… Only Stills Remained: Nonexistent Films of Cindy Sherman

Marcin Giżycki

mgizycki@hotmail.com
Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7525-0205

Abstract

This essay discusses numerous links between the work of the American photographer Cindy Sherman and cinema, manifested through her famous cycle Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), but also in her own films: a short animation made during her college years (Doll Clothes, 1975) and a horror (Office Killer, 1997). The author considers to what extent photographs from the cycle are inspired by specific films and what is the relationship between the artist’s own films and her Untitled Film Stills. He also recalls Edward Hopper, another well-known artist whose paintings resemble movie stills. Finally, the author reminds us of feature films made in the 1990s by other artists from Sherman’s generation: David Salle, Robert Longo, and Julian Schnabel.


Keywords:

Cindy Sherman, Edward Hopper, Pictures Generation, film stills

Baudrillard, J. (1996). Precesja symulakrów (tłum. P. Czapliński). W: R. Nycz (red.), Postmodernizm. Antologia przekładów (ss. 175-189). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Baran i Suszczyński.
  Google Scholar

Cain, A. (2016, 2 czerwca). A Brief History of Cindy Sherman and Feminism. Artsy. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-is-cindy-sherman-a-feminist
  Google Scholar

Denson, R. (2012, 3 maja, aktualizacja 6 grudnia 2017). Cindy Sherman as Orson Welles... as John Ford... as Vittorio De Sica... as Alfred Hitchcock... as.... HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/before-there-was-cindy-sh_b_1312622
  Google Scholar

Elley, D. (1997, 20 sierpnia). „Office Killer”. Variety. https://variety.com/1997/film/reviews/office-killer-1117340046
  Google Scholar

Greenberg, J., Jordan, S. (2017). Meet Cindy Sherman: Artist, Photographer, Chameleon. New York: Roaring Brook Press.
  Google Scholar

Hopson, Ch. (br). Tormented Torsos, the Pornographic Imagination, and Articulated Minors: The Works of Hans Bellmer and Cindy Sherman. https://www.aca-demia.edu/2499667/Tormented_Torsos_the_Pornographic_Imagination_and_Articulated_Minors_The_Works_of_Hans_Bellmer_and_Cindy_Sherman
  Google Scholar

Irzykowski, K. (1924). Dziesiąta muza. Zagadnienia estetyczne kina, Kraków: Krakowska Spółka Wydawnicza.
  Google Scholar

Jones, J. (2012, 26 listopada). Why I’m seduced by Cindy Sherman’s Sex Pictures. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesb¬log/20-12/nov/26/cindy-sherman-sex-pictures
  Google Scholar

Krauss, R. (1999). Bachelors. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  Google Scholar

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1985). Drogi masek (tłum. M. Dobrowolska). Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódzkie.
  Google Scholar

Marzoni, A. (2015, 30 września). When SoHo Met Hollywood: Revisiting ’90s Films by ’80s Art Stars. ARTnews. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/when-soho-met-hollywood-revisiting-the-90s-films-of-the-80s-art-stars-5043
  Google Scholar

Morris, C. (1999). The Essential Cindy Sherman. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
  Google Scholar

Rhodes, R. (1982, wrzesień-październik). Cindy Sherman’s „Film Stills”, Parachute. ss. 4-7.
  Google Scholar

Ricciardi, A. (2010). Becoming Woman: From Antonioni to Anne Carson and Cindy Sherman. The Yearbook of Comparative Literature, 56, ss. 6-23.
  Google Scholar

Sherman, C. (2003). The Making of Untitled. W: C. Sherman, The Complete Untitled Film Stills. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.
  Google Scholar

Smith, R. (1997, 30 listopada). ART VIEW: A Horror Movie, Complete with Zombies. The New York Times, sekcja 2, s. 41. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/30/movies/art-view-a-horror-movie-complete-withzombies
  Google Scholar

Sontag, S. (2012). Przeciw interpretacji i inne eseje (tłum. D. Żukowski, A. Skucińska, M. Pasicka). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Karakter.
  Google Scholar

Wilde, O. (1923). Krytyk jako artysta I. W: O. Wilde, Dialogi o sztuce. Warszawa: Księgarnia F. Hoesicka.
  Google Scholar


Published
2021-11-16

Cited by

Giżycki, M. (2021) “… Only Stills Remained: Nonexistent Films of Cindy Sherman”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (115), pp. 239–248. doi: 10.36744/kf.827.

Authors

Marcin Giżycki 
mgizycki@hotmail.com
Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7525-0205

Film and art historian, critic, filmmaker. Professor at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw (Poland). Senior Lecturer at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence (USA). Artistic Director of “Animator” – International Animated Film Festival in Poznań (Poland). Former editor-in-chief of Animafilm – the ASIFA quarterly. He has published eight books and around 400 articles on film and art in Polish and foreign publications. He has also made a number of documentary, live action, experimental, and animated films in Poland and the USA. In 2016 he received the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies at “Animafest”, the World Festival of Animated Film in Zagreb (Croatia).



Statistics

Abstract views: 342
PDF downloads: 224


License

Copyright (c) 2021 Marcin Giżycki

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.

In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.