What Remains (2005) - full transcript

[music playing]

[crackling fire]

One of the things in my career as an artist might say

to young artists is, the things that are close to you

are the things that you can photograph the best.

And unless you photograph what you love,

you're not going to make good art.

[music playing]

I have nothing but respect for people

who travel the world to make art, who put exotic Indians

in front of linen backdrops.



But it's always been my philosophy

to try and make art out of the everyday and ordinary.

[music playing]

It never occurred to me to leave home to make art.

[music playing]

[birds chirping]

[horse neighing]

[music playing]

Hey, baby, you stay.

You stay... good dog, good dog.

[music playing]

Oh, it's perfect.

Ah... look at that sun.

[music playing]



When I was about six my father gave me a book called,

Art is Everywhere.

And it was one of those, you know, kids books where it tells

you to crawl under the... the, uh... table cloth of your dining

room table and look for, you know,

the intriguing little crumbs that you find on the floor.

Just to appreciate, you know, the quotidian.

And I guess must've taken it to heart.

Because I've never forgotten the book.

And the concept is a... as valid to me now as it was then.

This is no portrait.

This is a picture of my farm.

[inaudible]

Um, OK, darlin', step into the path.

Just line her up about five feet in front of you.

People often ask how I feel about being photographed.

And the thing you have to remember

is that Sally has had a camera in her hand almost

from the moment I met her.

Once you get used to the fact that that's her way of seeing

the world... I get to the point now where we'll be driving

along, or walking along, and I can tell when she's thinking

about a photo or see's a photograph.

'Cause I can just see the change in her expression

and I know that, you know, it's just the way

her mind functions.

Tell her to perk her ears.

She sees the world in images.

SHUTTER CLICK

There we go.

We got it!

Now, OK, I'm gonna get closer.

I think what makes mom different,

is that she can look at the same object

that I would consider pretty commonplace and ordinary,

but she'll make a print of it and suddenly I

see the beauty of it.

Well, I think you need to be silhouetted on the mountain.

Right.

So, I don't think I have much choice,

but to put you right here and to go down a little bit.

It's almost like she sees something happening

and she just thinks to herself, I know that this is special...

What I'm seeing right here.

Hey, mare!

[clucking]

That's it!

[shutter click]

Ah! [finger snap] Fifth of a second, she moved her head.

She see's something that she just doesn't want to forget.

[horse neighing] That did it.

You got it.

Good!

Perfect.

Good job, mare.

[music playing]

William Carlos Williams is one of my favorite poets,

and he makes the point that it's all about what he calls,

the local.

He actually makes it a noun and... um, and he's right.

For me the local has two parts, my family and the land.

They give me comfort in times of failure

and, of course, they're the wellspring and inspiration

for all my work.

[music playing]

[inaudible]

I really wasn't trying to push anybody's buttons.

I just was responding to things that appeal to me.

One day Jessie came home with a gnat bite on her face

and it was all swollen up.

And actually it had bruised.

It really looked like she'd been beaten up.

Up until that point I'd thought that the children

were snapshot material.

But she was so striking that it occurred

to me that right here, right under my nose, was a picture.

I mean a real picture.

And I just put her up against the wall and documented it.

[music playing]

So that's how I started, as soon as I

had that realization that there was art right under my nose

that I was missing.

I started seeing things differently.

Virginia...

[inaudible]

take, take another step down, very slowly.

Good, OK.

Stay like that for a sec.

Take your right hand, which is the one in that direction...

And pull your hair so it's more out in a circle.

Good, good.

Perfect!

Good girl.

[music playing]

I think what I realized was that I had children who had,

as individuals, extremely potent personalities.

[music playing]

From the minute I took those first 10 pictures...

I knew they were good pictures.

Lots of people take pictures and they don't sell them,

and they don't get famous, and they don't get on the cover

of the New York Times Magazine.

But, at the very least, I knew they were strong pictures

that hadn't been done before.

[music playing]

At the same time I was building up this body of work,

there was this outrage in the religious and right-wing

community against child pornography

and they finally just collided.

And I mean, I think the work just became

a victim of that hysteria.

It may be that the controversy had

the in-arguably beneficial effect of bringing the work

to the public consciousness.

I think a lot more people saw the work as a consequence.

I don't know, though, do people by prints

because they're controversial?

Or do they buy prints because they've seen them and they

like 'em?

I like to think it's the latter.

Um, but they did buy them.

I don't know.

I just have real mixed feelings about what

happened during that time.

I mean, if I could do it over in some way,

I would not wish for that kind of backdoor celebrity.

It brought my name to the public,

but I think good work eventually gets to the public anyway.

[music playing]

There's always a time... In any series of work...

Where you get to a certain point and your work

is going steadily, and each picture

is better than the next.

And then you sort of level off and that's

when you realize that it's not that each picture

is better than the next... it's that each picture ups the ante.

And that every time you take one good picture,

the next one has got to be better.

As an artist your trajectory just has to keep going up.

And the thing that most subverts your next good body of work

is all the work you've taken before.

All the good pictures that came so easily,

now make the next set of pictures

virtually impossible in your mind.

[clicking noises]

[birds singing]

Until you actually set up a camera... it's so funny...

You don't see the picture.

Until you commit the camera to it,

and then... suddenly... Something that was just

a feeling turns into a photograph.

It's the oddest phenomenon.

Mm.

This is really beautiful.

