Product Details

• Directors: Harun Farocki
• Writers: Harun Farocki
• Producers: Jürgen Tomm
• Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: German (Unknown)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Facets
• DVD Release Date: August 29, 2006
• Run Time: 25 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000FMGTTY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #203,322 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Films of Harun Farocki: An Image" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

From his work in the fiction mode to documentary to installation, German filmmaker Harun Farocki (VIDEOGRAMS OF A REVOLUTION) has consistently explored ideas of language, ideology, perception, and contemporary audio-visual culture. In AN IMAGE (EIN BILD) he chronicles the process of shooting a Playboy centerfold photo. Shot in four days at Playboy’s photography studio in Munich, the film begins with the building of the set and follows through to the dismantling of the set at the end of the job. Farocki includes all phases of the photo shoot and shows the participation of the many people involved in making one photo. Though the Playboy photographer instructs the model to "give us your usual saucy look," Farocki strips the glamour and allure from the subject by focusing on the labor and orchestration behind it.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Farocki's best works!!, October 4, 2011

By 

Michael Ghan (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Films of Harun Farocki: An Image (DVD)

An Image is a deconstructed walk through of a German Playboy centerfold shoot which succeeds in presenting the pornography industry as a labor job like any other. Similar to Farocki's We Live In The German Federal Republic, the film is shot in a minimalist cinéma vérité style that helps demystify the glamorization of the pornography industry and reappropriates it as a structural process. The director treats the subject of the centerfold shoot as simply a subject and nothing else, completely disregarding her sexuality and forcing her and the crew into a mechanical state. Farocki chooses to focus on the physical objects that make the centerfold shoot possible; distancing itself from the ideal effect the pictures of the shoot have on our realities. Large pieces of film equipment and lights are often the primary focus of the shot, allowing the nude subject to barely be seen or simply be reconstructed as an afterthought to the real labor of the situation.

Farocki's documentaries are telling of the mechanical nature of Germany in the 1980s, though the shift in the political nature of the world has not stopped him from becoming one of the most underappreciated documentarians in the world. Farocki's latest venture, Serious Games I-IV, currently on display at MoMA features a 4 screen installation commenting on the effect of video-game technology used to train soldiers in warfare where again we question the processes that form our realities.