The most succinct review for Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable was when a man audibly and continuously snored while my friend and I fought against sleep near the end of the film. Eventually I gave up and began to silently nod off. A dark room is death to this documentary so if you must see it, wait until it is available for home viewing then watch it with all the lights on and only after you’ve had a good night’s sleep if you are interested in photography.
Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable is about the titular street photographer, whom I knew nothing about before this film and only learned a bit more afterwards. The documentary lacked structure although it did follow a roughly chronological narrative, but it failed to achieve any rhythm between the personal and the professional and sadly devolves into a slide show of his captivating work with droning voices from academic talking heads, friends, mentees and other photographers; thus its soporific effect on most of my row.
The best part of the documentary is when Winogrand’s audio is played over his work. When Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable permits the man to speak for himself, you get a very different image in contrast to the genteel voices discussing him. My impression from the audio recordings was a man still astonished that his calling was in stark contrast to the image that he had of artists, and yet he was one. He considered it a masculine, rough and tumble pursuit, a compulsion to work disproportionately prolific with his ability to keep up. I am not an authority on the matter, merely a dabbler in photography, but I was shocked that no one considered that he had so much undeveloped film because he wanted to spend more time and money on shooting and capturing his vision on rolls of film than spending money and time on developing it. I vaguely remember that a teacher told me that a real photographer already knows what the photograph looks like before it is developed. If Winogrand lived now, would he take a page out of Black Mirror, which I have not seen yet, and rig up a device to his eye so he could take even more photos? Probably based on his remarks about being impatient with working in color versus black and white film and being able to keep up with what he wanted to do. True artists are in a battle against him or herself and try to bring their internal progress into reality in the outside world and care more about cranking out the work than its reception.
I am not suggesting that Winogrand did not care about success. You don’t accidentally cultivate a lifelong to posthumous relationship with John Szarkowski, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art and the main gatekeeper to modern art when it comes to photography, and constantly get shows with the leading photographic artists of your time without some level of savvy and cunning. If you are not developing all your rolls, but are familiar enough with your work to constantly cull photos with common themes to produce shows and photography books that are marketable to a niche community, he far surpasses the average ambitious photographer, who may take great photos, but can’t market the work. Of course, he could have done better with discipline, but who couldn’t. He reminds me of Prince and Aretha Franklin-unconcerned and unbothered by what is left behind because he is too busy with more important matters.
Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable never white washes the man. He certainly does not translate well for our times or even those times since he calls himself a male chauvinist pig. His first ex-wife’s story of their first tryst unconsciously sounds incredibly pedophilic. She was 15, and he was 21, which is not a huge difference, but certainly crosses a line regardless of whether or not it is a common phenomenon. The talking heads fall over themselves to explain what Winogrand never excuses. You can like and even love someone and still admit the object of your affection’s flaws. It will make the rest of your statements more credible. He knew that he was at best pushy, proudly grabby, and it fit in with his rough image of the artist as Hemingway, whom he never cites (the talking heads compare him with Norman Mailer). He even sounds proud of his strategy.
Little girls grow up even if you marry them, and eventually they speak up and are less impressionable. They want the big man to be the big man and occasionally pay a bill, which was unsurprisingly not Winogrand’s forte. Developing film is expensive. Was the problem that once he stopped being a commercial photographer and embraced being an artist, even a successful artist didn’t make enough to support a family or did he manage his money poorly? Frustratingly Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable omits the source of his problems with money and leaves it to the viewer’s imagination. He solved the problem with divorce, rinse and repeat. Life pro tip: the problem isn’t always the spouse or significant other if the problem is practical and present regardless of whom your partner is. Fix yourself then pair up. In many ways, Winogrand’s life is a cliché.
What makes Winogrand special is his critical eye directed outward at society. Winogrand’s summary of the world’s ills is summarized thus “We have not loved life.” If you loved life as it is, would there be so much brutality in society? His work’s honesty in capturing life not as we want it to be, airbrushed and beautiful, but as it is, bruises and all, beautiful despite, not because, makes his photographs feel more like a still from a documentary than a fictional movie, which also explains his compulsion to keep taking photographs. Life does not stop after the first click of the shutter. He also dabbled in filmmaking, but Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable never provides any context for this pursuit although it does show clips from his movies.
The problem with seeing so much is one of empathy and feeling too much while not being able to convey that feeling to successfully become a catalyst for change, which is a common affliction for the artist. Winogrand matter-of-factly explains, “I’m not talking about suicide. I just would as soon not exist.” If you don’t exist, you don’t see or feel so much and don’t have to face the daunting task of making a difference. I have no idea what Winogrand actual position is on the issues of his day, but he clearly cared. The talking heads that love him assume that he fell on the side of the angels, but I don’t know. His photographs of animals reflect a rich inner life, which most people only contemplate in relation to their usefulness to humanity. His interest in his children contrasts favorably at a time when men were less comfortable in the daily life of their offspring.
Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable could have been better. It is not the definitive, comprehensive documentary that it aimed to be, but left glaring narrative holes and failed to achieve a rhythm.