William Eggleston in the Real World

Filmmaker Michael Almereyda (Hamlet, Nadja) follows famed photographer William Eggleston as he shoots pictures of people and objects. Eggleston caused a splash in the ’70s with his oddly mundane color photos, and since then has been making some of the more interestingly ordinary art of the latter half of the 20th century. While Eggleston’s work shines, Almereyda is not at his best here, wavering, in the early parts of this film, between monotonous and pretentious. Once things get rolling, a nuanced picture of Eggleston emerges, and though it might be a little too much about the man and not enough about his art, it’s still a valuable document on one of the world’s most influential and creative photographers.