Untitled
2004

To create his large-format photographs such as Untitled (north by northwest), Gregory Crewdson combines techniques of traditional photography, film production, and digital editing. Crewdson works with upwards of 100 cast and crew members and shoots each photograph on a set—or on location in the streets and homes of desolate New England towns—much like that of a major motion picture. After the shoot, images go into post-production, where Crewdson and his editors enhance colors, remove shadows, and combine elements from different photographs to create the desired effect. Here, a sedan has stopped in the middle of an intersection; a woman sits in the passenger seat, while the driver is absent. The scene recalls one from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, North by Northwest (1959)—a movie that turns on a series of mistaken identities and betrayals, in which even the most apparently familiar is deceiving. Likewise, the mysterious scene depicted by Crewdson casts the everyday world of American suburbia as something both ordinary and unsettling.