“He changed our way of seeing things”, Slides the voiceover between two clash verses. The tone is set and the images colorful, garish, emblematic of Martin Parr’s work are linked in rhythm. The beginnings of the British photographer, in black and white, already reveal this talent to grasp the incongruous moments and the funny details. This black and white that he will choose to abandon, in the mid -1980s, to be accomplished in color, then little considered and dedicated to advertisers and amateurs.
Original, nonconformist or simply English, he stands out by tirelessly photographing his fellow men. Rather than running the fields of war, he prefers to tackle the little spans of his time, vacationers, consumers, tourists and, predilection, his compatriots, whom he crunches with ferocity and rejoicing. Never cynical, he denies it. This flashy obsession of the ordinary will prevent him from integrating the Magnum agency for a long time, until finally entering it in 1994.
Fifty years of consistency
His images, gourmet in color to the excess, parade alternating with the testimonies of relatives and connoisseurs. We appreciate the tender and amused confidences of Susie Parr, his wife. As for him, based today on a walker, he walks his slender silhouette among those he photographs, along the sea or during the coronation of Charles III. He speaks little, distills the comments, is discreet, to be “At the heart of action and feel emotions at the moment”.
Crossing a life of photography is therefore not in vain. «We are always trying to take a good photo, but that’s the story that all of these photos that matters tells. »» An adage that applies perfectly to his work, both artistic, documentary and sociological. The work of the atypical Martin Parr is also a matter of coherence, this is the merit of this documentary to give to see the extreme rigor, on all these years.
“I am Martin Parr”, Friday February 14 at 11 pm on France 5
(tagstotranslate) TV program and critic