A body artist who used photography as her medium and committed suicide at 22, Francesca Woodman (1958-81) created an oeuvre cannot be easily separated from her life. C. Scott Willis’s 2010 documentary “The Woodmans,” released on DVD by Lorber Films to coincide with the Guggenheim retrospective that closes June 13, makes no attempt to try.
In a way, “The Woodmans” is a tragic version of Lena Dunham’s art world self-dramatization “Tiny Furniture.” Raised in Colorado, the precocious, ambitious, and deeply disturbed second child of Betty Woodman and George Woodman, a strong-willed ceramicist and a stubbornly unfashionable abstract painter, Francesca and her older brother, Charles Woodman, himself a video artist, were brought up by true believers in the church of art. Their parents’ faith was absolute. To hear Betty state that she’d “hate” anyone who didn’t take art as seriously as she, or George complain bitterly about his lack of recognition, is to appreciate the pressure on their daughter — indeed, when Francesca moved to New York in 1979, her parents followed her. Read the full review on Movie Journal.