[birds singing]

[music playing]

People always ask if the kids said

they wouldn't model anymore.

But that's really not how it happened.

You know, we took those pictures for 10 years,

and at a certain point you just get

sick of doing the same thing over and over again.

And I found that the thing I wanted to do was landscapes.

[music playing]

Somehow it was such a smooth segue between the children

and the landscapes.

The children like kept getting smaller,

and smaller in the pictures.

And I'd be looking at the landscape

and I'd place this little distant child off in it.

And then pretty soon it just... the landscapes really

took over.

[music playing]

There is magic in the landscape.

The question is whether I could get it.

I was trying to get that feeling in your childhood...

That you experienced... that moist, enveloping, womb-like

moment in the landscape.

I mean I used to hollow out these little caves out

of honeysuckle and live in them!

I mean I was a feral child.

And those moments in the heat of the summer living

in my little honeysuckle cave.

That's what I was looking for writ large in these landscapes.

[music playing]

I was convinced that when I put those landscapes on the wall

I was going to get pilloried for them.

I... because they're so wildly romantic and sentimental.

I mean I think there's certain things you can say

about Southern artists, and that is... their love

of the land, their commitment to the past,

their susceptibility to myth.

But the main thing, I think, about us Southerners is we're

willing to experiment with dosages

of romance that would be fatal to any other postmodern artist.

So my fear was that I would get laughed out of New York.

But it happened just the opposite.

I get rave reviews for that work.

Maybe the people were sick of seeing the kids,

or maybe they were just glad to know

that I could do something else.

Oh.

[music playing]

Good little pup-pup.

[music playing]

I knew, even in high school, that I wanted to be an artist.

And that goes back to my parents and the acceptability of being

an artist in my family.

My father made a living as a country doctor,

but what he loved to do is make these weird sculptures.

This is the kind of silly stuff he would do.

He... he, um, he found a cedar tree trunk that had

three branches that came out.

And they... each one of 'em had a little sort

of swelling on the end.

So he did a little sanding, and carving,

and cut it so that it looked exactly like a male torso

with these three phalli coming out.

And his garden was on the garden tour,

and he put that out... sort of tucked away, in some corner.

And all the little women with their white gloves and hair,

and stuff, are walking around... And when my mother found out

about it... she just fell apart.

I mean, it was her garden.

It was open for the entire state of Virginia

and there is... There is this thing.

He called it, Port Noise Triple Complaint.

Our family was considered fairly unconventional

in our small town Virginia community.

My parents didn't support all the sort of middle class things

that everybody else's parents supported...

That's what it came down to.

We didn't have a television.

We didn't belong to the country club.

We didn't go to church.

And as a consequence, we were somehow different no matter

how hard we tried to be normal.

I wasn't an easy kid to raise.

I mean, I'm not saying I was a bad seed by any names...

But I think was fairly headstrong, stubborn.

It's all such a distant memory now, since I'm

such a different person.

[laughter]

The first two years of her life,

she refused to wear any clothes.

And I wouldn't take her to town, unless she put on some clothes.

And most of the time she said, she didn't want to go to town.

She wouldn't make that concession to going to town.

She liked being naked.

She had temper tantrums.

And she would hold her breath until she got blue.

That was her way of showing her rage,

because she wasn't getting her way.

Part of my personality is that I was raised by a father who

didn't allow disappointment.

Whatever we did had to be done absolutely perfectly.

And it was a tacit demand.

He never spoke it.

He always just exemplified it.

The thing about daddy is, he was so courtly, and so mannerly,

and so proper, and so...

Quiet.

quiet.

You would never know of his sort of eccentricities,

and idiosyncrasies, and peculiarities.

And he always looked like he had really

important things on his mind.

And...

Really?

Yeah, I always thought he did.

And he was terrifying to us children, that's for sure.

Really?

Mhm.

He was so remote.

It's OK.

I came out of it all right.

I'm tough.

[music playing]

[horse neighing]

[inaudible]

How's she going?

Good.

Good?

We did an extra four miles.

I'm so pissed.

Mmm.

How'd that happen.

I don't know.

We gotta decide.

Hold it down more.

There we go.

[horse neighing]

59.

Ready?

Yeah.

Somebody grab a handful of hay?

Yep, I'll be right there.

I met Larry when I was 18.

Freshman at Bennington.

Came home for a Christmas break to see my boyfriend,

who was Larry's best friend.

The flood of 1969 just almost leveled the cabin.

And in the process of doing so, it deposited this huge stone...

Like five or six feet from the front door

of the cabin... just mammoth.

And my father needed some help moving the stone,

so he called up my then boyfriend, C Turner, and said,

do you know anyone who could help me lift this stone?

And C said, I know just the person.

So he brought Larry out, and C and my father

were like trying to lift the stone.

And Larry said, here... let me do this.

And he reached down and he lifted the stone... by himself...

Put it up on his back, and moved it to the front door

of the cabin, and put it down.

And turned around and looked at them,

you know... as if it was effortless for him.

And C Turner told me that at that moment

he knew that I was going to marry Larry Mann.

It was like love at first sight.

I mean, you know 33 years later, it's hard to conjure it all up,

but that's what it was.

Because by the time... See I met him right

before Christmas and by New Year's Eve

we decided we were going to get married.

[music playing]

We got along really well.

We just figured everything from the beginning.

We wanted to travel for a certain period of time,

but then we wanted to move back to Lexington.

