Helmut Newton, as his models knew him
Helmut Newton, “Crocodile, Wuppertal” (1983)“Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful” Once fashionable fashion photographer on film “As a woman, I find your photos very misogynous,” says Susan Sontag to Helmut Newton. The photographer replies that he loves women. Sontag doesn’t buy it. “A lot of misogynous men say they love women, but show them in a humiliating way.” Helmut Newton, “Grace Jones and Dolph Lundgren, Lost Angeles” (1985)That exchange took place in 1979 and is included in “Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful,” a documentary about the photographer by Gero von Boehm that is available for streaming this Friday. Surprisingly, Sontag’s is the only dissenting voice in this homage to one of fashion’s most notable, and notorious, photographers. Helmut Newton, or Helmut Neustädter before fleeing Germany in 1938, was born 100 years ago (hence the occasion of the film?) and died in 2004. At the beginning of this century—and how long ago that seems!—Newton, along with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, were at the pinnacle of their reputations. Avedon also died in 2004, and Penn in 2009. The film’s commentary, in the form of interviews, is from the perspective of the women who…
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