Make Up

The make-up artist Serge Lutens is shown covering a model's face with powder then working it into her face over several minutes. The face becomes a canvas, primed for painting. Flesh is turned into something different, looking like marble.

It seems as though life has to be frozen in order to achieve beauty; I reused some of this footage 15 years later in Images of the World and the Inscription of War which deals with the relationship between preservation and destruction.

(Harun Farocki)

Director, scriptwriter Harun Farocki Assistant director Tillmann Taube Cinematographer Carlos Bustamante Assistant cinematographer Marco Fumasoli Sound Hans Beringer Editor Rolf Basedow Set designer Simone Bergmann Make up Serge Lutens Production Larabel Film Harun Farocki, Berlin-West, for BR, Munich Executive producer Walter Adler, Dirk Gerhard Format 16mm, col., 1:1,37 Length 29 min. First broadcast 14.-20.10.73, Bayern 3