He thought of himself as an artist, too.

He was doing sculpture.

But it sort of devolved to the person who could

earn the money as an artist.

And it turned out to be me... not as an artist...

But as a photographer.

And I was doing the sort of handshake and hand

over the check kind of pictures.

And the swim team, and, I mean, all that stuff.

So Larry read the law and after three years he took the bar,

and he was a lawyer.

So we saw things the same way.

We had a very similar aesthetic and life dream, which

I guess ultimately played out.

[music playing]

You warm enough?

So, far.

OK.

What kind of exposure is this going to be?

Ha... it's going to be awful.

It's dark as pitch.

First think I need to do, is make sure that I

can get you in with this lens.

OK.

I've taken pictures of Larry from the very beginning.

Put your foot up there for a sec.

Mmkay.

Uh-oh, I see a problem.

Mhm, OK.

[laughter]

What I'm trying to do in that series

that I call... it has a little pet name... "Marital

Trust." what I'm trying to do is, is just

do a portrait of a marriage.

You know, everything from the commonplace... you know,

working in the garden, cutting the dog's nails... to bathing,

to sex, to just everything.

All the things that we do in our life together.

All right, how do you really cut your nails?

Just like this.

Well, now you look weird.

I can be down on this... you know?

Turn it, just do it further back.

Don't you know anything about modeling?

[laughter] Why you don't quit, I'll never understand.

I was going to say there's some hay that

needs to be moved out there.

That's right.

He's a good sport.

Larry's just a really good sport.

I mean imagine the degree of trust

that he has to have for me as an artist.

I mean he has to believe that I'm

going to make a good enough picture to justify,

you know, putting himself out that way.

Now, Bella, this is your moment.

But get in the right position.

We got to show off this $700 scar on yourself.

Come here, girl.

That's a girl.

Stand where you're supposed to stand.

I can hold her, just...

Well... yeah.

You know, to get it right.

I got her. - C'mon, sweetie.

I'm all right.

This picture isn't gonna be as easy as I

thought it was going to be.

OK, we're real close.

I'm gonna do a dash to do the bacon fat. [dog whimpering]

Yeah, here we go.

Mmkay.

Bella?

No, you can't turn around to do it, darlin'.

You got to move over.

That's OK, I'll get her... I'll get her started.

Sorry, that a girl.

All right, that's good.

You cut, I'll shoot.

[shutter click] Perfect.

Shoot one of the dog.

Yeah, star...

Yeah.

star material.

You got real star quality, sweetie.

Too bad it's a half a second.

You're going to be all blurred.

Good girl!

Yeah, good, good job. [laughter]

I guess in a funny kind of way I think

of this series as an aesthetic savings account.

You know?

I know they're there.

And I know they're good.

You know, maybe they'll never come out.

Maybe they'll come out after I kick the bucket.

But, it's a very comforting thought to me

that those pictures are in that box in my dark room.

Not much of this bacon fat left.

No, I hope it doesn't make her sick, either.

No...

That'll be interesting.

Me too.

Well, I think that was a good picture.

Yeah.

Actually, I've been thinking about that for so... I've

thought about that since sometime

in the summer when you were like cooking hot dogs or something

and you wiped your hand on your leg.

- And the dog come over... - And the dog came over...

Licked...

And licked your leg.

You just needed... Needed the scar to...

I needed that $700 scar, yeah.

I also want to get the shaving picture with that painting...

Oh, yeah.

In the background.

You're not getting sick of shooting it, are ya'?

Nah, they're will probably come a point... [laughter]

somewhere in there.

Yeah, it'll be you from the cradle to the grave my dear.

Well, no you didn't get the cradle part, but...

Oh, yeah, darn near.

Close.

I was figuring out, it's like 2/3 of our lives

have been spent now, I think, together.

Yeah, it goes back a long way.

Yeah, that's weird.

Huh.

[music playing]

Hey, you guys.

[music playing]

Leg.

Mhm.

Don't want to do it, does it?

Nope.

I didn't notice anything except people kept

asking me why I was limping.

Mhm.

And for awhile I just ignored it, and I said, I don't know.

Just must be something I'm compensating for, yeah.

And what did it... finally, was I went in to the hospital...

The hospital was running a special on blood tests.

You can get an entire executive panel for something like $15.

So, I went in and got the test, and they came back

and he said, oh, something's wrong.

You got to come have the test done again.

And what was, was the CPK... Which are your muscle enzymes.

If I had walked in to the emergency room

and they'd taken my blood, they would

have assumed that I'd just suffered

a massive heart attack.

Because all my muscles are, sort of,

oozing a little bit of their enzyme material

and it throws the test way off.

The way it's progressing is the one side of his body

is much worse than the other.

But it's opposite side... it's his right leg and his left arm.

The muscles simply atrophy.

And he started out with a lot of muscle.

So, you know, it's gonna take a little bit longer than it would

take a normal person, but...

I think I'm in denial about his illness, I really do.

I know I'm... I hate that sort of psycho-babble business,

but I do... I just don't think about it.

And then... it's sort of like age itself...

You know... I don't think about it,

and then when I glance out the window

and I realize he walks with, you know, this big hitch now.

It's almost like he has to drag one leg,

I mean you... you'll see it.

And I go, Oh?

Oh, my goodness.

You know it's just a, ooh.

It, it seems so sudden, and unfair, and not us.

