Film Stills!

     Film stills are defined, by Wikipedia, as "a photograph taken on the set of a movie or television program during production by a movie stills photographer, primarily used for promotional purposes". However, some artists use them for expressive purposes, as the basis of their works. They believe that film stills can be manipulated into becoming commentaries on things occurring in society. The artist usually does this by replacing the person in the film still with a photo of themselves, immediately injecting more meaning into it. No longer is the film still simply that of an actress or actor doing their job, but it is an average person taking their own shot at celebrity, at becoming someone else. 


     Celebrity is something that's been around for many years, beginning when people put extra emphasis on the status of gods, kings, and pharaohs. Celebrity, at its core, is really the widespread notoriety of a given person. It can come from a variety of things, including talent, fear mongering, or even idiocy (simply put, some people are famous because others like to make fun of them). Celebrity has fundamentally changed from the way it used to be to now in that we value different things. Our kings are now actors and actresses, athletes, and musicians. Being rich can earn celebrity, and being a wild child can earn it too.

Angelina Jolie, celebrity for her acting skill

Paris Hilton, a celebrity because she has a lot of money and parties hard. 

     The artist Cindy Sherman explores this celebrity from the female perspective, but she also tackles the issue of the objectification of women. Through recreating film stills, Sherman seeks to understand and create a commentary on female stereotyping in modern media. 


Some of her recreated film stills:

Another artist who works with film stills is John Stezaker, who creates collages with the stills in an effort to understand how photography affects different parts of the human psyche. His work dabbles in surrealism, and some of it can be seen as a bit off-putting and grotesque. It messes with the mind to see iconic figures reduced to fragments of what they once were, and that is exactly the reaction he aims for. 

Examples of his work: