Bert Stern: Original Madman

Bert Stern: Original Madman is a fascinating 2011 documentary film that explores the world of advertising, photography, and the cultural scene of the mid-20th century through the life and work of Bert Stern, one of the era’s most innovative and influential image-makers. With a list of credentials that include iconic images of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor, his innovative work in advertising, and his role in shaping the look and feel of Vogue magazine, Stern was a major contributor to the advertising industry's "creative revolution" of the 1960s.

Produced and directed by his wife, Shannah Laumeister Stern, the film delves deep into the professional and personal life of Bert Stern, unearthing perspectives that make this movie a tantalizing profile of an extraordinary man. This unique perspective is further enhanced by the inclusion of in-depth interviews with Bert Stern himself, offering a rare and valuable insight into the workings of this talented photographer’s mind.

The movie transports the audience back to mid-20th century America, a time when commercial photography was undergoing a radical transformation. Stern was a driving force behind this shift, which paired snapshot-style pictures with advertising to create a more personalized, relatable image. This dynamic visual style offered the audience a new way of seeing and relating to products and quickly became the gold standard for advertising photography, forever changing the industry.

The documentary is as much a story about Stern's groundbreaking career as it is his complex personal life. Bert Stern: Original Madman features intimate interviews with Stern and the people closest to him, including his family, friends, and business associates. Shannah Laumeister Stern, the film's director and Stern's wife, brings an intimate standpoint to the subject. Stern's professional heights are examined alongside his personal lows, including struggles with addiction and his complicated relationships with women, creating a brutally honest portrait of an artistic genius. Stern himself is the film's main narrator, talking candidly about his regrets, achievements, and relationships, giving viewers an intimate look into his life and creative process.

Central to the film is Stern's most iconic work, “The Last Sitting”, a collection of photographs of Marilyn Monroe that he took just six weeks before her untimely death. This sequence serves as a compelling symbol of the intersection of Stern’s personal and professional experiences, underscoring the human aspect of his work that set him apart in his industry. The intimate yet controversial images produced a sobering effect on the viewers and solidified Stern’s standing as a photographic genius straddling the line between art and commerce.

This film doesn’t shy away from the controversies, with Laumeister Stern counterpoising Stern's breathtaking artistic achievements against a backdrop of professional scandal, commercial exploitation, and personal flaws. This creates a tension between the transformative power of artistic expression and the destructive potential of unfettered ambition and uncontrolled personal demons. The raw honesty and revealing nature of the film, thanks in large part to Stern's own revealing interviews, make the story captivatingly human and engaging.

Even beyond Stern, the film offers a time capsule of an era, capturing the explosive social and cultural changes of the 1950s and 60s and the evolution of consumer culture during this transformative period. Stern’s body of work serves as a kind of lens through which to witness these changes, as he captured key cultural figures of the era and shaped the visual language of advertising.

While featuring various interviews with Stern himself, those with other influential figures in the advertising industry, close friends and business partners like Jerry Della Femina and George Lois and photography historians, interspersed with archival footage, the film paints a vivid picture of the advertising world during Stern's peak and his impact on it.

"Bert Stern: Original Madman" succeeds in not only chronicling Stern's contribution to the world of photography and advertising but also acting as a mirror to the man himself, reflecting both his genius and flaws in equal measure. It presents an honest and in-depth depiction of one of the last great commercial photographers of the Mad Men era, leaving an impactful impression on film enthusiasts and photography aficionados alike. Set within the context of a transformative period in American advertising, the film offers an intriguing, intimate glance at the life and legacy of a man who defined the visual language of a generation.