All right, I think we're ready to go.

You're going to have to hold your arm still

for a very long time.

Oh, that's not so bad.

These aren't so bad.

You get used to holding still.

All right, here we go.

He's obviously willing to model for me.

But you know, is it fair to ask him?

That's the question that I'm wrestling with.

I mean, just because he will, does that mean that it's

right to ask him to do it?

As I get older, I realize I'm leaving some kind of legacy.

And I have to ask myself, how do I want my work to be seen,

and what do I want to leave behind?

You know, I don't want to leave behind vapid, meaningless

pictures, obviously.

But I don't want to leave behind anything that's

hurtful to him or anyone else.

Do you remember that one time you

tried to get that picture of the three of us

and we just wouldn't let you have it?

Exactly.

Down by the cabin.

Exactly.

It was so hot, and you were like, just stand still.

And I was like... I was so pissed.

I pulled that picture... I pulled that...

I kept going back and forth just to throw your focus off.

I'm like, I'll never be in focus.

I was, like, ready to throttle every one of you.

We were ready to throttle you.

I know.

I know.

JESSIE: Which picture this?

Remember this picture?

EMMETT: See, now that's [inaudible].

Remember that?

EMMETT: The one that we did, it was so hot, it was,

like... it was, like, 100 degrees.

SALLY: You can see the heat wave still

sitting in the background.

EMMETT: And you were like, don't move, whatever you do.

SALLY: Well, it's just hard with three of you because one of you

would do it right, and then the other of you

would resent the person who was doing it right.

Can I have that salad [inaudible]?

Uh-huh.

When I was young and mom would get the idea to take a picture,

you knew it was coming on.

And you'd better make yourself scarce,

or else you're going to be in the picture.

I mean, she would just get this look,

like she saw something we were doing

that really struck her as being poignant,

and she had to have it.

All right, what I think I want to do

is have you facing the river... right... I don't want

you to touch your hair, OK?

But you're facing the river, and then

turn the camera... turn your face toward the camera...

That's right, exactly.

The kids just carried those pictures...

The force of their personality, their extraordinary sense

of character and individuality and power as people.

And I'd say, Jessie, I want you to prop your hand

with the candy cigarette with just

that look of world-weary ennui on your face.

And she could do it, easy.

I mean, I didn't have to mimic it for her.

She knew exactly what I was talking about.

I mean, we now know that she has that power when other people

take her picture, not just me.

PHOTOGRAPHER: That's great, Jessie.

Hold it.

Great.

JESSIE: I love modeling.

It's what I've always done.

I feel like I'm good at it.

I would say I feel more uncomfortable in front

of snapshots.

Like I don't own a snapshot camera.

I don't ever take any pictures with my friends.

I have none of that.

PHOTOGRAPHER: Great.

And hold.

Hold right there.

Let's take a Polaroid.

JESSIE: I don't know why I feel uncomfortable

about those pictures.

But other stuff I don't care about.

You know, anytime I've made friends with photographers,

you know, they're like, oh, I'd love to take your picture.

I'm like, I'd love to model for you.

I'm like this needy modeling junkie.

But I love it.

SALLY: Remember that one?

You remember taking that picture with...

VIRGINIA: Tripod?

SALLY: Lucy Turner's little dog Tripod?

VIRGINIA: Hm-mm.

SALLY: That dog... hmm.

And that's you.

That blur there is you, I think... or is that Jessie?

VIRGINIA: Really young.

I don't even know.

SALLY: No, that's Emmett.

VIRGINIA: I don't remember that at all.

SALLY: This is... That was... you don't?

VIRGINIA: No.

SALLY: "Teaching Virginia to Pray?"

VIRGINIA: No.

And it's "Virginia at Prayer."

SALLY: Or "Virginia at Prayer."

That was when you were going to the church,

to the Episcopal church.

Yeah.

SALLY: A short-lived period of time, right?

VIRGINIA: Nine years.

Nine years is how long I... SALLY: Did you go that long?

Yeah.

You came, like, twice.

SALLY: That's not true.

I came every Sunday.

VIRGINIA: No.

Yeah, right.

God, there are a lot in here.

SALLY: I know.

There are a million of 'em.

VIRGINIA: Wow, what is that?

Honest, the kids would just tie you up.

Yeah.

A couple occasions that went amok.

SALLY: We have another one of them tying you

to the tree outside the cabin.

Great.

SALLY: The one that fell down last year.

And you were supporting this?

SALLY: 'Course.

Child's play.

I'm going to do another book at some point

and do a final summation of that whole body of work,

make it a little bit broader in its scope.

I have no complaint with immediate family.

It just that there's a lot more tenderness and a lot more

sort of evocative, emotional pictures that never got

published.

Maybe what I should do is not do another book

and let them figure it out, because it

really is their heritage.

It's their work.

I also want to do a traveling show of the family pictures.

Hmm.

And the thing about it is those pictures

just automatically make people ask questions, you know,

which is what's powerful about them.

But they're just questions we've all answered so many times

before that to have to rehash them again... where it makes me

tired just thinking about it.

JESSIE: Well, and then, you know,

there's also everyone's fascination with the "what

are they like now" question.

SALLY: Yeah.

And so you bring them out again,

and I feel like it would put our lives

and our choices under scrutiny... you know...

Did they turn out OK?

You know.

And it...

