‘Life is strange and life is funny’: a new film goes inside the world of Martin Parr

‘Martin Parr shows the way the world is, not the way we want it to be,’ says director Lee Shulman on the eve of the release of I Am Martin Parr. ‘He's not showing a fake. It's not always comfortable viewing – a lot of people don't like to look at themselves. When you're eating a sandwich, you've got your mouth open, that's the way you eat a sandwich. He challenges our notions of beauty, and what is beautiful. It’s tender. I think there is a genuine love for these people. These are everyday people. People are crazy and mad. And he shows this incredible world we live in.’

To make the film, Shulman accompanied British documentary photographer Parr on a roadtrip across England, from his Bristol hometown to New Brighton, where Parr shot his famous photography series The Last Resort 40 years ago. How did Parr handle being the subject for a change? ‘Terribly!’ says Shulman. ‘He's the worst person in the world to make a film on because he doesn't do anything for the camera. Half of the shots were bribery – you know, have an ice cream to sit there. We lost him all the time on the shoot, because he kept wandering off when he'd seen something, he was totally detached from the filming of it. When he walks through the frame, it wasn't like – now, can you walk through the frame? Instead it was, he's off again, let's run and we’ll go ahead. And so he walked through the frame.’

This instinctive nature is at the heart of Parr’s distinctive documentary style, which sees him take endless photographs, rather than waiting for the light or moment to be right. He’s obviously interested in people, stopping to ask questions and chat in between photographs. ‘It's interesting [to see the process],’ says Shulman. ‘Seeing him work, it looks so simple, and then you see the result, and you think, oh my God, I get it. Here, you also see the idea that he is constantly out there photographing non-stop to get one good image. He doesn’t think every image he takes is wonderful. He's like – it's all terrible. The other day, someone asked, what's a great Martin Parr photo? And he looked at me and said, I'll tell you when I've taken it.’

Parr’s early photography, including his lesser-known black and white images included here, came under fire for seemingly trivialising the working class, an accusation Shulman addresses in the film. ‘I'm happy that he’s now rightly in the place where he is,’ he says. ‘I think he still has his detractors. There are people who love Martin and people who don't get it, but that's fine. He doesn't really care – he's not got that ego of wanting to be loved by people. It's just the way he sees the world. He is really unique. He doesn't modify the way he sees the world to anyone but himself, and that's the genius of him. It’s brutally honest in some respects, and it can be funny, or uncomfortable, and that's why his work has become so loved, because it reflects a lot of what people live.’

For Parr, a documentary photographic language is the only possibility. ‘I’m trying to show the ying and yang of British society, and to show it as I find it, rather than being romantic or good or bad, I’m trying to show both things,’ he says in I Am Martin Parr. ‘One of the good things about Britain is we do have a good sense of humour; I’m trying to show the things I think are interesting too, and sometimes they’re funny. People are funny, so how can the work not be funny? I don’t think of myself as a humorous photographer, but life is strange and life is funny.’

Adds Shulman: ‘With your heroes, you expect it to be so complicated. But with him, it's not. His camera's falling apart, he’s on his own when he could have all these assistants. There’s no ego. It's so simple, and that's what makes it great; he gets in there and he’s almost camouflaged. He's just like everyone else.’

I Am Martin Parr will be released in the UK and Ireland by Dogwoof on 21 February 2025

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