John Malkovich, Sandro create homage to ‘masters’ in photography series

BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR SUN-TIMES MEDIA

In such movie roles as a would-be presidential assassin in “In the Line of Fire,” a blind boarder in “Places in the Heart” and a scheming Casanova in “Dangerous Liaisons,” John Malkovich has shown himself to be a singular actor with extraordinary range and depth.

He has taken those chameleon-like skills in a startlingly new direction in a photography series titled “Sandro Miller: Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters.” It debuts Nov. 7 in an exhibition at the Catherine Edelman Gallery that continues through Jan. 31 and will later travel to such cities as New York, Los Angeles and Paris.

In these 32 color and black-and-white images, Malkovich collaborated with Chicago-based photographer Sandro Miller to meticulously re-create iconic photographs of the past, from Philippe Halsman’s playful 1954 portrait of Salvador Dali to Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era “Migrant Mother” to Herb Ritts’ 1988 grinning shots of Jack Nicholson as The Joker.

“I think, first of all, he is a genius,” Miller said of the actor and his ability to transform himself into sharply differing personas for each of the photographs. “He is so confident. I’ve never seen a man more confident about who he is than I’ve seen with John Malkovich.”

For more than 30 years, Miller has worked as a top commercial photographer for clients ranging from Forbes and GQ magazines to American Express and Coca-Cola. At the same time, he has pursued personal projects, such as working in Cuba and undertaking a series on American blues performers.

Miller met Malkovich, who grew up in Benton, Illinois, 17 years ago during a photo shoot for Steppenwolf Theatre. Malkovich has maintained an association with the famed Chicago company since he was part of its first acting ensemble, when it was incorporated in 1975.

The two clicked that day, with the photographer producing 20 black-and-white portraits of Malkovich that the actor admired. “I think that was the beginning,” Miller said. “It was a trust that he had with me. I think he felt that I was really going to represent him in a very, very honorable way.”

Since then, Miller has done 100 or so more shots of Malkovich, including some in which the actor has portrayed such figures as King James, Saint Sebastian and even Adolph Hitler, with some of the compositions based on old-master paintings. “He would never say to no to me,” the photographer said.

The idea for the photographic masters series began when Miller photographed Malkovich as Truman Capote, re-creating Irving Penn’s famed 1948 portrait of the nattily dressed writer that shows him kneeling on a chair in a corner of a stage set in a photographic studio.

“I’ve always had this great admiration for Irving Penn,” Miller said. “He’s almost been a mentor of mine throughout my 38-year career, and I’ve always looked back at a few shots that Irving did that really, really moved me — the kind of shots that you go, ‘Wow I wish I would have taken that.’”

In contemplating Penn’s take on Capote, Miller began asking himself: What if he could research and dissect that original image and then painstakingly restage it with the help of a team of designers and stylists?

“Not copying it, but paying great homage to it,” Miller said. “Let me see if I could make that happen, and we pulled it off really beautifully. I showed it around, and people were really moved by the image.”

Based on the success of that photograph, Miller traveled to France 18 months ago and presented Malkovich with the idea of re-creating 41 other historic portraits depicting figures ranging from Marilyn Monroe to Albert Einstein.

“I think it was a challenge for him,” Miller said, “but I think he knew in his mind that he could pull it off.”

The resulting images will be on view in the upcoming exhibition, and Malkovich will return to Chicago in mid-November to complete the other 10 shots in the series.

Miller hopes that these images will generate new interest in the classic photos that inspired them and that viewers will appreciate the intense planning and effort that went into these re-creations.

“Maybe the next project they do and the next photograph they take,” he said, “there will be just a little more thought behind the process.”

Kyle MacMillan is a local freelance writer.