SALLY: There doesn't seem to be any way

to put them out in the world without generating

a whole bunch of questions.

I mean, I was naive to think that

the first time that I could.

Besides, you're just now, I think,

going to be defining yourself as an artist, as something

other than immediate family.

And you don't want to tie your name up with that again.

SALLY: Exactly.

I need... I need to get out and take new pictures.

I just need to start making art.

Yeah.

You don't think... you don't think I'm washed up yet?

JESSIE: No.

Washed up at 52.

Aw, sweetheart.

Our next story in itself is unusual, but more

so because our news crews caught most of it on tape.

After an intense manhunt and a shooting in the woods,

a suspect is carried out by police officers.

This happened in Rock Bridge County today.

And police say it all started when

the suspect stole a police car when officers

tried to serve him a warrant.

SALLY: I was home when there was a phone call from the sheriff.

And he said, "There's a prisoner.

He's on your farm, and you need to get out of the house."

Just about at that moment, we saw him,

and he was coming right toward us.

I think he shot first.

You could tell his shots.

And then they shot with a shotgun,

and they hit him in the hip.

And I guess he went down.

Put the pistol to his head, then he shot himself.

When it was all done, there was all this yellow tape

all around the... the trees.

And so I walked up there, and I looked around.

And all the... the ground was all matted down

where he'd lain because he laid there... you

know, I don't know... Minutes, quite a while,

while they worked on him.

And right there where his head was,

there was this little pool of blood.

It was strangely dark, like, almost like chocolate.

And I started to put my finger on it just out

of some kind of fascination.

And it moved.

It actually sank down into the earth in an incremental way.

It was very surprising.

And I sort of pulled back, watching the Earth take

a little sip of this blood.

And for a while, I would go up there and sort of keep

the area cleared where he died.

And I took some pictures of it.

And it opened up a whole new project for me.

The convict's death had a radical impact on the way

I thought about the land.

I began asking myself the question of what happens

to a landscape when there are massive numbers

of deaths that occur on it.

The Earth doesn't care where a death occurs.

Its job is to efface and renew itself.

It's the artist who, by coming in and writing about it

or painting it or taking a photograph of it,

makes that earth powerful and creates death's memory.

Because the land isn't going to remember by itself,

but the artist will.

What I do when I take pictures, take a plate of glass

and coat it with collodion, which is a sort of... it's

like Saran Wrap.

Interestingly enough, collodion is

a chemical that was used in the Civil War

to hold wounds together.

The thing about collodion is that it's

a reverential process.

I mean, it's contemplative.

It's... it's almost memorial.

I mean, just the way the whole process evolves,

it has a certain gravitas to it.

Oh, I just love the look of it.

It's very distinctive.

There's nothing else that makes a photograph quite like this.

All these little flaws... you see all these little pieces

of dust that are in there?

They all show up.

I kind of like that.

I love the, um, serendipitous aspect

of all the mistakes I make anyway turn out

to be good things in the end.

It's the process that, um, Brady used in the Civil War

and Fenton and Gardner used.

And the fact that these guys used this process,

you know, out West with their mule teams...

And it was amazing that they got these perfect negatives

that they did.

I mean, the flaws, you can just... you can see here

the flaws in this negative.

You see those lines right there, which I happen to like?

But the... you know, you never see

those in the negatives of the practitioners of the 1800s.

I mean, those were all perfect.

I'm so worried that I'm going to perfect this technique someday.

I take my darkroom in the back of the Suburban out

in the landscape.

And every possible thing that can go wrong has gone wrong.

You know... the darkroom collapsing

like a stack of cards on top of all my chemicals, and yet the...

And you know, the negative comes out with

some wonderful idiosyncrasies.

Semi tractor trailer trucks go by while I'm coating a plate.

And this whole wave of debris will land on the plate.

And it'll turn out to be a great image.

I have to say it's unfortunate how many of my pictures

do depend on some technical error.

It's not something I do to the negatives,

but on the other hand, it's not a negative I

toss in the trash bin, either.

I've taken some pictures in the past that were miraculously

transformed by some hand other than my own

and made a better image.

And I really welcome those interventions.

Proust once wrote that what he prayed for in his work

was the angel of certainty.

But I'm sort of praying for the angel of uncertainty

to visit my plate.

Look at her trotting by.

Oh, man.

What's she got in her mouth?

I... Larry, it's a chicken.

LARRY: Oh, no.

Oh, Pie.

Well, she's very proud of it.

Look at those vultures.

LARRY: They smell the dead chicken.

They're going to find [inaudible].

She's going to go after those two now.

LARRY: Yep.

Oh, that was great.

It'd make kind of a beautiful photograph, actually.

LARRY: You should do it.

They wouldn't stay still.

I know I'd haul my camera all the way out there,

and they'd fly away.

LARRY: [inaudible].

SALLY: Uh-huh.

Good girl, Pie. [laughs] This is so true to how Larry and I

spend... I swear, if we had to write down every single minute

of our day... well, let's see, the three hours petting

the dogs and, like, two and a half hours

staring out the window.

It's so true.

It breaks down to just an enor... Larry

and I stand like this for hours if... if you

really took each minute and totaled them up.

But I mean, who could resist?

[whistles]

[inaudible] dogs.

Come on Katie Cakes.

Come on.

Come on, Bella.

Good dog.

[inaudible] There you are.

Good dog.

This is a really, really beautiful object, I think.

I mean, look at that.

