Guy Bourdin: Image Maker

Guy Bourdin pioneered the importance of image over product, so central to contemporary visual culture.

Beginning in 1955 with his provocative first shoot for French Vogue, for over three decades Bourdin was lauded as the photographer darling of Europe’s most prestigious fashion magazines. Despite his success he remained an enigma: he never gave interviews, shunned being photographed and refused to publish outside the pages of glossy magazines, yet his influence on contemporary culture is profound.

Guy Bourdin: Image Maker invites the viewer into Bourdin’s surreal universe to explore his process and his ground-breaking artistic legacy.

Director’s statement

In retrospect it feels like I was destined to meet Guy Bourdin and become one of his longest serving assistants. The meeting took place in 1982, toward the end of his 35-year career as French Vogue’s most famed photographer. Guy became a friend and mentor. I assisted him for nearly three years, until one day I nervously showed him a photographic series of my own. He promptly walked me into the centre of the Vogue offices, stood on a desk and proclaimed to the editors and staff that Sean Brandt was Vogue’s newest photographer.

I swapped my stills camera for a video camera and, working with Samuel Bourdin, set about finding almost everyone who had something to say about Guy Bourdin. Over the course of a decade I gained interviews with an impressive list of figures in contemporary fashion, art and photography. It continues to amaze me how current his images are; they could have been taken yesterday.

Sean Brandt, December 2021

The team

Sean Brandt, producer and director. Shannon Owen, producer. Samuel Bourdin, co-producer; he runs The Estate of Guy Bourdin, which houses the Guy Bourdin archive.

In the press

“Portrait de Guy Bourdin, génie lunaire et énigmatique”; ARTE at Les Rencontres d’Arles.

Recognition

Chosen by ARTE to celebrate 30 years of cinema production at Les Rencontres d’Arles. Reviewed by Le Monde as a deeply emotional, poetic and unique film about an enigmatic artist.