The Woodmans

THE WOODMANS is a delicate and haunting piece of art, a fitting showcase for the ethereal work of photographer Francesca Woodman. Francesca was a precocious talent who grew up in a family of driven artists and killed herself in 1981 when she was 22. Though she was unable to find fulfilling work after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design, her photographs have attained a cult-like following since her death. The film explores Francesca's life and work through the prism of her talented family: her mother Betty, a renowned ceramicist; her father George, a painter; and her brother Charles, a professor of Electronic Arts at the University of Cincinnati. Is growing up in a hot-house artistic environment a boon, or can it create oppressive competition? Her father notes that the personality characteristics that make Francesca intriguing are the same ones that tormented her. “There's a psychic risk in being an artist,” he points out. “It may well have made life more difficult for her.” Francesca's black-and-white photographs, and her early videos shot with a 1970s Sony camera, are incorporated into this multi-layered story. Fanciful excerpts from her diaries make her unique voice omnipresent. -B.B.