As a long time subscriber to both Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, I feel like I know Annie Leibovitz well. Granted, I’ve never met her, but some of her pictures are burned in my memory: John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the January 22, 1981 Rolling Stone cover, shot the day of Lennon’s death, the 1990 Vanity Fair cover of a nude, very pregnant Demi Moore. There are a lot of photographers out there, but few have produced as many iconic images as Annie Leibovitz. It’s almost as if the camera is her paintbrush and the world is her canvas.
Born Anna-Lou Leibovitz in 1949, the girl who would become known to the world as Annie, began experimenting with photography in the darkroom of an air force base in the Philippines, where her father was posted during the Vietnam War. She went to college in San Francisco to study painting; she thought she’d be an art teacher. It was a photography workshop that introduced her to a love for the camera.
Directed and produced by Annie’s sister Barbara, Life Through a Lens lines up a series of famous subjects to sing the photographers praises. Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Patti Smith among others swear she’s among the best in the business. Hillary Clinton says Leibovitz’s portraits show us who the people in them really are. Patti Smith takes things a step further, claiming that while she didn’t recognize herself at first in Leibowitz’s portrait of her, she has gradually come to know the person that Leibowitz saw in that shot: In that instance, Smith seemed to feel she eventually evolved into the person Annie captured in the picture. For her part, Leibovitz doesn’t feel like you can truly ‘capture’ someone that way, “Life is so much bigger and so much more complicated than this one-dimensional moment,” she says.
Taken on as a staff photographer at Rolling Stone in 1970 after walking into their offices with a bag of photographs, she found herself working with the likes of Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. With instructions from publisher Jann Wenner to, “get good pictures” she set about perfecting her craft. In the film, Yoko Ono talks about the first time Annie shot her and John for the magazine. That was her first big “get” and the rest as they say is history.
While at Rolling Stone, Leibovitz became one of the best known photographers in rock ‘n roll, covered campaign trails. Though she is primarily known as a commercial, celebrity photographer these days, it’s clear she has great journalistic sensibilities. As many of the interviewees attest, Leibovitz knows how to immerse herself into the subject’s world, become part of the background and get the most intimate photos because her presence has been forgotten. Annie clearly understands the power of a photograph. She says the camera is a powerful tool for capturing, “moments in-between the big moments.” She was one of many photographers let into the White House on the day Richard Nixon left office. But, staying behind longer than most, she snapped a powerful shot of guards rolling up the red carpet in front of the helicopter taking Nixon away from the presidential residence.
Leibovitz did have some tough times. After going on tour with The Rolling Stones at the height of their drug problems, her own addictions led to a stint in rehab. Because Life Through A Lens was directed and produced by Annie’s sister, viewers may be expecting some deep personal revelations. Leibovitz has always kept her personal fairly private and for the most part, she does so here.
After a brief mention of her drug rehab, the documentary goes on to discuss her triumphs at Vanity Fair and Vogue. She does discuss her three children and her relationship with the writer Susan Sontag. I found myself wanting to here more; losing her long-term partner and her father in a short space of time has obviously affected her profoundly and some of the film’s most moving scenes are when she talks about her loss and expresses it through her work.
All in all, Annie Leibovitz – Life Through A Lens is definitely worth a look, if only for the sight of Keith Richards cheerfully admitting he can’t remember when, where or how most of her pictures of him were taken. Annie Leibovitz is an artist who has taken risks and created some of the most iconic images of the last forty years.
Annie Leibovitz – Life Through A Lens is presented in a matted widescreen format, which preserves the aspect ratio of its original television exhibition. The video itself is pretty good. The colors are deeps and vibrant (which is a major plus, since this is a documentary about photography. There are a few moments of graininess throughout the film but nothing that should interrupt the viewing experience.
The audio is presented in Dolby Digital stereo. Solid soundtrack here; since the whole documentary is dialogue this audio presentation does the job and does it well. Subtitles in English are provided.
This DVD comes with just over an hour of extended interviews with the subject seen in the documentary. The additional footage includes interviews with Hillary Clinton, Demi Moore, Patti Smith and Whoopi Goldberg among others all discussing working with Leibovitz. The additional interviews are organized into five thematic exhibition galleries: Celebrity, Commercial Work, Fashion, Photo Stories and Work Ethic.
