Video: Post-war cinema's influence on fashion photography

During the post-World War II era, particularly throughout the 1970s, cinema actively engaged with the themes of fascism. Works like Bernardo Bertolucci’s seminal The Conformist (1970), Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972), Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter (1974), and Pier Paolo Pasolini's 100 Days of Sodom (1975) drew strong visual and thematic links to Nazi and fascist aesthetics, heavily shaping the cultural landscape of the decade. This cinematic shift inspired fashion photographers such as Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin to infuse their glamorous and sensual photography with a darker, more seductive tone. By emphasizing the undressed form and incorporating unsettling narratives drawn from these films, they fundamentally revitalized contemporary image-making and sent shockwaves through creative culture.

These complex intersections form the core of Fashion, Fascism, Film, an exploration of the blurred lines linking photography, fashion, and cinema with the social behaviors of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In this discussion, photography critic Philippe Garner and Nick Knight examine how these relationships between fascism, film, and style deeply influenced the iconic work of legendary photographers like Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Chris von Wangenheim.