Movie Responses

Cindy Sherman - Nobody's Here but Me (1994)

Throughout this movie, I found it very interesting to see where all of Cindy Sherman's photographs come from and how she views her inspirations. For example, it's obvious the women of her time inspired much of her work, but when she referred to the as role models I was very surprised. She went on to say they were role models in a frustrating way because they represented societies expectations of her as a young woman, but the fact that called them role models to begin with shocked me still because the connotation is positive but her view is not.

The idea of society's expectations of women is a theme that shows up throughout her work. Through her Film Stills series and centerfolds, she prompts the viewer to create a story about the woman in the image. Though she created images to evoke thought from the viewer, you can still see her frustrations with society's expectations in them. I find this interesting because she kind of mimics those expectations in her own way, at least at the beginning.

When she first moved to New York, Sherman was afraid of the city and didn't leave her building much, if at all. At home she would dress up how she needed to for her photographs and rearrange furniture to create the scene. This almost mirrors society's expectations at the time for women to be at home all day and dress up to never leave the house.

Overall, I really enjoyed a look into what went on to create some of her images and how her conceptual photography is brought to life. It definitely gives me a different view of Sherman's work and how to view certain things.

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George Rousse

This movie gave a lot insight in to how George Rousse’s work has progressed and how he came to these changes in his work. I really enjoyed seeing his early work where he painted human figures in abandon spaces. I don’t think people see these pieces of his work as often and, based on his work now, I would have never guessed that this is what he started painting.

As he moved on, things got more abstract and he created different sculptural forms in spaces, and later flat shapes. I thought it was really cool to see the process he and his team used to put the forms and shapes in places and just how much work goes into it. However, I wish the reasoning behind he shape and color choices for the different spaces was explained more.

In the end, I thought the progression of his work and what his thoughts on it were, was very interesting. Rousse clearly has very methodical way of thinking, but I wish the creative aspects behind it were explained a bit more.