♪♪ ♪♪ Ludwig: In an age where everybody photographs everything, the role of photography has changed.

♪♪ It becomes more difficult as a photographer to set him or herself apart from the rest of people that constantly takes snaps.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Yeah!

[ Laughs ] You make me crazy, lady.

Hey!

Yeah!

Wow, wow.

Whoo!

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Wonderful.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Images create desire, they create dreams, they create disturbance, they create emotions.

When you see an image, a still image of something, it's just absolutely so important now with what and the way in which you can feed on that.

The impact that these photographs can have, they don't lose their depth and meaning, because they have power, the photograph has power, and it brings us closer to the subject and closer somehow to the depth of understanding, not just of the subject, but of the life in the subject, and the knowledge of the subject.

You can keep revisiting it, you can keep going to it over and over and over again, because there's still -- because somehow, they've managed to capture so much meaning.

And I think that's what it means to people.

That's what I find when I look at his photos.

I still want to revisit them because there's still something in there that I'm trying to understand, something that the photo is still trying to tell me that I haven't quite absorbed yet.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

I love it.

Yes, yes, yes, I love it, I love it.

Okay, yeah, yeah!

All right, Julia, get down and do the -- yeah.

♪♪ A round of applause, everybody.

♪♪ ♪♪ Trying to think of a favorite Douglas picture is a bit like trying to pick a favorite child.

But I've been looking for, at a number of his photographs, and I was only talking to him the other night, and I said, "I was looking again at the Ann-Margaret picture," her riding the motorcycle in this kind of extraordinarily acrobatic pose on a chopper in Vegas.

For some reason, it filled me with an unbridled sense of freedom and joy.

A combination of celebrity photography and photojournalism.

It's not just pretty pictures.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If I had a huge wall, it'd put it huge, huge on my wall.

It's the self-portraits that Douglas did with Faye Dunaway.

For me, it's the best selfie and the first selfie.

I didn't know what a selfie was, and I love that photograph because everything was all about Douglas.

It fun, it's sexy, it's a little bit dangerous, it's full of beauty, elegance.

This photo for me represents everything Douglas did best.

♪♪ Stone: Doug gave me a picture for my birthday last year that was -- it's Judy Garland and it's a capture of a moment.

It's not a stolen moment, it's a celebration of a moment.

And I love that picture because it shows character, both of the photographer and of the subject.

I think that has to do with the character of the documentarian.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The first time that I met Douglas and the first time he photographed me, was on the set of "Somewhere", and I was 11 years old, so it was a little bit ago.

I had never heard of Douglas before.

I had never met him, obviously, and Francoise, his wife, came as well.

But I do remember, we were in one of the big suites at the Chateau Marmont and we mostly did all of our shots outside on the balcony.

I remember just feeling so -- I felt very comfortable and very open.

Stephen and I, we had already created a bond and it was nice for Douglas to capture that.

Doug was so disarming because he's just -- he loves what he does.

♪♪ ♪♪ I don't think you ever meet Douglas, just kind of energy appears, you know?

I've seen his images all my life.

I grew with those images.

But I just didn't know, you know, more about the man who took them.

♪♪ [ Camera shutter clicks ] Stone: The best art of all, it comes from people who are willing to be present, willing to give their best, and aren't full of shit.

Hollywood has an insatiable appetite for glamour.

Celebrity photographers help create it.

They have to show the movie stars as they are.

Garcia: First of all, one kind of does the mental check.

You were such honored company to be photographed with someone who's photograph people that you admire.

All these images that he's shot, that you feel like you're in a privileged situation.

So, it was a real honor to sit with him.

Human and vulnerable, yet at the same time, somehow different from the rest of us, unique and charismatic.

It's a contradiction Douglas Kirkland's been dealing with now for over 30 years.

Kidman: I felt completely inferior.

I mean, like, this man's photographed Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, and -- And you think to yourself, "How did I get here?"

You know?

Douglas is a lot like a director when he shoots you, which is maybe why actresses love to be photographed by him.

Even though it's a still image, still he tries to create a fantasy or a scene around it so you can really get in that headspace of whatever he wants to capture in that moment.

Luhrmann: What's also really present in Douglas' pictures is romance, the romance of cinema.

And I don't mean particularly, per se, love, so much as romanticism is the kind of heightened emotional experience, and his pictures have this warmth and humanity, but they're very -- they have romance in it.

Specials on the film set have enormous documentary value in a sense that movies have shaped the cultural landscape of our time, and our iconic images, a lot of them come from movies.

So, what Douglas has done on movie sets has kind of immortalized, in still photography, those movies at the center of our cultural landscape, like "Titanic", Baz Luhrmann's movies.

Lucchini: You can't talk about movies, about the cinema, without thinking of a specific flame.

♪♪ ♪♪ The iconic movies that, without Douglas' pictures, wouldn't be so iconic, in a way.

♪♪ Douglas Kirkland is the capturer of cinema.

He's the eye who catch and then put it in the legends, all these movies.

Guadagnino: I think we can definitely say that the span of the career of Douglas shows us the evolution of pop culture in a way that is so cunning and so deep, and so playful at the same time.

It's history.

It's history of not just movies.

It's history of how our culture, and you can see as our culture begins to change, not just with fashion, but just with the way that people are.

Newscaster: Douglas Kirkland has probably explored more stars than an astronomer, but his are celebrities.

He is a master of photographing the hidden personalities of famous people.

Guadagnino: The best of American culture is something that crosses pop culture as well.

And that he was the witness, and he's given all of that to us.

Douglas Kirkland, originally from Fort Erie, Ontario.

He is now Hollywood's photographer of the stars.

