Nicole Kidman gets inside the head of New York's 'photographer of freaks' Diane Arbus in Fur. She invests in an imaginary and "engaging" vision by director Steven Shainberg whose last collaboration with screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson, Secretary, was a similarly themed walk on the wild side. The film's weirdness could never be a selling point at the box office, but it divided critics too.

Shaving The Layers

In a 15 minute preview featurette, Shainberg reveals that he'd been trying to buy the rights to Patricia Bosworth's biography of Diane Arbus for 15 years. Ultimately though, he focussed on a brief few months in Arbus's life, when very little is known about what she got up to. Annoyingly it was this period that saw Arbus evolve into a groundbreaking photographer, so Shainberg and Wilson set to work imagining what might have happened to make it so. They explain how one snapshot of a very hairy man became their jumping-off point for the story, while Kidman and co-star Robert Downey Jr also offer their interpretation of events.

Two deleted scenes expand on other personal issues that Arbus might have been grappling with. Shainberg talks about her commitment to her children in a hospital scene that finds her facing the prospect of yet another pregnancy. The other is a tête-à-tête between Arbus' concerned father (Harris Yulin) and her put-upon husband (Ty Burrell), just after she brings her hairy new pal (Robert Downey Jr) to dinner.

With A Fine-Toothed Comb

Shainberg divulges more factual details about Arbus's life in his commentary for the film, and again speculates on how her marriage at 18-years-old and her history with her father may have shaped her as an artist. He reckons, since her father was a furrier, that Arbus may have been influenced by the "horror and sensuality" of killing cute animals to make swanky coats. He says too that Arbus described her own work as "Alice In Wonderland for adults" and talks more about the visual motifs that riff on Lewis Carroll's classic fairytale. There's also a closer look at the structure of the story in terms of building suspense and intrigue around Arbus' relationship with the man upstairs.

Of course, this DVD won't appeal to everyone, but for those curious about the journey of a budding artist, it's a rabbit hole worth investigating.

EXTRA FEATURES

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus DVD is released on Monday 23rd July 2007.