Am I the only who found something wrong....

Im with u man... I dont know what has happened to morals in this world... Putting sex and so called freedom beyond your family is just sick...

You do make a good point, in that the movie celebrates Diane and her artistic freedom, the freaks of the world and her love affair with one of them, and even touches on some of the weird sexual vibes that would later become almost the norm in the 60s and 70s (Diane's fetish for her husband's hairy arms and wrists is made pretty obvious in the first bedroom scene, and Allan shoving her onto the couch for some truly kinky sex was more than a little disconcerting), but shies away from the effect that her "artistic growth" is having on her family, aside from a few scenes of a cluttered house and Sophie's regret that she lost a tooth and the tooth fairy didn't come ("Daddy did," she says in a moment, one of the few, that shows how completely devastating Diane's obsession with Lionel's freak-show world is for her family). In many ways, I find it more frustrating that we're supposed to be seduced by Lionel's world, become enchanted by their romance, and crushed by his death, but the moment that really made me shed a tear was when she returns to the apartment building and has to make a choice. She puts the key in the lock of apartment number 2, where a freshly shaved Allan is waiting for her to return...and then takes it out again. The look of resignation on Allan's face made me cry, and I honestly felt sad for him, left alone with two young children in the 1950s, where single fathers raising kids wouldn't come along on TV until, what, the 1960s?

In real life, Diane's obsession with carving out her own niche in photography did lead to their divorce in 1959 (though, as far as anyone knows, she didn't find a hypertrichosis sufferer and have a mad love affair with him), and a few years later Allan Arbus gave up photography and returned to his first love, show business, getting his first movie break from an experimental cult filmmaker named...wait for it...Robert Downey Sr. Yes, really. Arbus' debut film, Greaser's Palace, featured Arbus as God, who gets to smite a cute but smart-mouthed kid named...wait for it...Robert Downey Jr. Yes, really. Six degrees, indeed.

Yeah. She came across as very selfish. I think that they wasted time and energy on this film. It was not very watchable, and I had to force myself to watch it.

[Anyways did any one else find it disturbing that this woman who had a child and husband had an affair with a stranger and then abandon them for her own personal desires?]

Disturbing might not be the right word for it. Unfortunate and disappointing on her behalf, yes. I might be even more critical of her if I got the impression that the nuclear family was the lifestyle she wanted to begin with and then turned her back on it.

I think that the movie missed a chance to clearly outline the consequences of a society that upholds one way of life as the SOLE proper way of life, especially for women. The consequences with women like Diane Arbus who mightn't have wanted that way of life after all is that she's backed into a marriage and family life that she's been -taught- is the one proper road in life for her to lead. This in turn has consequences for the family and husband, when it comes down to either choosing her personal happiness and ambitions, or choosing her sham marriage. From a moral standpoint, she should not have left them. From a cultural perspective, she (and therefore her family) wouldn't have had to be in this position in the first place, if she had lived in a society which encouraged her to seek her own way in life BEFORE she ever opted to marry. And I think THAT detail got glossed over (unless the message was very much present and the filmmaker thought the idea was self-evident, and therefore made it unnecessary to underline the point. The guy who did "Fur" also did "Secretary" which also examines the impact of a suffocating, complacent, "socially acceptable" lifestyle on someone who doesn't exactly fit that mold, after all.)

[Not to mention how lustfull she is over sex and the bizarre type of it to.]

I.. what? I don't find it disturbing at ALL that she would be lustful over sex. Ideally, sex is based on feelings of desire (and affection as well is possble, but come on--if there's anything worthy of being lustful over, it's sex.) I think too often women's sexualities are grossly underestimated and any representation of sexual appetite in them is construed as perversion or being a slut.

As for the "bizarre type of it" *scoff*. I think she found beauty and fascination in people on the fringes of society, which happened to include those who the culture of their time (and ours today, unfortunately) would view as deviant.

Her husband had been cheating on her for years. He was emotionally negligent and distant. He slept with one of the models the night of the party at the start, (she notices another woman's perfume on his wrist when they are about to have sex).

