was like. But this is "a few days with Jimmy" story told by the photographer and not about the actor. It's about taking photograph of people in an effort to curve out the moment of identifying the person. The person shot in the photo is not alone. There is a photographer who tries to profile you in the most artistic way. There should be a feeling, sympathy, maybe a tense between them, which I find is the beauty of portrait photograph. I usually don't take photo of people and rarely have conversation with the people whom I look at through the camera. I try to become transparent, wordless and feelingless in a hope to just to capture the real fact in front of me. But this movie makes me wonder what Jimmy was thinking and what he got from the dialogue, the distance, the silent moment, between him and the leica. Likewise, I really want to know what the photographer saw through the lens in the coolest star on earth.