Gero von Boehm on Helmut Newton

The filmmaker, Gero von Boehm, discusses his new documentary, Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful. The film is as seductive and dazzling as Helmut Newton’s fashion photography and Hollywood portraiture. But on this episode as von Boehm explores Newton’s iconic work, he also explains why a serious and frank discussion about the nature of his subject’s imagery unfolds over the course of the film. Did Newton empower his subjects? Or treat them like sexual objects? Von Boehm asked only women to answer these questions in the film. His commentators include Newton’s famous subjects like Grace Jones, Charlotte Rampling and Marianne Faithful as well as Anna Wintour and Phyllis Posnick who commissioned his work for American Vogue.

Along with talking about Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful, von Boehm discusses other documentaries he has written and directed about notable cultural and fashion figures, including an upcoming one about Karl Lagerfed.