Series/Festivals

William Eggleston in the Real World. (Not Rated) This restrained, revealing documentary offers a welcome antidote to Hollywood biopics that perpetuate the myth of artists as crazed geniuses creating through inspired frenzy. Instead, narrator/director Michael Almereyda records world-famous photographer William Eggleston as he works — silent, watchful and patient — and invites us to embrace a similar perspective. Almereyda stays in the background but astutely shows how Eggleston captures the strange in the familiar, the subsurface tension in the stillness, the resilience in the decaying. Late in the film, a Q&A with Eggleston answers many of our questions about Eggleston's approach and choices. Almereyda claims that Eggleston's work will alter the nature of our perception, and this fine film effects it. Screens at 7 p.m. Friday through Sunday, January 13 through 15, in the Moore Auditorium on the campus of Webster University, 470 E. Lockwood Avenue. Call 314-968-7487 for more information. (Diane Carson)