Keith Banks I'm surprised at the low score and negative reviewing of this documentary. Perhaps its a pinch too long but i don't think so. It seems peoples gripe is that there's too much of the family and not enough about Francesca? Um, shes dead. All that we can do is hope her family and friends at the time will communicate, all of whom do. I hadn't heard of Francesca before but somebody recommended it and i thought it was haunting and a beautifully rendered documentary.It is interesting to see the competitiveness within an artistic household, that artists are not above trying to outdo their own family members. It also goes a ways to see why Francesca herself was so obsessively driven for success and recognition. Touching portrait of youth, mostly.

celr This strange documentary summarizes the lives of avant garde photographer Francesca Woodman and her artistic parents Betty and George. We know from the beginning that Francesca commits suicide and so we're alert to clues. Why do people commit suicide? It's very difficult to know, really, but in some cases we're able to see glaring contradictions in a person's family dynamic. The movie is mostly interviews with the parents. The mom, Betty, in particular, presents a strange and forbidding presence, goggling through thick brightly painted glasses, she seems arrogant and fragile at the same time. A narcissist, of course, but aren't most artists narcissistic? A major clue is revealed near the beginning of the interview where the mom declares that she has dedicated her life to art and that she couldn't imagine living with a person who wasn't an artist, "I would come to hate that person!" she states. reveling her prejudice and intolerance for non-artists. The mother's art is mediocre at best, large pottery shapes splotched with crude patterns in primary colors. Perhaps the mother envied the daughter's obvious talent for visual expression.Most suicides by youngsters are the result of them feeling intolerably pressured by their parents' expectations. In Francesca's case there was a unquestioned directive: be an artist...or else! Francesca created her own style of art: pictures of her own, very attractive, nude body posed against shabby, desiccated interiors or wrapped in old wallpaper. The photographs, many of which are shown in the film, are stark, compelling and ironic. She was obviously very talented. She achieved some notice as a photographer, an artist in her own right, but as any artist must she experienced moments of self doubt. Since Francesca's expression was primarily visual and enigmatic her inarticulate diary excerpts, though quoted throughout, provide little insight into what she was going through. In any case her narrow though striking artistic style was bound to run our of new ideas, being so restricted in subject matter. At some point Francesca thinks about giving up art and suggests maybe trying another course in life. Her mother is quick to put a stop to that: "That was ridiculous, of course; I told her, 'You can't DO anything else.'" I can only speculate, but the clues are pretty obvious. The talented but unhappy daughter must continue with a course that even she can recognize is a dead end, or face the hatred of her mother. Her therapist, a necessary accessory to people of that class, is useless, and her father, whose art is not at all bad, is a passive participant in the family drama. As a whole the film is a downer like a slow-moving train wreck. It showcases Francesca's photography and is a sort of introduction to her work, but the intrusion of the parents, who may have been the motivation behind her success and eventually her downfall, is unwelcome except to provide clues to the mystery of her life and death. This film is just too long, it could have expressed the same material in half the time.

stillComputing This is a rare opportunity to follow the lives of three artists (the parents and Francesca, their daughter) and to experience the drive, passion, insecurities, and tensions involved in creating art.Francesca's use of her own nudity in some of her work enhances what is already a rich visual experience with an intimacy with the artist. You get so close to the family and its dynamics—idyllic in many ways, such as living in beautiful surroundings (Colorado, New York, Italy) and facing mostly one's own internal challenges of being who you want to be, the most you can be, and accepted by others—that you are caught off guard as the "normal" trials and tribulations suddenly spiral out of control and Francesca leaps from a tall building.Was it right for her boyfriend to have questioned whether her work was art--honesty versus support? Why should success matter that much? This sub-theme is gently explored in the contrast between the father's and mother's careers. You expect the movie to end with Francesca's death, but it continues on, on with the broader painting of the Woodmans' tapestry.If you have ever questioned the meaning of life, the unfolding of this story would normally be a celebration of the drive and finding meaning, until it takes you right over the edge. How we suffer for what we care about. How we love what we create and want it to live.I was deeply moved, made to reflect on emotions we all feel at times, and haunted by the fact that the story is not fiction, but true and told by the actual people, including Francesca.

ThurstonHunger I was fortunate enough to see some of Francesca's work at the SF MOMA earlier this year. Her photos, seeming to both express and erase herself at the same time, were fascinating.The "Polka Dot" image alone was what called me to the exhibit...Here is an oddly cropped version from the cover of a posthumous bookgo to wiki and Keller2011FrancescaWoodmanBookDustJacketFront.jpgAnyways, this film is indeed called "The Woodmans" and obviously the intent was to focus on all the artists in the family: Mom, Dad, Brother Charlie and Francesca, who killed herself over 30 years ago.Yes, ideally her art should (and can) stand separate from her suicide, but there is some eerie harmony between the work and her suicide. Art is more clearly about choices than life, in art there is much more control, whereas in life, control is at best an illusion.I didn't go into the film expecting it to be a mystery, and I steadfastly tried to avoid any judgment of the parents, even though I felt the filmmaker was pushing us towards one at times. Betty's comments about a therapist and a family Francesca babysat for, and then George's comment about the timing of her death, well they pushed me towards psychoanalysis. Ultimately Georges photo shoot is unfurled, and I'm curious if anyone felt was not at least a little creepy. Meanwhile the friends and other testifiers on behalf of Francesca if anything made her feel more remote than anything. Especially the sweet neighbor whose friendship sadly must have come before two or three major changes in Francesca...They seemed from two different worlds, united by a kindergarten lifetimes ago. Even the parents, at this point have spent more time without Francesca then they did with her. What I might over analyze as willful detachment, could just as well be a weary detachment at this point.Ultimately she is gone. And the film just underscores that. I'm not sure what I would do in her parent's stead, feel honored with a hint of agony? Maybe wish it away until I'm gone, and then let her brother handle it (if he wanted to?) I don't have the all-consuming near religious belief in art as they do. Seeing that was the most striking aspect of the film. For better or worse.I had hope for more footage of Franscesca speaking for herself, instead they offered scribbled diary pages and then even excerpted those. I paused them at times, looking for more in the margins. Whether the film meant to just augment her mystique, or could not find its way in the few scraps left of Francesca, I do not know.In the end, I think people are better served spending time with her artwork then this film, here's a nice set via UC Berkeley onlinewww.berk-edu.com/RESEARCH/francescaWoodman During the film, I felt the images came and went too quickly. Not just for her, but for the other family members as well (Charlie in particular got the shortest shrift, his stuff looked more interesting to me than the parents.) Even at the exhibition, it was so crowded that the experience was diminished for me a bit, when looking alone at these photos now, it works better, in the quiet and stillness.Evidently her work strikes a resonance with young female artists, however I am excluded from all three categories, and still find her work charged. We all struggle with meaningless in our lives, but for her to have captured meaningful photos during that struggle, that's the film I wanted to watch.