Brief Encounters – Gregory Crewdson’s Portraits Of Small-Town American Life
Brief Encounters documents Gregory Crewdson’s 10-year quest to create a series of haunting, surreal, and stunningly elaborating portraits of small-town American life. The photographs of Crewdson are shot using a large crew, and are elaborately staged and lit. The epic production of these movie-like images is both intensely personal and highly public: they begin in Crewdson’s deepest desires and memories, but come to life on streets and soundstages in the hills towns of Western Massachusetts.
Filmed over a decade, beginning in 2000, Gregory Crewdson says, “Brief Encounters provides an unparalleled view of the moment of creation of my images. It also reveals the life-story behind the work.” Through frank reflections on his life and career, including the formative influences of his psychologist father and his childhood fascination with the work of Diane Arbus. Childhood fears and ideals, adult anxieties and desires, the influences of pop-culture all combine to form who we are, and for Crewdson, motivate his work.