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The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography

2016

Errol Morris

Documentary, Self: Elsa Dorfman

6.4

64

Documentary Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20x24 camera. For the next thirty-five years she captured the "surfaces" of those who visited her Cambridge, Massachusetts studio: families, Beat poets, rock stars, and Harvard notables. As pictures begin to fade and her retirement looms, Dorfman gives Errol Morris an inside tour of her backyard archive.

	Author	Review
United States	Andrew Barker Variety	"This portrait of the artist as an old woman is a gentle-hearted gem, as profoundly subtle as it is subtly profound."	POS
United States	Stephen Farber The Hollywood Reporter	"Errol Morris scores again with a modest, loving doc (...) An affectionate portrait"	POS
United Kingdom	Benjamin Lee The Guardian	"A warm and hugely entertaining documentary (...) Dorfman is a force, and spending time with her is an invaluable experience (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Wendy Ide Screendaily	"An affectionate and personal film (...) That the resulting film is as interesting as it turns out to be is largely thanks to Elsa’s unassuming charm as an interviewee."	POS
Canada	Kate Taylor The Globe and Mail	"[A] stealthily engaging bio (...)Dorfman is too much the odd-ball optimist, telling funny anecdotes (...) and tossing off provocative insights into the nature of photography and life (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
Canada	Peter Howell Toronto Star	"Her stories are great (...) It would have been nice to hear more of them (…) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Chuck Bowen Slant	"A resonant allusion to the torturous subjectivity of art (...) Errol Morris films Dorfman with a rapt attentiveness that maps the nostalgic and regretful stirrings of her soul (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS

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