Anton Corbijn

I recently watched “Anton Corbijn Inside Out” documentary. I found it particularly fascinating. For sure you have seen some of his famous photographs. If you ever have had an album from Joy division, U2, Rem, Nirvana, or Depeche mode, to name only a few, you have seen one. They are usually high contrast black and white, and in some cases with cross processed film colours. Portraits of famous bands, with dramatic backgrounds.

In this documentary he talks about why he photographs music bands, and how that helped him to overcome his difficulties to relate to people. How his relationship with his family made him like he is now. Some aspects of his photography are discussed also, like the use of old film cameras to this date and his innate ability to see compositional aspects in an image, a thing that normal people learning about photography like me will struggle forever… 🙂 The documentary goes quite intimate, and at some point it looks almost like a filmed therapy session. There are some nice parts where people who has been photographed by him praise his job in some or another way. And the guy seems incredibly humble.

After watching this, I decided to have a look at his latest film, “The American”. He was the director. Critics have called this one an “anti Bond” film. People was expecting  a more action packed kind of film, and it is not. It’s rather introspective.

Here, the Metacritic reviews score for “The American”, and here is interview with him.