Luhrmann: It was like, every time you talk about someone he's like, "You know -- Oh, you know --" I said, "Oh, you know Michael Jackson?"

"Oh, yeah, you know, it's 'Thriller'.

I remember shooting on --" I was like, "That's right, you were on 'Thriller'."

This man is like -- he was kind of the zealot of pop culture.

He was like there.

[ Power tools whirring ] [ Hammering ] ♪♪ ♪♪ This is the camera that I took my first picture with, the old Kodak Brownie.

They held it together with this garter.

Narrator: It still had the magic click, which would trigger Doug Kirkland from slow learner into celebrated photographer.

Let's just listen to this.

[ Camera clicks ] That was the click that started my career.

♪♪ ♪♪ Mark: My grandparents were not in the entertainment business.

However, my grandfather ran his own shop, his own business, and it was customer men's clothing.

So, he had an eye for fashion, and he would go down to New York and study what was in fashion at the time, and his job, think about it, was making men look good in suits.

But he really was about presentation and if you look at the old films, look how well they're dressed and look how well my father is attired.

So as a young man, when he was going into the world, he really did the same thing with his photography, which was try to make people look their best.

That's nice.

Nice, nice, nice, nice.

Real happy here.

Yes, nice.

Yes, nice.

Nice, nice, nice, nice.

Wonderful.

Simon: I was working for his father in his father's tailor shop, and his father had been telling me, his son was a famous photographer who works for "Life Magazine", travels the world.

This was something that was unheard of for me, that he would have a job like that.

♪♪ ♪♪ He arrived at the store wearing a full length leather trench coat, and I just thought to myself, "Wow, this guy is so cool."

His copy was fascinating.

It's extremely beautiful, it's extremely large, it has it all, and each of the states is a different country.

The people are generous, the people are extremely open, especially in the '60s and '70s and '80s, people will open their door, let you photograph them without any problem.

Man: Just like Douglas, I started in America in New York.

For me, the challenge was, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.

♪♪ Garcia: Nobody cared that I arrived, and nobody was waving, so you kind of look at the expanse of the city and you go like, "Okay, here we go.

You know, one step at a time."

The first thoughts that I always remember coming was like, "Where do I start?"

Because, like, okay, you land, and then now what?

It's not like anybody was waiting for me.

No one called me to say "Hey, we need you to start work on Monday."

Kirkland: I was living in Richmond, Virginia, and one of the art directors I was working with made me aware of Irving Penn and how spectacular he was.

He was an extraordinarily big photographer at the time, so I decided that I would like to meet this man and hopefully get a job with him.

♪♪ ♪♪ When I came to the city from Fort Erie, Ontario, which is where I grew up, it's 7,000 people in the Niagara area, he said, "You don't want to go to New York.

It's dangerous.

You can't make it there."

♪ To make it ♪ ♪ I was tripping, tripping.

tripping, tripping ♪ This is 80 West 40th.

Oh, yes.

Hi, I used to work here.

♪ I was picking ♪ Kirkland: I got into the studio, I showed him my pictures, he looked through them.

He said, "One of our assistants has to go in the military and he's going to be there for six months, so maybe there might be an opening."

I knew early type C printing.

That was color, and that was one of the reasons why Penn eventually hired me.

There was a legend about one of Penn's assistants.

Thankfully, that assistant was me.

Penn was out of town.

I, in my way of wanting to please him, cleaned all the windows, and when he came back, Penn was shocked.

You've taken the sense of Penn photos away by cleaning those windows, and that had given a special light.

On my last day at the Penn studio, he said, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

He felt a little guilty, I guess, of pushing me out.

And I said, "Yes, I would like to photograph you, if I may."

He hesitated at first because not that many people have photographed him.

And then he said, "Okay."

♪ Fear nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing ♪ And I was over here, so I had the light coming over my shoulder.

And then he sat on a chair and looked at me, and he posed for me in a very good way.

Those pictures are considered some of the best pictures of Penn which exist today.

♪♪ [ Indistinct talking ] ♪♪ Williams: What I feel with him is that he isn't satisfied until he gets a picture that tells a complete story.

And when you make a moving picture, like a film, you have a huge breadth of time to lay out your narrative.

You get a beginning, you get a middle, you get an ending.

And in a still photograph, you don't get that, but a truly gifted photographer can take a moment and turn it into an entire picture, to an entire story.

And that's what I feel when I see these photos, that they are entire stories told in a single moment.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Don't forget that he worked as a photojournalist.

We did many books together.

Laffont: "Look" and "Life Magazine", They were extremely important at the time, because, of course, there was no Internet, but there was not that much television either and they were your window to the world.

Both "Look" and "Life Magazine" had photo stories, photo essays, they called if a photo essay, the famous photo essay of "Look" and "Life Magazine".

And they will show you, they will tell you stories, and you know, it's not easy to tell a story in pictures.

It's sometimes easier to make a single picture.

♪♪ Telling a story is a different talent, that Douglas has, by the way.

Kirkland: I was sent to Las Vegas with my friend, Jack Hamilton, who was a movie editor.

"Elizabeth had said they will give us an interview, but no pictures."

I looked directly into her eye, and I said, "Elizabeth, I'm new with this magazine.

Could you imagine what it would mean to me if you'd give me an opportunity to photograph you?"

And she was holding my hand still because I didn't let go, and a couple of seconds later she said, "Okay."

This was my first cover on "Look Magazine", the beginning of my career photographing the movie world and superstars.

♪♪ Jean Pierre: Photojournalism had an evolution.

It is no more what it was, in the '60s, the '70s, even in the middle of the '80s.

We have magazines printing a story because they have the photos.

Today, the contrary.

They put the photo only because they want to illustrate a text.

Man: Tell me about Detroit.

