10月 10 2008
英语阅读 Brad Pitt’s Angelina Jolie picture
Eamonn McCabe 对《W》杂志封面照片的评述，在调侃中带出观点。
Brad Pitt has made Angelina Jolie look like she’s on the cover of Woman’s Realm
As private photos Brad Pitt’s snaps of his wife might be quite nice. But in the public realm they seem creepy, phoney and hypocritical
Eamonn McCabe
In many ways this is a beautiful picture of a mother and child, taken by a besotted father. In other ways it’s highly disturbing.
For a start, you can’t see the baby. I can understand why they don’t want to show its face, but just having a couple of fingers peeking out looks really odd. You start worrying: how is it breathing? Is it being smothered? Is there something really wrong with the rest of it?
But the main issue seems to be whether or not this is an amateur or a professional photo. It’s being billed as amateur – “Brad Pitt’s private photos” – but it’s being featured on the front of an art issue of a magazine, one that’s also featuring great photographers like William Egglestone. Are they saying Brad Pitt is a great photographer too?
He really isn’t. The composition isn’t terribly arty – it makes the magazine look like a bad issue of Woman’s Realm. That pose is just so coy and twee. You can imagine turning the pages to find there’s a feature in which Angelina is taught how to make a maternity dress.
Yet it doesn’t seem entirely like a spontaneous shot by a doting dad. It’s in black and white, for a start – and generally this kind of moment is one you’d want to record in colour. But I suppose black and white is obviously more flattering for someone who’s just given birth.
And it’s just SO personal. You can see her breast. Which does make it strange he’d then show the world the photos: it’s like saying – this is my wife, and I’m the only one allowed to photograph her like that.
Personally I hate looking at other people’s family snaps – another picture of little Johnny, or 900 shots of Corfu. I’m not interested in their domestic lives.
The difference here is that millions of people are interested in Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s domestic life. And her face on the cover of a magazine sells copies; just like Princess Diana’s used to, and Jordan’s still does. It’s interesting that all three are mothers – maybe they shift copies because they appeal to women as well as men.
Personally speaking, I find this picture just a bit too personal to enjoy. It’s shallow, and creepy, and hypocritical, too. These celebrities say they don’t want to be photographed in private, then they themselves shoot and then circulate snaps like these. Brad Pitt might well punch a photographer he thought was being intrusive. And now here he is, sticking a picture he took of his wife with her boob out on the front of a magazine. Film stars are weird!
