Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) is a dramatic fantasy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Steven Shainberg and starring Nicole Kidman opposite Robert Downey Jr. New York, 1958. Diane Arbus helps her husband shoot fashion spreads for her parents' fur business. It's a respectable life, organized around other people's vision.

Then a new neighbor moves in upstairs. Lionel Sweeney, played by Downey, keeps his face covered at all times — hypertrichosis has covered his entire body in hair. Diane is not frightened. She's drawn in. Lionel introduces her to a hidden New York populated by circus performers, dwarfs, nudists, people who exist at the edges of the world she was raised to inhabit. Each visit peels back another layer of what she actually wants to photograph — and who she actually is.

The film is upfront that it's not biography. The word "imaginary" is right there in the title. Shainberg uses the real Diane Arbus as a starting point for something stranger: a portrait of how an artist finds their subject by following discomfort rather than running from it. Watch Fur (2006) online on iFILM.