I mean, that seems to be a radical departure from your everyday work and incredibly interesting images.

Well, It's a very important thing, I think.

I thought last year, at the interview, What is the most important thing happening in this country, the United States?

And it's the economy.

How do you show the economy?

Still, it was for me what made "Life" and "Look Magazines" so special.

Not only you had pictures and story, but you had double page, cover.

So sometimes a story will run, 10, 15 pages, photo essays, and those days, unfortunately, are gone.

On the press, on paper, you can see it on the Internet.

There are so many people that are suffering as a result of the faltering economy, but I thought of Detroit and what an individual automobile worker must go through when he's been unemployed.

♪♪ ♪♪ Kirkland: The automobile industry in the United States was collapsing.

I managed to get myself a contract with "New York Times Magazine" to go to Detroit, and on my own, I searched for some people that would tell the story.

I finally found a couple that brought it all together because he had worked in Detroit in a plant that made trucks, and his father had been there before him.

It was generations were there, and it seemed originally like the automobile industry would never go down.

It definitely did, and he went down with the collapse of it, and he was laid off, he lived in a trailer or a caravan you might call it, and in a very questionable part of town.

It was winter, it was gray, it was very cold.

I just went there with two cameras, two small cameras, and a little tape recorder, and what I did is I was looking for someone, such as this couple, I recorded their interview with them, and then said at the end, "Could I take some pictures of you?"

I'd stained the background, I'd shot only in black and white, and I really cared about them, but the interesting thing is, I could have reached in my pocket and bought food for them and everything, but sadly, I couldn't do that, because that would have changed our relationship.

♪♪ So, there's another side story, however.

The children were born, and I was with a Roman Catholic bishop working on a "Life Magazine" story down in Texas, of all places, and I told him their story.

He said, "You get him down here.

We'll find him work."

I bought him a plane ticket to go down to Texas.

He did, and then he moved the family down and it all worked out beautifully.

[ Clattering, indistinct talking ] [ Hammering ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Probably the hardest thing was him traveling and being away from us, and I missed him terribly when I was young.

And it did cause stress for my mother, and I could feel that stress in the household.

So, that was -- the only thing was the absence.

♪♪ ♪ Amistad ♪ Mark: Later, I've asked him about that, and he said to me, "I thought I could better help my family provide by doing these trips and doing my job," which I agree with.

[ Airplane engine roaring ] Kirkland: Judy Garland and I traveled together for one month.

She had been a hit and the records were selling like crazy.

I went for the opening of "Judgment at Nuremberg" in Germany with her.

At the end of the day of shooting, we talked more about the difficult period of her life, and I just started to say, "Judy, nobody knows what is Judy Garland entirely.

Show me the hard times."

And at that point, a tear came into her eye, and that's where this picture happened.

I feel like I've had an opportunity to see her.

It's a long way from Fort Erie, Ontario to the Hollywood Hills.

For Douglas Kirkland, it was as much a journey of the mind as of the miles.

Those who know him well say that he wasn't corrupted by the trip.

Williams: The real fear when you're photographed, we're photographed all the time and we have absolutely no control whatsoever.

about which images are used.

And so, it's scary to put yourself into the hands of strangers and allow them to interpret you.

You're fantastic!

You're just -- Ah!

What I felt like with Douglas is that he allowed me to be me.

He's not looking for, you know, put on a fakeness or a show.

If you're feeling angry that day or if you're feeling sad or if you're feeling very happy, he wants to capture that real feeling.

There's certain photographers that stand out.

There's certain photographers that bring something out of you, and it's an old cliche expression, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is genuinely true with the photographer, because the moment that they snap is the moment that they capture.

And there's something about Douglas, there's a relationship that he has with you through the lens that's almost not through the lens.

It's a relationship between his heart and yours.

Garcia-Lorido: We shot outside, and we shot in one of the rooms, we went out, like, up into the hills and we did some photos of me.

He took you into the hills?

We went up, like, on some, like -- I don't know where we were, like, up in the hills a little bit.

A bunch of us went.

It was the whole crew, and we did all these photos of me, like, jumping in the air.

He wanted me to jump in the air.

He just comes alive.

His face starts getting red.

He's like, screaming, he's like, getting really excited, he gets this high when he shoots you.

It was so incredible to witness that.

♪♪ Oh, that's nice.

I love that, I love that.

Okay, you guys, I know what you're waiting for.

You want that one last picture.

Okay, here it is.

In that moment, on that day, he took me as I was, but he also wanted me to be my best.

That's what I see when I see that photo.

I think, "Gosh."

♪♪ ♪♪ Well, firstly, I was so moved to have crossed paths with him, to have played Marilyn, and then to have been able to meet someone who had been in her life, and for her to have been photographed by him, and then for me, to be photograph by him it felt like what she felt in his hands.

Never in my life could I have imagined this sort of circumstance.

Marilyn Monroe is probably the most significant shoot that I did in that early period of my life.

She formed who Douglas Kirkland is.

♪♪ We went off to her apartment to meet her, which, for a boy from this small Canadian town, was exceedingly exciting.

She said, "I think there's something wrong here.

I want to be alone with this boy."

♪♪ And I started taking pictures with my camera.

At a certain point, she suggested, "Why don't you come over here and come close to me?"

And she suggested that we -- you can say whatever you want, it was a suggestion of making love.

You know what I did?

I kept taking pictures because that was really what was most in my heart, and I'm glad I did to this day.

And that's where these pictures have come from.

Stone: This session with Marilyn Monroe is astounding.

Everyone else wanted to be on her, and he gave her some space... ...and let her feel free and safe and went up, away, and let her be free.

There was something about just allowing her the safety that was so elegant.

That for me is so special.

