Sherman is a photographer widely known for her ‘Untitled Film Stills’. She is the model in all the images, which has continuously created debate over whether or not her work is self-portraiture. Never the less, it is with these film stills that she creates her narrative. As I read in ‘Untitled Film Stills; Cindy Sherman’, narrative photography has been in circulation since Victorian times, with Henry Peach Robinson’s melodramatic posed images. All of Sherman’s images depict one woman, who is always alone and looks to be venerable or scared of something out of shot. Her work is influenced massively by film noir, and explores the different ways in which women and their bodies are represented by the media, historical sources and contemporary artists such as herself.
Film stills are seen as what can, ultimately, make or break a film. The only difference here being; Sherman isn’t trying to sell a film. Instead the images spoke out to what were called a generation of “baby bloomer” women; housewives who were so used to seeing such imagery on TV, and began to see it as their possible future.
Taking the series into account as a whole, with their titles present, it could be seen to have a linear narrative, as well as their individual narratives based on Sherman’s film influence. However, if they didn’t have their titles at all, they would make a non-linear narrative. ‘Untitled Film Still #27’ shows the woman crying, and stood out to me because of it’s crop and framing. Her head has been cropped off, yet this isn’t something that bothers Sherman. Being a contemporary artist means she doesn’t find the technical or aesthetic aspects as important as the subject matter. I like this view on photography a lot, and I like how they are all black and white, because it gives them a sinister feel.
