Any film crafted by even the most accomplished of filmmakers takes several frames in order to tell a comprehensive story. Photographer Gregory Crewdson creates tableau narratives in a single frame. In 2002 he released an exhibit called Dream House, which featured reputable actors and actresses in surrealist suburban scenes. The overall tone of this exhibit is a darker one, expressively depicting the anxieties of suburban life and exploring characters in relation to each other as well as their settings. This exhibit reflects a series of other media which came out in the late-nineties to early 2000s which deal with the idea of suburban life-- going as far as to perhaps feature visual quotes and inspiration from films such as Fargo (1996) and American Beauty (1999). However, what sets apart Crewdson’s work besides its fixed nature, is its formal and contextual ability to create an entire world outside of itself that explores the synthetic and the natural in suburban life.
The photograph that introduces us to the world of Dream House is a photograph of a house. The picture is horizontally composed and follows the rule of thirds to create a frame in which the green suburban lawn and the grey ethereal sky is separated by a nineteen fifties style house. While the sky takes up the upper third of the frame, the main light source doesn’t come from natural sunlight, but rather the artificial tungsten light that emanates from the the windows of the home. Horizontal compositions between ground and sky like this usually allude to the idea of heaven and earth, with a subject in the middle separating the two. However, the artificial light being the primary light in this picture takes the power from the heaven and gives it to the home, while outside is overcast and in the darkness of evening.
Through the rest of the exhibit Crewdson uses primarily artificial, cinematic lighting and has the scenes take place in evening or twilight. This is an important formal element which identifies the motif of syntheticism versus naturalism. It also enhances the cinematic look which allows Crewdson to create a complete narrative that exists outside of the one photograph. One particular photo features Philip Seymour-Hoffman, centered in frame in isolation inside his car, with scores of flowers in his trunk and on the road. The vibrant palette of the flowers combined with the bizarreness of the scene turns a realist scene into a surrealist one. It naturally prompts questions as to the origin of the scene which is what ultimately creates an understood beginning and end to the story depicted.
The flowers in this scene also seem to serve as a visual quote to Sam Mendes’ American Beauty, released 3 years before the premiere of this exhibit. In fact, a frame from American Beauty would pair well with Crewdson’s exhibit. It similarly is a realist/surrealist commentary on suburban life. Another possible visual quote is the use of actor William Macy in another photograph. In this scene, he kneels in a garage surrounded by garden tools and strange synthetic grass. He stares off, looking as if he has just committed a heinous crime like his character in Fargo. Fargo is another piece that complements Dream House and American Beauty. It centers around the stillest of suburban life in the northern United States, interrupted by extreme events that contrast the simple lives of the characters.
So there seems to be a concern with the negativities of suburban life during this turn-of-the-century time period. Crewdson is aware of this in his work and uses this societal context to his advantage. While he is able to relate an easily discernable tale through formal elements in his work, it is the context which makes the narrative and its themes so comprehensive. In one photograph, a mother lies on a couch next to a pill bottle starring hauntingly at a TV screen while her son lays on the floor surrounded by his coloring. Her husband stands outside a glass door, surrounded by the same flowers featured in the Hoffman photograph and holding a lantern. Again, synthetic elements (the pill bottle, the lantern, the markers, the flowers) are at play here to set up the narrative, but it’s the association and familiarity with the scene which completes the story. The pill-popping suburban mom and absent dad are archetypes which are familiar to any 20th century American. In fact, these issues originated the rise of suburbia in the 1950s right before the birth of Gregory Crewdson, no doubt influencing his life and his work.
It is clear that Crewdson wanted to create pieces that felt as though they were a single frame taken from a film. He used film actors, cinematic lighting, and a greater theme that exists outside the work of any artist and exists in the common anxiety of society to create an uncontained narrative realm. Crewdson uses this to say something unique about the nature of suburban life and juxtaposes synthetic and natural elements to say it. The overarching story told in Dream House is that the American suburban dream is in fact synthetic itself and a myth that holds destructive potential.
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