There's such a fragility to it and there's such a delicacy to it, and an honesty.

Because no one was trying to force her into those clothes and force her into the Marilyn Monroe of it all.

And so, you got to see her aura in this way.

Kidman: She was almost like a cat, like a really beautiful cat in the photograph.

He was so close to here.

We could see that in the picture.

She's so romantic and sexy in Douglas Kirkland pictures.

I like when I see an image that isn't sort of exploitive of her, but is very loving towards her and protective of her.

We have the feeling she's naked in front of him for him.

It's an extraordinary performance of intimacy with this huge star like her.

Kirkland: She was seducing the camera truthfully.

What the pillow represents is what she would like to be doing to a man.

And I was -- I could have been in there and been the pillow, but I chose to keep taking pictures, because that's who Douglas Kirkland, really, bottom line is.

He wants to get the snaps.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Kirkland: The 60's was a time of exploration.

We did it with music, we did it with words.

There were so many things to explore, and that was the '60s for me.

♪♪ ♪♪ Stone: Doug is not Doug alone, which is I think important to say.

It's Doug and Francoise.

It's the team of them that is so wonderful.

♪♪ ♪♪ Francoise: 1965, I was a student.

I was at the Sorbonne, and I was studying as well to be a simultaneous interpreter, and I was just turning 22.

♪♪ I was sitting in my mother's office, and I was looking at some contact sheets or something like that, and in comes this very tall, very, very beautiful man.

♪♪ He didn't say very much, he sat in a chair, and then he put his feet up on the desk.

You don't do that in France.

It's not terribly polite.

It's very American.

And he fell asleep.

So, I had about two minutes to look at him sleeping, and he was quite gorgeous.

So, he woke up and he kind of, like, stretched.

The next thing I remember him saying is, something that sounded like, "Do you want to go out to dinner?"

And in the middle of dinner, Douglas said to me, "Look into my [speaking French]" He said, "You have very, very blue eyes," and that was the beginning of our love affair.

Douglas and Francoise's relationship is indivisible from his work as an artist and a photographer.

I think that she is also part of the passion of the journey to take the most incredible pictures.

She allows him to completely concentrate what he loves to do best, to take pictures.

I was an 11-year-old boy growing up in Paris, and my mother worked for various studios, and she was working on a movie called "How to Steal a Million Dollars" with Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn.

And the studio had flown in a photographer from the United States to be the set photographer, and my mother met him that day.

He came home and talked about him and thought how charming and interesting he was, and to make a long story short, he set him up with my sister.

I was very happy for her, I was very excited, and most importantly, my sister fell madly in love with him.

Then Douglas changed his plans, and he stayed an extra week in Paris, so I was with him all the time.

And then he got a job to go to America with Brigitte Bardot.

♪♪ She was going to America for the first time to promote "Viva Maria!

", so he was flying with her on her plane with a journalist.

And I thought, "Well, I'll never see him again," because I knew Brigitte Bardot really liked him.

So, I cried all night, and he kept saying, "I promise you I'll come back, I promise you."

We used to sort of sing some songs together, and he said, "I promise you we'll sing this song together again."

She loves being part of that storytelling process and seeing the magic of taking pictures happen in front of her.

She is not only a wife.

She is a partner in the photography.

She is a manager.

She is his muse.

♪♪ Francoise: I did not know that Douglas was famous, and I really couldn't have cared less.

And I was not particularly impressed by the fact that he was photographing movie stars, because being sort of a snobby French girl, I didn't think movie stars were very interesting.

I mean, if he told me photographed Picasso, I would have probably have been more impressed, but, like, Marilyn Monroe, I mean, or Audrey Hepburn, it meant absolutely nothing to me, really nothing.

♪♪ [ Camera shutter clicking ] I think what's magical about Douglas's work is the relationship that he has with the subject and how you see that relationship kind of brought into it right away.

It's so difficult to achieve that natural feeling.

Like, he has this closeness of intimacy with his subject that is all the more amazing, because a lot of them are celebrities and those are people who are not used to showing their kind of real face.

When you look at the asset he did on Coco Chanel, for example, for "Look Magazine", the magic of it is the journalistic feeling, her holding the cigarette and just kind of capturing a moment.

You don't feel like it's staged.

You feel like he's talking to her and her personality's coming out, and it's so intimate and so raw.

And I think that was just the amazing way he brought the spontaneity and feeling of capturing the moment from photojournalism and merged it with portraiture, where you really got to know who that person was.

Kirkland: Chanel had a great influence upon me in many ways.

One day, I had finished my work with her for the day and I was walking back to my hotel, and I saw a headline -- "Marilyn la mort."

♪♪ ♪♪ And one of the first things I did is ask one of the people at the hotel, "Is Marilyn Monroe dead?"

I couldn't believe it.

And that was a shock.

♪♪ ♪♪ A lot of uncertainty at the beginning of the '70s because "Look" and "Life" and publications I had been working for suddenly vanished.

The question was, was I going to be able to survive at all?

Fortunately, I did.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Francoise: We were very happy in New York, and then "Look Magazine" closed, and it was completely unexpected.

And for Douglas, it was a terrible shock, emotionally.

It wasn't the work, because he had enough work.

He worked with other clients, but it had been his big dream.

This is the very first place that we bought.

Kirkland: On the Upper West Side.

So, we were going on vacation with the children to Long Island, so I had the car packed and it was sort of here, like, on the street.

I had to go buy some nails.

I don't know what -- he had to get some nails and he had to go to the hardware store.

And I got stopped by a neighbor over here.

He was a photographer as well, and he said he was going to sell his house and move to the country.

It took half an hour for him to buy nails, and I'm waiting in the car with the kids to go to the country, and he says, "Oh, by the way, I bought the house across the street," and I thought, "Oh, my god."

