Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White

Although it may not be fair, typecasting has an effect on a film. Farrah Fawcett as a victim (The Burning Bed, Extremities) elicits our sympathy. As renowned photographer Margaret Bourke-White, however, she comes across as a "Charlie's Angel" that's gotten too big for her britches. Entrepreneur/director Lawrence Schiller (who buys the rights to people's stories) has made what is essentially a TV-movie following Bourke-White's early days shooting for Henry Luce's Fortune magazine (and later for Life), and her down-South trek with writer Erskine Caldwell (Frederic Forrest) which resulted in both the book Have You Seen Their Faces?, and in the couple's long and stormy relationship through WWII. Based on Vicki Goldberg's biography, the film occasionally flashes an image of one of Bourke-White's award-winning photographs, but the major focus of the story is on the reduction of the Caldwell/Bourke-White romance to the level of soap opera. Schiller's previous film, The Executioner's Song, based on the life of murderer Gary Gilmore, was much better. This is average, at best. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Pitman)