Product Details

• Actors: Farrah Fawcett
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Turner Home Ent
• VHS Release Date: November 11, 1998
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301390741
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,321 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars as a man, shed have been a hero. As a woman, shes a legend, October 27, 2001

By 

Peter Shelley "petershelley" (Sydney, New South Wales Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Based on the biography by Vicki Goldberg, this TVM biopic of photographer Margaret Bourke-White (pronounced Bork) directed by Lawrence Schiller gained some notoriety for being made in competition with the film treatment being prepared for Barbra Streisand by writer Linda Yellen. The Streisand version never materialised, though it's hard to imagine her in the role, since she seems more suitable as a photographer like Diane Arbus.
MBW was a pioneer in the hitherto male-dominated field of photo-journalism, a woman who enjoyed "opening closed doors" and witnessed many of the important events of history. She created iconic images including industrial architecture, Fort Peck Dam on the first cover of Life magazine, Moscow under fire during World War II, survivors of Buchenwald concentration camp, and Mahatma Gandhi at his spinning wheel.
The teleplay by Marjorie David provides some character depth, with scenes that exist for reasons other than to make historical points. It presents a woman who chooses career over love and family, with a large fous on her marriage to writer Erskine Caldwell (Frederic Forrest), with whom she collaborated memorably on the book of Depression southerners You Have Seen Their Faces. David includes such stock lines as Caldwell to MBW "You can't have a life with anyone but yourself" and includes a scene where she cries about the prospect of having a child stopping her from her next assignment. The idea of a fiction writer who by vocation needs isolation, resenting his wife is used to highlight both her long absences and her own celebrity, with David making the point that Caldwell can't object to the very qualities that attracted him initially. She doesn't resolve the criticism of the photographer who "treats people like furniture", though presumably we are meant to find that ok considering the resulting image. MBW's feminism is presented as arrogance, particularly with "Do me a favour of not backtracking. Nothing's learned that way", but perhaps because of the casting of Farrah Fawcett, she also is given some flakiness by having a pet snake.
Schiller's biographies have included Marilyn Monroe, Gary Gilmore, Patricia Neal, Lee Harvey Oswald, and JonBenet Ramsay, so he knows how to capture period detail using news newsreel footage and music. He intercuts scenes of MBW's preparations with the final real photo, and it's perhaps his experience that makes Fawcett look so good. She deepens her voice to portray a predominantly humourless person, though one who is constantly being told how beautiful she is. Forrest also adds some pleasing eccentricity to his Caldwell, and in spite of the weaker position he is given in the arguments with Fawcett, he retains our empathy.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Performances in Brilliant Bio, October 23, 2006

By 

blondeguy10 "blondeguy10" (South Africa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Double Exposure : The Story of Margaret Bourke-White (VHS Tape)

Double Exposure was the TNT networks first feature film, and deservedly one of the highest rated tv movies at the time. This biography of acclaimed photographer Margaret Bourke White covers her war years as well as her turbulent relationship with writer Erskine Caldwell(well played by Frederic Forest). The movie is brilliantly written and beautifully shot...the scenes of Bourke-Whites and Caldwells trip across depression era US are deeply moving. The earlier scenes wonderfully portray and capture some of Bourke-Whites famous photographs. I cannot praise Farrah Fawcett enough - this has to be one of her best performances and she won the Cable Ace Best Actress award for her role. In fact, although it was made for the small screen it plays like a big screen feature. WHere is the DVD? This film deserves a wider audience.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An incomplete story, March 3, 2009

By 

BlackDogs (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Double Exposure : The Story of Margaret Bourke-White (VHS Tape)

The focus of this movie is more about Margaret Bourke-White's rocky relationship with second husband Erskine Caldwell than about her life as a whole. There is noting about her childhood, family life or how she first got a start in photography. I was expecting this movie to showcase more of her life and how she got to be who she was. Though they make it clear that her name was "Margaret Bourke-White" through redundant reputation of her name and that she was a photographer, you still barely know to what lengths or what trials she went through too obtain the status she deserves and now receives. There are only brief comments regarding her being a woman doing a "man's" work but nothing about her struggle to get where she did. There are a few short clips that point out a few of the risks she took to get a photograph and they do toss in some of her famous photographs but they are plopped in the movie like an afterthought.

The one and only thing you learn about Ms. Bourke-White is that she had 2 loves. Erskine Caldwell and photography. In the end, photography won. But there is very little in this movie regarding her life before she met Erskine Caldwell or after her divorce. So if you're looking for a movie on a relationship between a photographer and writer, this wasn't bad but if you're looking for a movie about the life of Margaret Bourke-White you will be disappointed with this movie.

I really wouldn't call this the "story" of Margaret Bourke-White.