Francoise: I remember Douglas saying to my father that he wanted to move to California, and my father said, "Why?"

And Douglas said, "You can drive your car there."

And my father looked at him like, "You mean you're going to move somewhere because you can drive your car?"

We had a couple of scrapes that were interesting, meeting new people, it was very easy in California to make contacts with people at that time.

So, it was Easter, and Douglas mentioned moving to California, and I said,"Okay, I'm going to give you a couple of hours to think about this.

You can decide if you want to move to California, but after that, we won't discuss it anymore."

So, then he kind of looked at me, like, sheepishly, and he said, "I think I'd like to move to California," and I said -- I opened a bottle of champagne, and I said, "Okay, we'll be there."

♪♪ We had a Mustang convertible, a yellow Mustang convertible, we put things in the back seat, and we started driving across country.

Then we got to Houston, and he got this assignment for Town and Country to go and shoot Margaux Hemingway in Key West.

So, parked our car in the garage of the hotel, and then we flew to Key West.

♪♪ And while we were in Key West, he got an assignment to go to Los Angeles, so when we were finished in Key West, we took a plane that stopped in Houston, I got off the plane, I went and got the car, Douglas went to Los Angeles, and I started to drive the car to Los Angeles.

And by the time I got to Los Angeles, Douglas was in New York, again.

But anyway, he came back.

That's how we moved to California.

Man: Kirkland lives and works out of his house and studio in the Hollywood Hills.

Here his work centers around the motion picture industry.

♪♪ Woman: There was a time when we were told that we had to move Los Angeles because that's Hollywood and that's work, and that doesn't exist now.

I would think for Douglas, it was, that was where you got to photograph these people a lot of times, so there was this sort of a glow around Los Angeles at that time.

♪♪ ♪♪ Man: Ah, Douglas had two personalities -- there is Douglas the very kind and mellow person, when you talk to him, when you meet him on a personal level.

And then there is the wild guy, when Douglas starts photographing and when he gets in front of a crowd, he gets like a teenager, and sometimes even reckless, which is really surprising to see.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Kirkland: I've worked on more than 150 movies through my career, and I've had a lot of varying experiences.

I've had good experiences and surprises.

♪♪ One of the best experiences that I had was working on "The Sound of Music."

It was a very special time for me, because I had never been on a movie set of that capacity and size.

Woman: There's some pictures from "The Sound of Music," they capture more than the film.

They capture an iconic, romantic understanding more than film -- poetry, music, lyrics, story, fantasy, imagination, color structure, theme.

One of the experiences I had on "The Sound of Music," I thought I should get a picture that encapsuled the entire film, and suddenly a helicopter came down, and that was the end of my shot, and they said, "Get that guy out of here!"

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ I was there once ♪ ♪ And you were there too ♪ ♪ I was... ♪ Man: Douglas just exceeded to be... to be loved.

♪ Finally got caught ♪ Man: I have very precise memories of the day which Douglas came on the set.

Someone told me that Douglas, who I knew very well his work, was in town and he wanted to come and see the set.

I remembered how excited I was during that moment.

And he showed up mid-afternoon in the house, I liked the way he moved, he was very investigative in the way he was taking the space.

He brought a fantastic aura to the set.

Kirkland: On "Out of Africa," I went and I worked 45 days in Kenya, and I got along very well with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

♪ I gave it all so I've got nothin' left ♪ ♪♪ Kirkland: At a certain point I was very flattered because I was told that David Watkin, the director of photography for that movie, had seen some of the pictures I was doing and he was moved to do the same things, similar things.

I was very pleased.

♪♪ I worked on "Titanic," the movie, and that was extraordinary because it was so big and major.

Eventually went off all the charts all over the world.

I was supposed to do some advertising set ups, which were very critical to the advertising of the movie.

♪♪ There is one specific image that I really like, and it's a portrait of Leonardo DiCaprio, a black and white portrait.

When you look at it, the perception of his emotions change.

♪♪ Kirkland: Finally, at three in the morning, they had gotten to a point where I was told I could have Leo and Kate, and, uh -- but Leonardo had fallen asleep at three in the morning.

And fortunately, I gently woke him up and he bounced right into position, and he even gave the dialog that he had been giving, and it was perfect, and it worked.

[ Excited chatter ] ♪♪ I do know that it was early on in "Moulin Rouge" and there was this idea of having a very short list of the great photographers on the planet come and interpret Moulin Rouge, and it was talked about.

And I was certainly aware of Legends, and I was like, really, we could have Douglas Kirkland come?

Great.

Doug has an ability, and it's not really an ability, it's a character trait that he just walks into the room, and he fills it with light and energy, and I just remember the kind of light and energy would stopped me kind of in my tracks, you know.

Kirkland: The first time I arrived in Australia on the set of "Moulin Rouge," which was being done by Baz Luhrmann, he announced to everybody who I was, and I couldn't believe it, that had never happened to me on a film.

Luhrmann: The reason that I announced Doug's arrival was, first of all, he's a legend, right?

And I thought it was -- we were so honored to have him come and, you know, participate.

But I also wanted to give him, not knowing him that well, but I wanted to give him extreme license, I wanted to make him part of the crew.

I wanted everyone to see that was part of the crew, because there's always a conflict on set between exactly where that camera is there, that camera's there, and of course people shooting stills, you know, say a kiss shot, you want the camera there, right?

So, there's conflict about where the camera is.

And I really wanted no one to be fearful of Doug and I certainly wanted the crew to embrace Doug as part of the fabric of the show.

And was really a great thing to do because he was loved by the crew, as he is by everyone.

