With the footage taken on the set of his latest film Poor Things in Budapest, the photographs in the book compose a parallel world, cut off from place and time.
The images, hovering between white, black and color, weave a dreamlike atmosphere that acrobats between the present and the past, while multiple levels of reality and fantasy gradually unfold before the viewer’s eyes.
The film, set in the late 19th century, takes place at sea as well as in various cities, including London, Lisbon and Marseille, with all locations recreated in a studio in Budapest. The characters who inhabit these fictional worlds are surrounded by screens, scaffolding, platforms, lights and crew members.
Giorgos Lanthimos consciously opens the frame to reveal the multidimensional charm of creation and to highlight a new story within history. Inspired by this approach of the creator, the edition follows the logic of foldouts, where the peripheral background is revealed through the characters and creating a new book within the book.
In contrast to the frenetic pace of filmmaking, Lanthimos took a slower approach to his photographs, using a large format camera and focusing on stillness, tonality and light. By taking time to compose and allowing the light to expose the film for as long as needed, creating each photograph became for Lanthimos an exercise in meditation and focus.
The appearance of the negatives was done in collaboration with actress Emma Stone, who plays Bella Baxter in the film and won an Academy Award for her performance, strengthening the artistic connection they have developed. After a long day of shooting, the development of the negatives took place in a makeshift darkroom in a bathroom, and this almost alchemical act acted as a creative outlet, beyond the confines and limitations of film.
“The creative complicity I have with Emma acted as a driving force for this venture. One encouraged the other, no matter how tired we were after a grueling day of shooting, to display the negatives in the evenings… I hoped that I would manage to get enough worthy photographs to create a book of them – a project that could it is self-contained, independent of the film. I didn’t know if the experiment had succeeded, until we saw the first test prints and their composition in book form”, says Giorgos Lanthimos.
“One day I asked if I could try to display some negatives on the little counter stage that George had set up, then I moved on to chemicals and eventually I became obsessed. The concentration required by this process, which reaches a form of high meditation, was very special: you have to keep control, you don’t want to spoil the photos, and they may only be photos, but they are his own images, his own art , not mine.
I remember once accidentally cutting too low a beautiful portrait in the drying stage and to this day I see the marks from it. Or when I didn’t position the film correctly and as a result some photos came out with a black bar, a few centimeters thick. I naturally focus on them because they were mistakes. But it’s a momentary reminder that everything – photographs, films, life – is full of mistakes and human errors that can also result in something very beautiful and alive.”
The title of the book Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken comes from a postcard that Bella Baxter’s character was meant to send to her father from Athens. The scene was not included in the final version of the film, but provided the title for the book, which opens with an unpublished poem by Patti Smith, inspired by Poor Things.
George Lanthimos was born in Athens. A multi-dimensional creator, who, in addition to his films, has directed dance and music videos, television commercials and short films, theatrical performances while he has been involved in the creation of photo editorials and fashion campaigns. Widespread recognition came with the film canine tooth (2009), which won A Certain Look at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award. THE Lobster (2015) won the Jury Prize at Cannes and the European Film Awards, while Favorable (2018) earned Olivia Colman an Oscar. His latest film, Poor Things, was awarded the Golden Lion of Venice and four Oscars. The Dear God, the Parthenon is still brokenLanthimos’ first photographic monograph, is published by Void publications.
Void is an independent publishing house dedicated to photography books and education, founded by Myrto Steiros and João Linneu. Void works with established as well as emerging artists, actively supporting the first ventures of young photographers. Since its establishment in October 2016, Void has collaborated with many international and renowned art institutions and in 2021 became one of the members of Futures Photography. With dedication and passion for the projects it undertakes, Void presents publications with strong narratives, innovative design, through refined, but also experimental materials. The Void team also runs book-making workshops called Impromptu, through which they share and expand their vision of photobooks with emerging talent in the space.
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