Some captivating images have been made by photographer Mike Groll at actress Nastasha Richardson’s funeral in Millbrook, NY, after the tragic ski accident that claimed her life last week in Quebec. The stark images of the simple traditional Irish funeral, shot with a long lens, look as though that could have been framed by a cinematographer. Vanessa Redgrave and Nastasha’s husband Liam Neeson walk across the top of a cemetery hill, with Redgrave walking ahead and looking back at Neeson, in a posture that Shakespeare might have conjured up, with lighting that Nestor Alemandros would have appreciated.
Here, where life apparently imitates art, or perhaps meets it, the lens of photographer Groll, a photographer from Albany, NY, brings us a powerful image, especially as seen in the cropped version at the close of a slideshow on the Huffington Post photo page. Redgrave’s mournful gaze brings back memories of Jackie Kennedy as she stood in 1963 draped in a veil, in Washington, DC under the distant and unforgiving eye of hundreds of news photographers.
You can see the uncropped version here. (ed, Since this item was published the Guardian site has also cropped the image.)
Iconic images like this one have a life of their own, and I wonder if a cinematographer in Hollwood has made a mental note of the tableaux, to perhaps utilize in a future case, of art imitating life imitating art? Or is there really no distinction between the two?