And I think that's probably what is so majestic and really, really wonderful about him, is that he brings life to a set, I mean, he brings enthusiasm no matter what's going on, and that brings out the best in everyone.

♪♪ Man: We were on the same movie, Douglas and I, in the movie called "The Pirate."

You know what happened with this picture?

I told them I wanted to get his picture.

Yes.

And he said, "Well, if you do it, I will do it.

And I want you to do it first."

So, I did it, and then I jumped, and we have a jump picture of me somewhere.

♪♪ Stone: You see his understanding that it's more than just a photograph.

We're telling a story through image, we're telling a piece of humanity, of heart, of thought, of creativity, of glamour, of that desire to reach beyond.

He understands what we need to get from the depth of our humanity to the height of our poetic desires, all in a photographic understanding, with technique, with character, with thought, with foresight, and with the classic training.

♪♪ The DNA of "Australia" was like sort of a "Gone with the Wind" and "Out of Africa," in a sense, you know?

I mean, I loved "Out of Africa" growing up, we screened in our cinema in my little country town.

There's a little bit of a Maasai going across the Serengeti and King George going across the plains in Northern Australia -- there's a little bit of that.

♪♪ ♪♪ Woman: One of the stories that Douglas and I worked on at Life was, we covered the making of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, and we were the only journalistic team that was allowed on that set.

We were very frequently paired up because I was the show business reporter at the time.

And we pretty much had the run of the place, we were downtown when he filmed the scene where Michael and his girlfriend emerge from the movie theater, and we were in the forest when the werewolf, Michael as a werewolf jumps out of the forest, we were on the set on -- when he was dancing in the streets as the goblins.

♪♪ Nancy Griffin, she got herself into one of the pictures and she was in the booth selling tickets to "Thriller."

♪♪ Everything just exploded, every was "Thriller," and that's what Michael brought to it.

♪♪ I like photography, and when production told us that Douglas was going to be on set, I -- I couldn't believe it, I was -- I couldn't believe that -- that we were going to have him take the pictures of the movie.

"The 33" was my first Hollywood production also, so everything was new to me, and when he got there, I was just surprised, I was just thankful that I got to meet him, to work with him, but the beauty of it was really who he is, you know?

And in comes this beautiful, beautiful guy with this amazing energy, and he was so kind, I remember he was just so kind, he was just absolutely supportive of letting me show my character.

♪♪ Man: You know, he's a brilliant person, a brilliant artist, and I certainly admire the art, but even maybe more important is, it hasn't affected his ego in any way that, you know, he's still a wonderful, warm person.

And I think I admire that he's remained a warm person.

Kirkland: In the '80s, publications were sending me around the world, looking to other worlds, and looking up, and I still look up at times.

♪♪ For "A Day in the Life of the United States," when he photographed the sunset and the sunrise from the plane over United States, which is a moment you need 24 hours to get, that was a moment in photojournalism photographs, it was superior.

♪♪ ♪♪ Man: I met Douglas during the project "A Day in the Life of Australia."

It was the first of a series of projects where 100 photographers from all over the world convened in one country to photograph at a single day.

The subtitle was, "The Best Photographers of the World."

When I got there, I saw all my heroes.

Amongst them was Douglas Kirkland.

Man: "A Day in the Life of Australia" became a landmark in photography.

And we make a book about the people in Australia, and now we make a book about the people in Canada.

And that started our friendship.

Yeah, take the goddamn pictures, will ya.

Okay!

Okay.

♪♪ ♪♪ I can't think of any better way to begin the day in "A Day in the Life of Canada" than with somebody shaving, especially your own father.

At least he's cooperative.

You know, they're having -- Can you turn your lips that way?

That's good.

I wonder if I need to ask permission for my own parents?

♪♪ Woman: I think that with Douglas, he's continued to grow as an artist and has had an extraordinarily long career because he's able to adapt to changing times, to changing aesthetics, without ever losing himself or the absolutely core values he has as an artist.

But to me, it's the greatest advantage because it keeps his work relevant.

People still want Douglas to take a picture because he's not stuck in a world that has been left behind.

[ Speaking native language ] ♪♪ Kirkland: I choose my camera principally for the one that works best at that period of my life.

I met Victor Hasselblad in New York one evening, he was walking down the street and he looked up at me, I was taking a picture for Popular Photography, and he said, "Do you like that camera?"

And I said yes.

And then I started to tell him about it because it was the latest Hasselblad.

And he said, "I'm very glad you like that camera, because I make that camera.

My name is Victor Hasselblad."

And he walked off into the night.

Man: A great photograph tells as much about the subject as it tells about how you feel when you press the shutter, and in that way I see in Douglas' photography this immense love for people, the immense love for his subjects, the closeness that he can arrange.

♪♪ Kirkland: Oh, I love women, yes I do.

I like women on many levels.

I like them first as people.

Wow, you make magic.

I think he is in the business of making women look beautiful.

A sort of seduction happens, and then some, you know, like, it can develop into something, or it doesn't develop into something.

But he's not really a seducer.

I mean, a lot of celebrity photographers now really sort of are, you know, hot pursuit of the stars and the publicist and everything.

Well, Douglas has not really got that interest.

I mean, his obsession is photography.

And even for me, I mean, women have come second, I mean, his first passion is photography.

♪♪ Beautiful!

I would never want to do something like that.

You'd hate it, wouldn't you?

Its just simply, he only has to go to war.

Just war.

Just war.

Doug, you have made this a specialty.

How did that, I mean, how did it happen?

Did it just happen, or did you say, "I'm going to make women look dynamite," or what?

I guess it's just the way I am, David.

I just like women, I like girls.

I can't help myself, irrepressible.

Lover of women, right?

I guess.

And money.