She was a... a greyhound.

And so these are the... these are the bones that carried her

to the... I mean, they're the... The second fastest animals

on Earth.

And she could... even with a broken leg, she could just fly.

See her little claw?

All those little digits.

But that... I mean, that foot has flown over the farm.

I want to get that little bit of... little tuft of hair

in here.

And I think it wouldn't hurt to have

just a little bit of bone dust.

There we go.

I guess the seeds of this project

was planted when my dog Eva died and I couldn't part

with the body right away because somehow her body

still held enough of her that there

was still some feeling there.

I guess what I was trying to figure out

was at what point was that still Eva, I mean,

once it's been through 18 months of decomposition.

And I've... actually... and it's such a poignant realization

that that tiny, little claw packs such an emotional punch

for me, even though, I mean, it was no...

You know, she was a big dog.

And all I had left was one little, tiny two-claw,

and I would still just... [gasps]... it would

jolt my heart when I'd see it.

I mean, this whole death thing, I

think I have to make the argument

that it's genetic because my father

was just so fascinated with it.

He was really interested over a long period of time

in the iconography of death, how cultures from prehistoric times

have portrayed death.

And he studied everything from cave drawings

to medieval tomb sculptures to Rembrandt's anatomy lesson.

And it's something we grew up with. [inaudible]

were just always around the house.

Look at how tall that thing has gotten.

Good god.

It's a monster.

Looks like something in Blenheim Gardens or something.

Daddy did this when I was a child.

I mean, he... he did this, actually, when I was an infant.

He planted every tree on this property.

And they were so small.

I mean, he planted seedlings.

And a lot of them were really, really rare trees.

And he would order them from, you know,

Hong Kong or somewhere.

And they'd come, and they'd be just, like, vanishingly small,

just little, tiny things.

And now look at them.

He would be thrilled to see this place.

He would just be overjoyed.

Did you find that box of my great art?

KAREN BAILEY: Come on, grave woman.

Oh, Khalifah.

That was my Arab, my first Arab.

Look at that.

That's me.

Man...

Let me play catch-up.

look at that.

That's my idea of heaven right there, even to this day.

Wow.

Good stuff.

1963.

Not bad.

For a black-and-white person, you were sure into color.

I can't believe he saved all this stuff.

I couldn't, either.

That's kind of touching, isn't it?

It is very touching.

Huh.

You were the apple of his eye.

"Dead." "Insides of you, Dad." "Phantom dead."

KAREN BAILEY: Huh.

SALLY: And see, it's a... it's an x-ray or something... "Insides

of you, Dad."

Very strange.

It's a little eerie, actually, finding something like that...

Uh-huh.

I have to say.

Yeah.

Truly, wasn't he one of the most complicated people

you've ever known?

He was, but...

He was... fascinating.

He just...

Fascinating.

He was an amazing man, amazing mind.

He didn't advertise his intelligence or his... the range

of his vision or his...

Well.

Anyway, yeah, I'll... I'll take it all.

This is for you to reminisce with.

Yeah.

I must say, we were totally intimidated by him.

It was part of that '50s thing, where... don't bother

daddy, kind of that thing.

But it was also just his personality.

He really had some kind of peculiar power to him.

And that was true right to the day he died.

I remember when he was sick, and he

was standing back in the study.

And it took me all morning long, and I screwed up the courage

to actually go over to him.

And I was going to tell him I loved him, right?

So I would... walked up to him really quiet,

and I said, "Daddy?"

And he went, "What?"

And I said, "I love you."

And he said, "There, there."

[laughter]

"There, there, dear."

No, oh, I know this is an important moment

in our relationship.

And you know I'm dying, and I know I'm dying.

And you want to say something really important to me.

It was, "There, there, dear."

You'll get over it. [laughs]

Oh, man.

But I said it.

By God, I actually said, "I love you, Daddy."

HUNTER MOHRING: Yeah.

Yep. HUNTER MOHRING: Good for you.

Yep.

HUNTER MOHRING: Good for you.

Yep.

It's one thing to address the question of body decay

using the dogs' remains.

But it seemed to me that it was important to make

it particular to the human species, because otherwise, I

don't think it would have quite the power to make people think.

I was given access to a forensic facility,

where corpses were being studied so that they could better

understand the nature of decay.

These were bodies that were left out in the open to decompose.

I love mummified skin.

It just feels so amazing.

RICHARD JANTZ: Yeah.

SALLY: I mean, it's so beautiful.

It looks like, um, fabric or water or something.

It has such a organic, vital feeling to it.

The way it undulates and moves, it... it seems alive.

Here's another small one.

These people appear small to me.

And here's some... here's some beautiful color.

Look at the brilliance of that orange there.

It's gorgeous.

I mean, it's such an unusual color.

And this one's obviously a fairly recent addition.

SALLY: Mm-hmm.

This was a young guy, too.

Beautiful hair.

I think these body pictures are going to be absolutely

pivotal to this death series.

It rounds out the whole exploration

that I've been working on.

You explore it from two different angles.

You explore it from what happens when death occurs

on a landscape, and then you explore

it from the aspect of what happens

to the thing that has died.

You really have to realize you're not there

after you've died.

Your body's just a carapace.

It's just a shell that holds the real you.

And when you die, that's... all that's left is the carapace.

It's meaningless.

