Mary Ellen Mark takes a look at the cinema

This well-known American photographer has just brought out a remarkable book of photos about the cinema, Seen Behind the Scene: Forty Years of Photographing On Set (Phaidon, 2009).

Mark (born 1940 in Philadelphia) focuses on social issues, notably the poor and excluded in the United States and India, and specialises in portraits, as seen in her photos about filmmaking, which feature Apocalyspe Now, Marathon Man, Fellini and Sean Penn.

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Federico Fellini on the set of Satyricon in Rome (1969) and Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson in Florida during the filming of Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975)

© Mary Ellen Mark/Phaidon/Vanity Fair

Dustin Hoffman making fun of Laurence Olivier on the set of Marathon Man (John Schlesinger, 1976), and Sean Penn on the set of Bad Boys (Rick Rosenthal, 1983)

© Mary Ellen Mark/Phaidon/Vanity Fair

Francis Ford Coppola on the set of Apocalypse Now (1979)

© Mary Ellen Mark/Phaidon/Vanity Fair

20/07/09