Douglas genuinely loves women, and he always has, he's never taken advantage of any relationship with a woman or a movie star, an actress in particular.

He shoots from the hip, he doesn't use lights, he doesn't use tripods, he tries to get people in their element.

Sheila, this is really you.

He has forged close relationships with many of them, but it's not exploitation ever with Douglas.

Narrator: Another assignment for Kirkland.

The French magazine Paris Match wants a picture story on Catherine Deneuve.

They want it to be special.

They've flown Doug 6,000 miles from Hollywood to shoot it.

Kirkland: We're having some difficulties with Catherine, did you hear?

-Man: Yes, I know.

Kirkland: Yes, we were supposed to have -- I was under the impression, I think we all were, that we would be able to get the entire day with her.

-Man: She's -- -Man: She will give you several hours.

Kirkland: Yeah, but it's all at night.

That's the problem.

Narrator: Catherine Deneuve is making a movie -- it's behind schedule, she has very little time, that could be a real problem.

At Paris Match, Doug maps out a plan to make the short session pay off.

If I speak English will you understand me?

You will?

You will?

I usually work fast, I like to work fast, but sometimes the situation develops, it just gets out of hand.

She said 6:30.

I hope she's not upset.

What do you think?

Do you think she's going to arrive...?

Hello.

Hi, how are you?

How are you?

Nice to see you.

Just you and me, nobody else is around.

Come on.

Remember what I did the last time?

I just remembered, I shaved a mustache for you.

You shaved a mustache for me?

Yeah, years ago.

Because you said I was going to kiss you.

Yeah, that's what I thought, Very, very, nice.

Very nice.

[ Shutters click, Deneuve singing in French ] Kirkland: Very, very beautiful.

Okay, beautiful.

Just be a second, Catherine.

T-turn your shoulder -- yeah, that's good, that's -- yes, that's good.

Lean a little more.

Yes, that's nice, yes.

-They love it.

-They loved it.

Kirkland: At the end of a shoot you go, "Oomph."

What I had to do is be as persuasive and quick as I could.

Nothing is more awful than no pictures, and we must bring something back.

People often ask me, you know, "What" -- you know, the prize question is, "What was Catherine really like?"

That's an answer I cannot give you, not on the air.

♪♪ Man: Every decade's brought new ideas to Douglas Kirkland, and the '90s were no exception.

Woman: When you look at his work through the decades, the '60s, the '70s, the '80s and '90s, even to this day, Douglas keeps changing.

He is way ahead of many of his peers in the field.

And in the '70s when Look magazine closed, he just went on normally to Life magazine, which is in essence unheard of.

Very few photographers made the switch, he just did, he just went from Look to Life.

Through the decade, Douglas kept changing and evolving with his world of photography.

He's a photographer that can photograph many things: people, celebrities, reportage, cooking photography, travel, fashion, portraiture -- it's amazing, it's just amazing, and he's excellent at everything he does.

Woman: Early adopter of digital photography, early adopter of Photoshop and digital manipulation of the images, early adopter of very large scale printing in house, so he could have enormous control over the images himself.

And to me, that's just allowed his work to keep fresh and alive and very contemporary.

Douglas is changing and growing and staying curious, which is what you want as an artist, which is how you spend decades.

You don't spend decades by saying, "This is what I do, and this is it, and I've arrived."

You span it by -- you grow, and you manage to have longevity, I think, by changing and growing and morphing into other things.

But that also comes from what your essence is, whether you're curious, whether you're willing, whether you're open, whether you're still engaged in the world and in people, because if you've achieved a lot, you can easily just retire and go, "That's it, I'm done."

But I love that he hasn't done that, I love that he's stayed relevant and stayed hungry.

And I've worked with directors like Kubrick who have also spent decade upon decade because of their ability to be in the world now and present in the world now, and never thinking that they've reached the pinnacle, rather thinking that they're still on the journey.

Stanley Kubrick had been originally a photographer at the magazine I worked for, Look magazine, and I worked on "2001," and he said, "I want to show you my favorite camera."

And it was a little Olympus that he pulled out of his pocket, and that was one of his loves.

And certainly, Douglas bought one shortly thereafter.

♪♪ Woman: I was only talking to Douglas about a series of pictures that he took with a large format camera and just how touching and extraordinary they were.

The fact that they seem to -- this huge camera, and Douglas seemed to look inside the soul of the people.

♪♪ Kirkland: I usually photograph with a modern digital camera, but for Bernardo, to me, he's such a special individual, a treasure, that I wanted to get the most out of the image.

And I chose to use a very old but very good technology, and it's a 20 by 25 centimeter camera or eight by 10 as we call it in United States.

♪♪ It's a look from another time, and it's very special.

That's why I wanted to do this this way.

And you get to feel all the things that around the edge of it, that you don't -- that you're not actually seeing in the frame.

It's like you wonder what the story is, like, who was on the other side of that camera?

What was just said?

You know, it's like the whole moment gets conjured in that photograph.

Kirkland: Right the last second, he tipped his head down and he spoke to the camera -- that's Bernardo.

He knew and understood, and to me that's the richness of this great director.

♪♪ Man: You've seen that camera in photographs, you know, period photographs and in movies and things like that, but very rarely have I seen it being pulled out into a photo shoot and sliding in the big frame and putting yourself under the hood.

So, it was exciting, you know, that you would -- to see what that would, you know, what would come out of that situation, out of that type of camera.

Woman: Douglas's openness and energy just brought out very poignant, and very tender and, um... very nuanced images.

♪♪ Both photography and music are cultural methods for being able to capture the various aspects of life.

Inspiration is everywhere, it's flying around, whatever space you're in.

