![]() Born Helmut Neustädter in Berlin in 1920, he and his family fled Germany in 1938 to escape persecution as Jews. Newton’s early life was marred by tragedy. This contradiction is so interesting.”Įlsie Neuländer Simon, whom Newton worked for as a young photographer in pre-WWII Berlin. “On the one hand it is unbelievably tragic and on the other it’s incredibly glamorous. “The story of Helmut Newton is the story of one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century,” says von Boehm, over Zoom from Paris. ![]() Von Boehm started filming in 2001, in Newton’s native Berlin, interviewing the man himself. Courtesy Helmut Newton Foundationįriends with Newton for decades, documenting his life was “such a simple choice”, says von Boehm, who has directed more than 100 documentaries on subjects ranging from Arthur Miller to Umberto Eco. Gero von Boehm photographed by Helmut Newton. ![]() Von Boehm’s documentary, Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful, which makes its Australian premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival, takes this motto as its central theme, interviewing the women made famous by his photographs and giving them a voice beyond the frame. With his ability to separate his work from his personal life, he could see clearly the wonder and depth of his own inventiveness, and was able to cajole subjects – everyone from Isabella Rossellini to Grace Jones – into enacting this into imagery. It’s a curious idiom for an auteur whose work is so deeply rooted in the idea of pleasure itself: in the beauty of the female body, in the celebration of sex, in the freedom of movement and the sheer joy and oddity of creativity itself.īut according to film director Gero von Boehm, it’s a motto that made Newton the success he was. Helmut Newton had a saying: “ Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps.” The German photographer, who emigrated to Australia after World War II, meant this: You should not mix work with pleasure.
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