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86 MINUTES | MFA: December 1-2 + 4 + 8-9 + 11 "What is there to talk about?" says the subject of Michael Almereyda’s raw, revelatory documentary when asked about his art. True to his word, the famed photographer only mutters fragments. Almereyda, on the other hand, has a lot to say, much worthwhile, and more to show, as he follows Eggleston from work projects to museum exhibitions to a drunken night he spends with a lady friend. The latter sequence evokes some of the messy lives that pass before the lens of Frederick Wiseman and is a throwback to a video diary Eggleston himself shot of his bohemian life in the ’70s, an eye-opening excerpt of which is shown here. Eggleston dropped that video experiment and returned to the still camera, and somehow out of his chaotic life he framed some 250,000 images — epiphanies of storefronts, discarded trifles, and empty lives. And somehow out of Almereyda’s mix of stills, loose footage, meandering interviews, and earnest analysis he re-creates Eggleston’s madness and method — seizing the real from the transient.
BY PETER KEOUGH
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