There's a moment where you commit to something, it's a matter of being able to tune into that inspiration from wherever it may come from in the spatial environment around you.

And Douglas, he demands it, and commits to being in sync with that moment.

When I'm -- when I'm photographed by a great photographer like Douglas Kirkland, the image that he captures is so powerful.

Sometimes I ask, is that really me?

Kirkland: Well, one thing I always do is I always anticipate there may be something, so I make the principal picture, and then what I honestly do is I watch.

The Royal Wedding, it was magic for me.

I got a very special place very close to the -- where the ceremony was, where they came out after the ceremony.

You know, the interesting thing is, most of the photographers had run out of film, and I kept some in my camera, and at that point, he kissed the bride, his bride, Lady Di, and that was magic.

And those pictures still are used to this day.

Narrator: ...even trite, to describe this tale of the beautiful maid who marries a handsome prince is a fairy story.

It's certainly sentimental to do so.

And what's wrong with that?

[ Fanfare echoes, fades ] ♪♪ Kirkland: As the 2000s arrived, I was one of the first to embrace the digital age and digital cameras in photography, and I love that, and it remains with me to this day.

I've seen difficult times for my father, and, you know, some of those were... uh, the profession itself and what's happened to photography.

And he has had to figure out ways to keep working and keep making money as a professional photographer, when many, many photographers have quit.

And one of the ways he's done that is by adapting to the changes and recognizing, things are going to be different.

But he's always told me, it's more interesting that way anyway.

♪♪ Woman: It was a dream come true to shoot with Douglas.

I've always admired those Marilyn Monroe photos of her on the bed and always wanted to do a shoot like that.

♪♪ Kirkland: Very, very nice.

Very, very good.

Very good.

Whoa!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Whoo!

♪♪ The world loves you!

Yes, they do!

Certainly the photographer does!

♪♪ Okay, I'd like to try something new.

I love how passionate he is about his photos, and you can really tell when you see them.

Kirkland: You're good!

You're fantastic!

I love you!

I love you for the pictures.

♪♪ This is a nice tease.

Yeah.

I think we're finished, my love.

Thank you!

[ Crew applauding ] So, to be shooting with the legend was just incredible.

Honored to shoot with you.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Man: The first time I met Douglas was about 25 years ago, a really long time ago, and it happened here actually, in this place, in this theater, and here at Teatro alla Scala, in this foyer.

And it was through the agency [indistinct], and I was actually very surprised that he decided to photograph me, and -- bit it happened, I mean, he was already -- I knew his work and he was a really great photographer.

I was just -- I just became -- I was appointed a principal dancer of the theater, I was 21.

And for me it was really a fantastic experience to be photographed by one of the greatest photographer, I mean, ever.

♪♪ You have to think of Douglas and Roberto Bolle, I think the two together are able to create the magic of dancing even in one frame.

In Douglas's pictures you can see the power of the body, the energy, the perfection of the muscles, and the proportions of the dancer, but you can also feel the passion, the emotion that Roberto puts in his dancing.

And I think the two together have done the best pictures of a dancer ever.

♪♪ Bolle: Of course, ballet is the art of movement and photography is art of stillness, but I like...

I mean, to keep photographs because I like sometimes to have, in all the movement I can do, to have a capture, like, one movement of beauty, and it's quite extraordinary.

I think sometimes to see a dancer flying or doing some kind of position where you can see all the muscle for a moment.

And I mean, two things so much different, opposite I would say, they come together in photography, I mean, you can really freeze a beautiful moment of dance, I mean, and you can see it forever.

♪♪ There are new challenges every day and you want to keep reaching, and that's truthfully how this book began, it's physical poetry alphabet.

This all started with Erika, and Erika Lemay is the subject, she's been with the Cirque du Soleil, and she can do things with her body that no normal person could do.

Look at the -- what she has in the B there.

This is something we really care about, we put a lot of time into it.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ So, the alphabet project is a composite photography project of portraits and visual elements that we shot in house.

So, we took things like flowers, jewelry, and objects, and then designed them around Douglas's portraits of Erika Lemay.

♪♪ ♪♪ So, after working on the alphabet project for a year and a half, it was amazing to see it come to fruition in London at the book launch party that was accompanied by Erika Lemay performing and doing some of the acrobatic things that she's doing in the actual projects.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Man shouting indistinctly ] ♪♪ In Canada on a cold Christmas day, they allowed me to make one click -- that was where all this dream began.

♪ I'mma drive my car like I never got stopped ♪ ♪ Like I never got out, like I never could die ♪ I am very moved.

♪ Keep goin' ♪ ♪ Gotta keep goin' ♪ ♪ Gotta keep goin' ♪ I can't believe it, as I look at all these lives I've lived.

♪♪ ♪ Find a big wide wall I can spend my money ♪ If you have a chance to become a Douglas Kirkland, I would recommend it, because I have been extremely fortunate.

♪ ...tryin' to find the cure ♪ ♪ I think I'm gettin' kinda close but I can't be sure ♪ ♪ I could've been but now I am ♪ ♪♪ The future is very exciting because I know there are new discoveries, and I don't want to ever stop.

This is me, I'm going.

♪ Gotta keep goin' ♪ Francois, don't go away, I see you, s'il vous plait.

Directed by Luca!

He's the man who puts the finger on the button.

He gets you going.

And the production is by Matteo and Giovanni, and I -- they're very special.

This would not exist without all this combination of talent!

Cinema photography is by my friend Gianfilippo De Rossi, and he has always been a very special friend, and he gets to the images.

And sound from Matias.

This guy gets it all up here in the mic.

And you have the best producer in the world, Silvia Bizio, and I've known her for... longer than you want to know.

And I love you all.

[ Indistinct lyrics ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