Peter Beard: Scrapbooks From Africa and Beyond

Guillaume Bonn and Jean-Claude Luyat's documentary on Peter Beard should have been a fascinating and colorful portrait of the legendary writer/photographer's life and work. Instead, Peter Beard: Scrapbooks From Africa and Beyond, narrated by Charlotte Rampling, is a fairly quotidian examination that rarely captures the spirit of its subject. Beard was a pre-med student at Yale when he discovered Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa, after which—blessed with an outgoing personality and funds to finance his adventures—he purchased 43 acres in British colonial Kenya in 1955, and became close friends with Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen). Over the decades, Beard's career mixed stunning prose and photography covering Africa's ecosystem with globetrotting, glamour-heavy fashion photography, and hobnobbing with celebrities, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Mick Jagger, and Andy Warhol. Quite a story, to be certain, but the film makes Beard's life seem strangely dull. Rather than coming across as the passionate, intelligent iconoclast he actually is, Beard is presented here as little more than a well-connected adventurer who knows famous people and loves Africa—not quite the same thing. DVD extras include an interview with Bonn and a photo gallery of Beard's work. A sketchy, unsatisfactory portrait, this is not a necessary purchase. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)