Louis Fuller was a photochemist. This was evident to those who enjoyed the dancer at the Folies Bergère in Paris at the turn of the nineteenth century. It’s even clearer for those who remain fascinated by the many imitators spawned by the famous “Serpentine Dance” more than a century ago. Obsessed with Light, Sabine Krähenbühl and Ziva Ohlbaum’s documentary about Fuller, examines her life and work with scholarly discipline. By connecting her pioneering work to modern influences all around us (yes, even in Taylor Swift’s concerts), this fascinating doc is most exciting as an archival endeavor of everything Fuller created and inspired.
Documentaries about long-forgotten figures often operate from a position of defensiveness. They declare that this artist – his work, really – is worthy of your attention, and that’s why you should care about him. From its first frame, “Obsessed With Light” aims to avoid such situations, if not ignore them altogether. Instead, it takes Loïe Fuller’s influence for granted. The next film won’t try to establish her legacy or importance so much as trace the way she stared back at us from every side.
The opening title card is simple and effective in setting that tone: “A century ago, a highly original artist burst onto the scene to change the way people experience light, color, and movement.” The line may appear hyperbolic. But Krahenbuhl and Ohlbaum’s journey through Fuller’s art and life—and, more importantly, her artistic afterlife—more than proves that this is not the case.
The doc rightly begins with “The Serpentine Dance.” Arguably Fuller’s most famous and imitated creation, this dance had as much to do with the dancer’s body as her costume and the colored lights that illuminated them. It depicts a dancer wearing a long, flowing skirt and puffy sleeves, which when she waves around creates shapes reminiscent of everything from clouds and orchids to flowers and butterflies.
As actress Cherry Jones reads from Fuller’s writings in her recounting of how she first conceived of this most popular modern dance in the late 19th century, the film provides plenty of examples of Fuller’s imitations captured in early silent films. For film historians, one of the most famous examples is the Lumière brothers’ film in which the fluttering cloth was tinted with colors to give the impression of changing colors as it was manipulated by the active performer. These images are so well-known that you will instantly be smitten, wanting to know more about the woman who first conceived such a scene.
Fuller, who is often denigrated as “plump” and treated as nothing more than a new theatrical spectacle in the United States at first, makes for a fascinating central character. This is especially true since her rise to become not only a world-famous dancer, but a celebrated inventor whose friends and admirers included people as diverse as Auguste Rodin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Marie Curie, is truly astonishing. And Jones, whose honeyed voice still finds the assertiveness needed to convey Fuller’s determination, brings it to life with her vibrant vocal work.
It is Jones’s readings of Fuller’s autobiographical writings that connect the dancer’s journey from the United States to Europe, where she eventually finds success through her dancing enhanced by increasingly advanced technology. Fuller was a pioneer when it came to exploiting lights to create distinctive effects on stage, making her costumed body a shape-shifting figure whose dynamic fluidity remains as captivating today as it was more than a century ago.
Yet Fuller’s career (not to mention her business follies and her relationship with her younger lover, Jaap Sorer) is only half the tale that Krahenbuhl and Ohlbaum share here, for “Obsessed with Light” is almost exclusively concerned with tracing Fuller’s continuing artistic imprint. Interviews with choreographers such as Bill T. Jones and Maite Markus, costume designers such as Iris van Herpen and Maria Grazia Chiuri, and artists such as Marcel Dzama and Elin Hansdottir collectively make a strong case for the influence of Fuller’s dances and technological ambitions.
It’s a testament to Obsessed with Light that the documentary spends so much time with each of these superstars. It’s not enough to hear Van Herpen talk about how Fuller’s focus on fluidity inspires her work; We can already see her designs in video chat with Fuller’s famous outfit. It’s not just about hearing Jones talk about Fuller’s attempts to hide her body in her work, especially as she got older; We can actually see how that could affect a choreographer like him dancing in his 70s. Krahenbuhl, who also serves here as the film’s editor, is clearly the smooth designer that a documentary requires, deftly constructing a beautiful montage that connects past and present.
There’s a rigor to “Obsessed with Light.” Like an obedient student who has done his homework, the documentary aims to show its audience how much research has been done on Fuller. The breadth of archival images is fascinating if sometimes overwhelming. This alone makes the film essential viewing even for those with a passing interest in dance, silent cinema, the Belle Epoque, lighting design, modern costumes, and perhaps everything in between. If it comes too close to being a brilliantly produced lecture on Fuller, that feels less like a blunder than a keenly perceptive observation about how seriously Krahenbuhl and Ohlbaum took their work in assembling this comprehensive compendium of Fuller’s remarkable ability to sculpt light and form. a movement.