I think the people who have all these post-mortem requests

for their bodies... you know, float me up at Ganges,

or have me plasticized in a factory in Michigan... I mean,

I think that's stupid.

I think that's just a way of refusing to acknowledge

that you've finally lost control, you know,

that you're no longer exerting your influence on the world.

I don't care what they do with me.

Leave me for the buzzards.

Let the little foxes eat me.

Put me out there, and let me nourish those hickories.

There's not a lot of me, but there's enough to probably

support some Earth process.

There's a lot of gray hair in there.

Oh, shut up.

You still have a pretty good head of hair for an old man.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

I'm going to go to sleep.

I know.

You always do.

Feel the sun.

I know.

And having someone fool with your hair is so nice.

Yes, very nice.

Sort of relaxing.

[beeping]

SALLY: The problem with these death pictures

is that they raise some tough questions.

There might be people who are upset by these pictures.

I don't think I'll be quite as blindsided by that response

as I was by the pictures of the children.

[beeping]

I think it all depends on how I do it.

I think if I do it with dignity and raise

it as an intellectual, artistic question, they'll see it.

It's just a... a reflection, a meditation.

I think, to me, death is a little more

normal and a little less to be feared

than it is for most people.

And partly, that's 'cause of Larry's illness

and the awareness of mortality that that

brought to our family.

But it's also because I watched my father die.

And he approached his death fearlessly.

And it was a really impressive thing.

I mean, we were all there.

And we... you know, in the months preceding, we just...

He knew he was dying.

And he... he was very matter of fact and calm

and unafraid... a remarkable... Remarkable thing to...

To witness.

He never, ever wavered in his fearlessness that I saw.

[singing]

It's turning into kind of an interesting project, this death

project.

It's holding together.

It's beginning to take shape.

And I can see how it's coalescing into something

that could be pretty powerful.

It just needs... I need some way to, um, to end it.

I think that to approach death with such an absolute finality

is a mistake.

And I need somehow to end it on a

positive, life-affirming note.

And I haven't quite figured out how to do that.

[rooster crowing]

Emmett, now, don't scare 'em.

Emmett, be sweet.

They're really nice chickens.

Hold her tight to you, like this.

That's it.

That's how you hold a chicken.

Yeah.

Look what I made.

See, you've got such deep eye sockets.

That's 'cause I got kicked in that one.

Let's not go into it.

EMMETT: [laughs]

You were such a trial for a mother to raise.

EMMETT: I know, I know.

OK, put your head back.

Do what I tell you to do, child.

[grunts] There you go.

I've been taking these pictures of the kids that just focuses

really close in on their faces.

Move toward your eyes.

Well...

SALLY: See, we laid it to...

EMMETT: if you lower my face, sun might go away.

SALLY: What do you mean?

It's like if the sun isn't coming directly across my face,

it can come down more.

All right, that's clever.

OK.

Cool.

It's a rare time that we get just

to spend an hour and a half, two hours, each child individually,

completely undisturbed.

I mean, it just feels normal to be back in that relationship.

OK, so move to your... I guess to your left.

Try rolling your head to your left just a... that's perfect.

All right, we're about ready.

You ready?

Mm-hmm.

SALLY: And it's going to be three minutes, probably,

minimum, minimum of three.

All right.

SALLY: Can you hold a nice, sweet look for three minutes?

What do you think?

OK, you ready?

You've got to open your eyes, though.

Sweet, Pacific, benign, serene, and just a little mysterious.

Are you ready?

One, two, three.

There's something both very concrete and very ethereal

about these face pictures.

What's stunning about them is how much they look alike

and how extraordinarily similar their features are.

Their faces are so infused with hope and imbued with serenity.

And there's just something so vital about them.

And I'm thinking that that might make a really

good ending to the show.

And it's just a reminder to appreciate the living,

to fully embrace life and fully embrace the ones

you love while they're with us.

OK.

I blinked. SALLY: What?

I'm sorry, I blinked.

SALLY: Oh, you're allowed to blink.

In three minutes, it doesn't show.

I'm allowed to blink? SALLY: Yeah.

Well, how come you haven't told me that ever before?

SALLY: I didn't... I never told you you couldn't blink.

Oh, great.

SALLY: I'm really excited about the Pace show.

I think it's important to show it in New York,

particularly in light of the World Trade

towers and all the questions that finding those remains

raised.

The thing about this show is that it's about something.

It really does ask some questions, has some pith.

The way the show works, it's sort of narrative.

And you go through this whole discussion of death, decay,

the sanctification of the land by the presence of death.

And then, right in the center of this room

with all these dark pictures will be this table of faces.

And they'll be floating.

And I mean, ideally, what I want is for people to leave the show

with a little uplift, with a little moment of... of hope,

that all these living faces are the last thing

they see in a show about death.

You know, I don't know if any of this

is going to come across to the people who look at the show.

I mean, people may come in there and scratch their heads

and say, what in the world is this about?

[sighs] Mm.

I'm just... I'm just flattened.

I don't know where... I don't know... I don't

know the... the right reaction.

I mean, I put my head down on the desk and just...

And just sobbed.

I mean, I'm... I'm completely shaky about it.

I don't know what to do.

I think that they figured out that it's

not going to make money.

I mean, I've known it's not going to make money

since I took the first picture.

But that... I mean, that's not... It's still an important show.

But I think they figured it won't make money.

And so put something up there that will.

In fact, you all ought to pack up and go home.

I'm clearly... nobody wants me.

