Bill Murray, Lost in Translation

The New York Times Magazine February 29, 2004 Sunday edition presented a twenty-six page portfolio of the actors and actresses who defined excellence in the past year's films.

New York Times:

To photograph this portfolio, we chose Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. Like Richard Avedon or Irving Penn, who were first known for their fashion photography, van Lamsweerde and Matadin use the trappings of style -- the clothes, the makeup, the poses -- as a point of departure, a vocabulary that they can adapt to other languages.

Today's celebrity portraiture demands almost instant decision making on the part of the photographers. A photo session usually occurs within the space of less than an hour, and the task before van Lamsweerde and Matadin was to evoke both the character of our chosen actors and their roles. Sometimes they would have a strong idea in mind for the sitter -- the flowers in Bill Murray's beard, for instance. Ralph Fiennes's disquieting, insular performance in ''Spider'' suggested a particularly vulnerable pose. Tim Robbins, who is heartbreaking in ''Mystic River,'' arrived at the studio with a snapshot that was taken in Washington Square Park when he was 7. ''It's my favorite picture of myself,'' he said, hinting that the childhood photo had inspired his performance in the movie. Van Lamsweerde and Matadin incorporated Robbins's snapshot into their image.

In many cases, the photographers created new personas that are as riveting as the on-screen characters: Gwyneth Paltrow was reconceived as a broken doll; Hope Davis, through the eyes of van Lamsweerde and Matadin, is a 70's cowgirl; and Judah Friedlander has been recast as a kind of Roman emperor, with a touch of Elvis Presley. Like a D.J. sampling music, anyone who is making photographs today is drawing on a huge archive of imagery, from high art to pop culture, and that mix is particularly evident in van Lamsweerde and Matadin's work. They take the archetypes of fashion photography and then direct the photo in almost the opposite direction. Hence, you have Charlize Theron, coifed and stunning, but with a scarf obscuring her movie-star glamour. In van Lamsweerde and Matadin's photo, she is a new kind of monster.

Our only goal in this portfolio was to reward excellence. In all the hubbub of celebrity coverage and the politics of awards, the excitement of watching great work is lost. Sitting in a dark theater and seeing these performances is like falling in love -- overwhelming, emotional and, finally, a moment that will always be remembered, long after the movie fades.

The van Lamsweerde and Matadin photos we found most "rugged elegant," inspirational and/or soulful were of:

Scarlett Johansson, Girl With a Pearl Earring
Gwyneth Paltrow, Sylvia
Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog
Melissa Leo, 21 Grams
Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give
Jamie Lee Curtis, Freaky Friday
Ralph Fiennes, Spider
Ludivine Sagnier, Swimming Pool
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dirty Pretty Things
Hope Davis, American Spendor
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation (without the flowers in his beard)

About The Photographers

Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin are Amsterdam and Manhattan-based photographers who have established a successful collaborative practice. Both born and educated in The Netherlands, they have produced a large body of digitally manipulated images that have haunted the worlds of high fashion, high art and music video, with a potent mix of the glamorous and the grotesque.

van Lamsweerde and Matadin are published in magazines such as The Face, Interview Magazine, Visionaire, Vogue Homme and have created campaigns for Balenciaga, Yohji Yamamoto and Calvin Klein. They have also exhibited internationally including a major exhibition at the Groninger Museum in 2000.