June Newton

David Lynch and Isabella Rossellini by Helmut Newton

There is no beauty without emotion

—-Diana Vreeland

With the cancellation of The Berlin and Tribeca Film Festivals, the new Helmut Newton documentary The Bad and The Beautiful (Gero von Boehm) is now available from several streaming services.

Released in the centennial year of his birth, it contains fresh footage not seen in previous documentaries Frames From The Edge and Helmut by June. While the later two documentaries are a bit more ‘fun’ to watch, I found this film provides more in depth commentary by several luminaries who add important flavour to understanding the man behind the images.

Below find some of my favorite quotes in the movie, but perhaps the series of comments not to overlook:

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‘I grew up with the memory that if you crossed the road on a red light you were sent to a concentration camp… It was a strange time…we knew it was dangerous… I ran in the day and I tried to hide at night… but some people were very kind to me….there were some people whose cellars were full of Jews…’

— Helmut Newton

“What we do with memories…and all those things we actually deny…too heavy at the time….and they come through ourselves much later on…  and very often turn into an extraordinary form of art.”

— Charolette Rampling

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And my favorite lines from the documentary…

You’re not going to get a lovely girl on a lovely beach. That’s not what he was about.

Anna Wintour

There is no neutrality…there is no right and wrong…everything is tainted with a point of view.

Susan Sontag

It’s a passion. An obsession. He’s obsessed.

June Newton

When I look at the pictures, they are different than me. It was his imagination. It was my imagination…

Claudia Schiffer

It’s great to be a provocateur. That’s what the world needs, a form of provocation because it stimulates thoughts and it stimulates ideas.

Charolette Rampling

In a lot of these pictures (with me and very big white men), they want me, but I’m not available. I am so close….

Grace Jones

You express the idea… (he is not) photographing you, (he is) photographing an idea that is in his head…and you are the vehicle…

Isabella Rosellinni

I learned to respect a piece of film…

Helmut Newton