I'm an orphan.

LARRY: It isn't you.

I'm a lost child.

It's... oh, god.

It's humiliating.

It's embarrassing.

You know, you... fuck.

You just lose... you lose confidence.

I mean, I think it's important, but maybe it isn't.

And maybe it's important, and no one wants to see it.

And maybe no one needs to see it.

And maybe it's four years of wasted time.

I don't know.

God.

I'm just... all day long.

You know, the thing about Peter MacGill

is that he has always been afraid of my work.

You remember, I took my family pictures to him?

I took all the good ones, you know, last time.

Emmett modeled nude, and Jessie bites.

And I mean, I had a big box of prints,

and he wouldn't touch them.

And then, when it started looking

like he could sell them, he wasn't as...

He wasn't so afraid of them.

The art world is so fickle, too, I think.

Everybody's attention is always turning to somebody else.

I'm sort of old news, probably, by now.

[alarm]

OK, guys.

SALLY: Ooh, no fog.

Yeah.

It's a clear day.

Hey, babies.

Hey, brother cat.

Mm, [inaudible] cheese [inaudible].

[rooster crowing]

Do you still need your Volvo if you have a pickup truck?

Yeah.

Why?

Because it's a good car.

I think my... my biggest concern is the insurance, how much more

that's going to be, because now that I

have the internet, that's taking me...

My budget has got to increase.

Mm.

So what are you doing with the art?

Nothing.

Oh.

[laughs] I've thrown it over for horses.

When is the show...

Horses are a lot more satisfactory.

the next show?

I don't know.

[inaudible]

Come on.

I'd like to show it at a museum at this point.

That's probably the better place for it, anyway.

So whether or not I can get a museum, that's the question.

It's...

Sure.

It's just... it's a hard... it's a hard show

for anyone to put on the walls.

The museums don't have much money,

and they'd have to find a sponsor.

EMMETT: Yeah.

And I guess at some point, I might

have to make peace with the notion

that it may never get on the walls.

And that's OK, too.

I mean, you do these things 'cause...

'cause you have to do them.

I think "What Remains" is a pretty

complicated body of work.

And I think it asks a lot of really tough questions

that most people aren't really interested in answering.

Americans are weird about death.

They think it's gross and disgusting.

And they get freaked out.

And they want it put as far away as possible,

and keep it out of sight.

And keep it in the nursing homes.

And close the coffin.

They don't want to see it as an organic part of life.

[horse neighing]

[inaudible]

SALLY: Of course, I'm disappointed

about the Pace cancellation.

But I guess you just have to just go on.

It's sort of like a... a bird flying into a plate

glass window or something.

You... and then you just sort of pick yourself up

and shake yourself off and check for anything broken

and go back to work.

I found the most beautiful location for the show.

It just couldn't be better.

It's as though it was custom made for this work.

And it's at a major national museum,

the Corcoran in Washington.

I'm sure it was a hard sell to the board of trustees.

And there's no sponsorship for it.

I mean, who are you going to get to sponsor

a show on death, you know?

The grim reaper?

All that fat, chicken neck.

The one thing that's not perfect is that everybody wants

to have a show in New York.

I mean, that's the center of the art universe.

And you know, that's still a disappointment.

It was a bitter disappointment.

But in a funny way, I like where it is.

It's perfect for me.

I mean, I'm a southern artist.

This is one of the preeminent southern museums.

And it's important to me that my friends here in Lexington...

I mean, I've lived here my whole life...

Are going to be able to come.

Nobody can come to these shows in New York.

Nobody knows what I do.

It's a gorgeous exhibition.

Thank you.

Are you having any fun at all?

I'm having a blast, are you kidding?

I'm having a total blast.

Oh, how fun.

Yeah.

Hey, [inaudible].

God, it's good [inaudible].

I really see that show as the apex of my career.

It may prove not to be.

Maybe there'll be something else that comes along,

that is as perfectly realized and as elegantly

presented as that show was.

But if I never have another show, that's fine.

It was that exciting to me.

When I get to the end of a project,

I don't feel the relief and relaxation

that everybody thinks I do.

I feel to the contrary, this incredible anxiety

and deflation.

It's the oddest thing.

And it seems almost impossible to start taking pictures again.

But it's just like Hemingway wrote in the "Moveable Feast."

He said, whenever you get to the point

where you're having trouble working,

you've just hit a wall, just type the one true sentence

that you know.

And the same is true with photography.

What you have to do is just set up the camera

and take one picture.

It doesn't matter what you take a picture of.

One of the things I've been working on recently

is a series of closeup self-portraits.

And I don't think there's anything profound about it.

And I don't even know why I'm doing it.

I... I guess you should know those things.

But I guess I'm doing it because I can

and because when I don't have any other models, I'm there.

I'm a sort of nervous person.

And I'm always doing something.

It's not very often that I just have to lie absolutely still.

And that's what you have to do for six straight minutes.

It's very good for a personality like mine

to be forced to just hold still.

When you take those self-portraits,

there's this kind of reverie you go into.

It's... you know, you go into almost like a fugue state.

You don't blink your eyes, so of course,

you get kind of woozy vision.

And it's what's called ecstatic time, I guess.

It's just everything slows down.

Your mind goes and brings bits and pieces

of your past and your present and snatches

a conversation back to you.

And they all weave together, like some kind

of peculiar tapestry that's faded in different places.