Lindsay has an incredible emotional and physical presence on screen that holds an existential vulnerability, while harnessing the power of the transcendental—the moment in transition. She is able to connect with us past all of our memory and projection, expressing our own inner eminence.—Richard Phillips

New York artist Richard Phillips has made his first short film, a ninety-second portrait of Lindsay Lohan. Known for his poppy hyperrealist paintings that draw on images of women from pornography and fashion, Phillips depicts Lohan in classic poses, nodding to iconic moments in art and cinema: Brigitte Bardot smoldering in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, the psychosexual interplay of Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, even Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Monk by the Sea. Shot in a Malibu mansion (and its swimming pool) by Taylor Steele, the film is meant to signal a new, less wild episode in Lohan’s troubled life. It is an advertisement for her. Provocatively, Phillips offers a shameless merger of art and entertainment. Since making Lindsay Lohan, he has completed a second film portrait, a melancholy study of former porn star, now mainstream film actress, Sasha Grey.