| "The
Critic" is probably Weegee's most famous
image, and certainly his most widely published.
The opening night of the Metropolitan Opera in
1943 was advertised as a Diamond Jubilee to
celebrate the 60th anniversary of the company. In
a recent interview, Louie Liotta, a photographer
who acted as Weegee's assistant, recalled that
Weegee has been planning this photograph for a
while. Liotta, at Weegee's request, picked up one
of the regular women customers at Sammy's on the
Bowery at about 6:30 p.m. With a sufficient
amount of cheap wine for the woman, they
proceeded to the opera house. When they arrived,
the limousines owned by the members of high
society were just beginning to discharge their
passengers. Weegee asked Liotta to hold the now
intoxicated woman near the curb as he stood about
twenty feet away from the front doors of the
opera house. With a signal worked out in advance,
Weegee gave the sign to Liotta, who releasd the
woman, hoping all the while that she could keep
her balance long enough for Weegee to expose
several plates. The moment had finally arrived:
Mrs. George Washington Kavenaugh and Lady Decies
were spotted getting out of a limousine. Both
women were generous benefactors to numerous
cultural institutions in New York and
Philadelphia, and Weegee knew that they were
known to every newspaper in New York. Liotta
recalled the moment he released the disheveled
woman: "It was like an explosion. I thought
I went blind from the three or four flash
exposures which Weegee made within a very few
seconds." For his part, Weegee told the
story that he "discovered" the woman
viewing the opera patrons after the negative had
been developed, never revealing the prank, saying
it was as much a surprise to him as anyone. The photograph
that LIFE printed, which is the version
most often reproduced, is only one third of the
original negative. On the opposite page from the
women arriving at the opera was another
photograph by Weegee taken during the performance
of the opera with the caption, "The plain
people waited in line for hours to get standing
room, listened intently and, as always, showed
better musical manners than the people sitting in
boxes." This contrast of images, the rich
with the jewels, and the well-mannered
"plain people" was exactly what Weegee
was striving for in all of his photography. The
incongruence of life, between the rich and poor,
the victims and the rescued, the murdered and the
living - his photographs had the ability to make
us all eyewitnesses and voyeurs. The first time
the photo appeared with the actual title,
"The Critic," was in Weegee's own book,
Naked City.
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