Douglas Kirkland

FREEZE FRAME
60 anni di cinema in fotografia

“Freeze Frame”: the cinema in its development, the decisive moment, the spectacular detail, the emotion stolen on the most legendary film sets. Out of Africa , Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid , Moulin Rouge! , Titanic , 1900 , The Charge of the Light Brigade , The Great Gatsby , New York, New York , Sophie’s Choice . Not only the most famous of Hollywood’s stars and co-stars but also cameramen, make-up artists, costume designers – become unknowing protagonists of a sixty years long “film” about the history of cinema. Vittorio De Sica, Marcello Mastroianni, Dominique Sanda, Sofia Loren are just some of the numerous celebrities Douglas Kirkland photographed. He captured the intimacy between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the seduction in Brigitte Bardot’s eyes, Faye Dunaway’s elusive charm; he caught Leonardo Di Caprio, Kate Winslet and James Cameron’ exhausted look, while they were shooting in the freezing water of Titanic .

Even when he wasn’t on film sets, Kirkland was able to relate to the innermost personal side of the film stars he met: Marlene Dietrich, Jack Nicholson, Peter O’Toole, Paul Newman, Peters Sellers, Jane Fonda and many others.

The exhibition Freeze Frame features over 90 colour and black and white photographs, organized in a chronological path divided in five decades, from the 60s to present day.

In cinema (and in photography) there is little time to tell the story, and there is a lot to be told. Douglas abandons himself to his instincts. He takes risks, he searches. He is not interested in beauty for its own sake; he wants life to stop still. This is why he is one of the greatest “freezeframe” directors of our time—precarious and unstable, just like cinema.

Cristina Comencini