Prom Season

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Images from Mary Ellen Mark's new book, Prom (and the trailer for the accompanying film by Mark's husband, Martin Bell).

Meghan Connolly and Thomas Burrows. Wyncote, Pa., 2006. 

Meghan: “The worst thing about high school is the drama. 

We are all just a bunch of teenagers who want to kill each other.” 

Tom: “The worst thing about high school is having to go to class.”

Kayla S. Collins and Azmor Rendall. Newark, 2006

Andy Dunlap and Helen Alston. Charlottesville, Va., 2008. 

Helen: “We started dating six months ago, and we can’t even — 

we don’t even know what day it was because we went out to dinner 

one night, and I assumed that we were dating. Andy wasn’t sure.”

From the publisher's description:

Traveling across the United States to complete the project from 2006 to 2009, Mark photographed prom-goers at thirteen schools from New York City to Charlottesville, Virginia, to Houston to Los Angeles. Mark’s husband, the filmmaker Martin Bell, collaborated with her on the project to produce and direct a film, also called Prom, featuring interviews with the students about their lives, dreams, and hopes for the future.

Image of the Day

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Mary Ellen Mark, Brooklyn photo booth, 1979.
From a series of Mark's photographs
of publicly affectionate New Yorkers.
Seems timely as we prepare for the ball drop on
New Year's Eve. More at nymag.com.

I Keep You Straight, You Keep Me Straight

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One evening not long ago, we were sitting in the Eastlake Zoo tavern, and noticed a poster on the wall for a 1992 film, American Heart – directed by Martin Bell, with Mary Ellen Mark (one of the all-time heroes of this blog) listed in the credits as associate producer. Now that we've seen it, it's no wonder they had the poster up – many scenes in the film were shot at the Zoo and other recognizable places around Seattle. Turns out American Heart is essentially a different, fictional angle on Streetwise, the documentary Bell made ten years earlier with Mark (his wife) and Cheryl McCall. Click to see the trailer:

You get enough of the basic storyline from that, so I will just say: if you haven't seen it, see it. It's sort of the anti-Sleepless In Seattle.

If you haven't seen Streetwise, though, you might want to see that first. Inspired by Mary Ellen Mark's photo essay on street kids in downtown Seattle, Bell and co. made a documentary film on the topic, and it ended up being nominated for an academy award. I don't think it's on DVD though, so you have to be on the hunt. Here's a little excerpt:



One thing I kind of forgot is that it seems like there are influences on My Own Private Idaho throughout Streetwise (rollerskating in the abandoned building comes to mind, in addition to larger similarities). Whether you live in Seattle or not, it's a great movie – crushingly sad, but also crushingly beautiful, in a latter-day, tightly focused Robert Frank or films-of-William Eggleston kind of way. Or Harmony Korine, for that matter. Good for a cold and/or rainy fall day.

For more info, go to maryellenmark.com and click around. If you go to the books section and scroll down to Streetwise, then click the cover, you can read all kinds of stuff about it and see some photos.

Setwise

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Mary Ellen Mark, pictured above in 1976 on the Philippines set of Apocalypse Now, has a new book out: Seen Behind the Scene (Phaidon Press) collects forty years of her on-set photography from a wide range of movies.

Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, Night Moves, 1973.

It would be too harsh and/or inaccurate to say that Mary Ellen Mark is the anti-Liebovitz, but I have to say that (predictably) I love the rawness of her work, and applied to celebrities, it provides a much more interesting perspective to me than high-concept Vanity Fair type stuff.

The cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Salem, Oregon, 1973.

More info at maryellenmark.com, or buy it here or at your favorite bookstore while supplies last.

Some things I got Emily for her birthday.

La Perla.

Requisite lighting-related gifts.
Silver-Dipped Light Bulbs (not real silver, that's just what they call them), and a Porcelain Owl Lamp which combines two of Emily's major obsessions: Owls; Various Forms of Muted Lighting.

Streetwise book
I had been looking for this book forever, and finally found it at Left Bank Books in the West Village (the owner is originally from Eugene, Oregon). Mary Ellen Mark was kind enough to sign it for me. More on Streetwise in a future post.

Black Pumps.

"About a Son" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" DVDs.
These covers go together pretty well—maybe they should package them together as a special edition.

Issey Miyake Pleats Please dress.
It's basically just a big piece of really intricately pleated fabric, and comes with a booklet showing sixty different ways you can wear it. (Photo of Racquel Zimmerman in Issey Miyake by David Sims, from Future Shock, in V45.)