Gregory Crewdson's silent movies
Cranes, weather machines, film stars – just some of the ingredients that make up a Gregory Crewdson picture. Lucy Davies meets the Cecil B DeMille of photography
7:00AM BST 03 Apr 2013
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On a street in Arlington, Massachusetts, Gregory Crewdson watches the first flakes of snow. Ten inches have been forecast, and ten inches fall, blanketing the tattoo parlours, cafés and barber shops in powdery white silence. The city has agreed to close the street – they’re used to his requests around here.
Crewdson, 50, is waiting for dusk, the moment when daylight, street light, studio light (he brought in 75), traffic light (he has them stuck at amber) and neon will be in perfect symbiosis. When a truck ruins the otherwise virgin snow with haphazard loops, a gaggle of assistants begins hastily shovelling into the errant tracks. “Make sure it’s the right colour,” calls Crewdson. “This is all for one picture?” asks a baggy-trousered teen.
As Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters shows, this is indeed all for one picture. The 90-minute documentary from director Ben Shapiro follows the artist over a period of eight years (its title is not without irony) as he makes Beneath the Roses, a series of 59 photographs hailed as Crewdson’s masterpiece. “He offered a level of access that’s very appealing,” says Shapiro. “Beyond that, to watch him at work, it really is artistic creation writ large.” Rather than the impulsive instants we usually associate with photography, Crewdson’s pictures are elaborate set pieces that have been pre-visualised in intricate detail. Set amongst the clapboard houses of Massachusetts, they are dreamy scenes suggestive of fear and loneliness, but also wonder.
'Untitled, (2002)' Credit: Gregory Crewdson/ Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery
This idea of a skewed suburbia, at once ordinary and other-worldly, has earned him comparison with the forlorn paintings of Edward Hopper and the noirish absurdity of David Lynch. His holy grail is “an uncanny sensation”, he tells me, when we meet for lunch in Manhattan. “I’m looking at something very familiar, but transforming it through light and colour to make it feel mysterious and strange.” Each of his photographs — he calls them “frozen moments” — is produced over a series of months, using extras, lights, props and insurance policies that would awe even epic movie director Cecil B DeMille.
When he first started out, “we just tied electrically into people’s circuit breakers, we could’ve easily blown up a house. Now everything’s regimented with permits. We still break things – cars, windows. Thankfully, no one has ever been hurt.” He’ll often use locals as his “characters”, preferring the sense of remove he gets from using someone he doesn’t know. “I want there to be a sense of alienation. Once I’ve picked the ‘actor’, I have almost no contact with them.” With this in mind, how did he find working with celebrities for his Dream House series? Julianne Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tilda Swinton all featured. “I loved doing it; they could all ‘do’ the detachment I wanted. But it was difficult. My instruction to them was that I wanted less, because my pictures are all about that emptied-out moment.” One of the most appealing aspects of his pictures is their attention to detail — Crewdson is obsessive, down to the level of ketchup in a bottle.
Gregory Crewdson at work Credit: Gregory Crewdson/ Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery
To this end he employs a whole team who visit thrift stores, purchasing “an enormous amount of phones and cups and things. I like nondescript. You vaguely recognise my scenes as Fifties, Sixties, but on the whole it’s outside of time.” Crewdson has been hounded by Hollywood bigwigs, who are keen for him to make a movie himself. “I’ll be out in Los Angeles this year and I’m meeting with various people, but it won’t happen unless it’s exactly the right situation, and the right story.” Despite such widespread adulation, his feet remain firmly grounded. “I’m still winging it. One thing I know: I wouldn’t do what I do without being optimistic. I have a belief that it’s all going to work out.”
For details on the film, see gregorycrewdsonmovie.com
