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Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens

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by Michael Clarke
Barbara Leibovitz's, Life through a Lens is a fascinating tour de force that takes us on a journey right into the heart of American society and out the other side. This film, far more than a biopic, is a film that explores the reasons behind photography, its purpose, and the responsibilities that it brings.

This is a raw, compelling, and most of all inspiring film, which turns the lens 180 degrees around, to look at the life of this wonderful American photographer. With the canvas of Leibovitz's photography to work with, 'Life through a Lens', was always going to be visually strong. Annie's story is particularly fascinating because she has photographed everyone from Nixon to Bush and found time to tour with the Rolling Stones somewhere in the middle. However, Annie sees herself primarily as a reporter, someone who captures life at its most fundamental level, the human being. As a person herself, Annie is endearingly humble, and she has no qualms with getting commissions from both the Bush administration and Michael Moore. What's more, we gain a fascinating insight into Annie's personal life, and her answers to some of the most profound questions surrounding photography as an art-form. At one stage of the film Annie tells us that she had a sudden epiphany, and realised that, "dance cannot be photographed... and there is something beautiful about that". She is in fact, very critical of photography in general, stating that it is not a true representation of life, simply a slice of a few hundredths of a second, and this in itself, puts a great deal of responsibility in the hands of the photographer.
From her life as a child, when she spent much time traveling, from place to place, or as Annie saw it, from shoot to shoot, she refers to the camera as, "just another member of the family". In what appears like an amazing stroke of luck she gets a shoot with John Lennon and Yoko Ono and once and for all secures her place as Rollling Stone's number one photographer. From going on tour with the Stones and, "inevitably", developing a drug problem, Annie decided to clean up, in more ways than one, and move to Vanity Fair, where she entered a new stage in her life.

Despite being made by her sister, there is little discussion of the relationship between the two. Nevertheless, you get the feeling that this film could not have been made by anyone else, given the unprecedented access she had, which presumably came with no ulterior motives. The filming; jerky, wobbly, at times overexposed, at times underexposed, somehow seems fitting, so as not to detract from the work of this important artist of our time. Although this takes nothing away from the overall experience. On the contrary, getting the chance to see Annie's work on the big screen must be a real treat. Most of all, you come away feeling like you have learnt something valuable from Leibovitz, something that no one else could have taught you. If you are interested in photography, and judging by the sales of digital cameras, most of us are, this is essential viewing.
Dir. Barbara Leibovitz, USA 2006, 90 mins

Life Through a Lens... is released at the ICA on 15th February. For more details, see DFGDocs/Events.

Released by ICA Films

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