Yeah, what happened to the kids was crappy, but even when they were together, it was clear that the children were terribly unhappy. Note the older daughter's passive aggression towards her mother.

The fact is that Dianne was a terribly depressed woman who would later go on to commit suicide. It wasn't that she was selfish, she was just terribly lost. That's why her art is so profoundly moving. She isn't taking freakshow shots, she was the same as her subjects. "Broken" and through photographing them she looked for a way to "fix" herself. But she couldn't.

So, before you go and judge her as a "bad person" (whatever that means) look a little closer.

,Said the Shotgun to the Head--
Saul Williams

www.myspace.com/ohhorrorofhorrors

I agree and found this thought disturbing. this movie became hard to watch. it does not matter if your a man or woman, if you are a parent you cant just loose your self in a fantasy world for your own indulgences. regardless if her marriage was disolving (which happens in any century, decade ect.so that is not an excuse) she "cheated" on her children. she exposed them to her fantasy world and created an emotionally unstable environment for them which they had no control over(she invited this fantasy into thier lives and home literally, which is unacceptable. a child's home sould be a safe haven). If she would have been with out children the situation would have been different but ones actions as a parent forever can alter a child.so i dont agree with the post above,her children didnt have to choose between father and mother, this woman chose her fantasy over her children and the effects were shown in the eldest child the most. so regardless if she stayed in the marriage or not is not the point, the bond between her children has been effected by her actions it was both a physical and emotional abondonment. I am not a mother my self but am a huge fan of movies, all kinds and i dont think i liked this one. this one notion ruined this movie. so it does not matter if it had good acting, sets, music, cinematography, chemistry, plot so on and so forth. one aspect can ruin a whole movie.

I understand where you're coming from, but it's not so black and white.

When a relationship is troubled, especially with children involved, it's a pitiable situation. When one partner is cheating, it is, as you say, wrong, but is it not also pitiful? There are clearly those entitled jerks who just think they can have their cake and eat it, too, but I'm talking about the otherwise moral people who begin affairs. I can't imagine finding myself in a trapped situation where I'm driven to be unfaithful, and that makes me feel all the more empathy for the seemingly good people who do become entangled in an affair. "There but for the grace of God go I", right?

Essentially though, cheating is not a problem, but rather a symptom. I don't think anyone applauds the cheating, but rather a person's awakening to their unhappiness with their current relationship. In an ideal world, we'd all realize our feelings in a timely manner and part ways maturely. However, many people don't realize that they've become unhappily comfortable in a relationship until something, often that new lover, gives them a breath of fresh air.

A movie such as this, or thinking offhand, The Hours, deals with an interesting dichotomy of selfishness.

There is a fine line between self-indulgence and self-fulfillment, as perfectly exhibited by Julianne Moore's character in The Hours. So unfulfilled and unhappy with her seemingly benign life and sweet family, she states that her only options were to leave them or stay and die. Is the leaver self-indulgent for abandoning their family to chase fantasies? Or is the family truly holding back the leaver from fulfilling their dreams? Probably a little of both. How sad.

I don't condone adultery, but I do think that some persons are more likely than others to be able to justify adultery on grounds of their creative impulse(s). What goes on in the mind of a creative genuis may not be the same as what goes on in the mind of an average, "9-to-5" kind of person. That's what, to my way of thinking, this movie accomplished brilliantly. It showed, in imaginary ways, how different the mind of Diane Arbus was compared to the preconceived and popular notions of her contemporaries. When a woman was expected to bake her way to happiness, and complement the walls of her apartment, one woman dared to dream something so far out of the ordinary that it shattered her confined little world to smithereens. In a manner, this is pure courage, I believe.

I realize that many of us want to have some black-and-white clarity and certainty in our lives, but life does not always go in black-and-white, does it? How can we judge this woman's desire to be something more than a housewife, to develop as a creative genius, to find her kind of happiness? I may not like the way in which she found it, but it was her right to seek it all the same.