Beneath The Roses
Beneath the Roses features an essay by acclaimed fiction writer Russell Banks, as well as many never-before-seen photographs, including production stills, lighting charts, sketches, and architectural plans, that serve as a window into Crewdson’s working process. The book is published to coincide with exhibitions in New York, London, and Los Angeles.
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In these 49 elaborately staged photographs, Crewdson (Twilight) reveals his vision of America in lush and brooding images of dusk, each one bristling with atmosphere: a young boy stares at a naked woman standing in the open door of her trailer; a woman, observed through a motel window, looks at a baby sleeping on the bed; a man stands in a deserted intersection in the rain, his car door open behind him. Although Crewdson's work is frequently interpreted cinematically, and stylistic comparisons are drawn between him and David Lynch and Wes Anderson, in the book's preface, writer Banks argues that analogies to the movies do the photographer a disservice. According to Banks, looking at Crewdson's photographs resembles reading fiction more than anything else; it is not a passive experience (such as watching a movie) but an invitation to actively imagine alongside the artist. Crewdson's sets do boast the budgets and crew normally associated with movies, however, and this collection includes 23 extra pages of set drawings, location shots and images of the actors and props used to create the photographs—perfectly in keeping with a body of work that, as Banks states, tests the limits of realism while making no effort to disguise its artificiality. (May)
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About the Author
Gregory Crewdson is an internationally exhibited artist whose photographs are also the subject of Abrams’ Twilight. He teaches at the Yale University School of Art and lives in New York city.
Russell Banks is an award-winning writer whose works of fiction include Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter, and The Darling. He has contributed essays to Vanity Fair, Harper’s, and many other publications. He lives in upstate New York.
Customer Reviews
Photography or Politics?
It's a fine Crewdson book, but I have a real problem with the essay by Russell Banks. Call me nuts, but I like to read my own "meaning" into photographs, or, more often, just enjoy them without reading in any generalized social or political comment. With Crewdson, you will naturally read in a lot, but it doesn't have to be social, political, or generalized. It can and, for me, should be, individual. Not a commentary on America, Reagan's America, American society, not a general commentary at all. Banks uses the book as an occasion for an attack on America. I get the distinct feeling that if it were a book of photos of side show freaks or dumps he would generalize that as an apt comment on the USA. Very offensive, almost like finding something smelly stuck between the pages. Example: "We Americans are permanently fallen creatures" And our unrealized fantasies have "turn[ed] us violent." Sick, I say, and out of place, even if it reflect's Crewdson's own views. "Shut up and sing," I guess you could say.
I like 'em big and beautiful...
...and this book IS both big and beautiful. The big-budget photographs are as thought-provoking as they are complex. An added bonus is being able to see how they were created and all the work that went on behind the scenes.
If you want a photography book that you can return to time and time again, this is the one. Each time I revisit a photo, I see something different and more is added to the "story" that is being told.
Fascinating
I had seen the french edition of that book, but couldn't afford it at $100,00. The good surprise was to find it cheaper, even with postage to Europe included. The landscape format allows the reader to see all the tiny details in Crewdson's pictures.
One small problem: 2 of the pages were missing and replaced by another (preceeding page). That may not be the case with other copies...
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