Marable, who worked for more than a decade on the book and died earlier this year, offers a more complete and unvarnished portrait of Malcolm X than the one found in his autobiography.

She was best known for the unvarnished black-and-white portraits of rock stars that she took in the mid-1960's to support herself and her young daughter.

Rated R. This hard-bitten British import is neither romantic nor sentimental, but a rather unvarnished portrait of the seamy side of life in working-class England.

In the past, Mr. Penn's unvarnished portraits of accomplished personages as well as pictures of skulls, cigarette butts and other detritus seemed to be an ongoing meditation on mortality.

In a series of media appearances and interviews this week, he has defended the latest release as providing an unvarnished portrait of problems with the war in Afghanistan, while saying that his organization had held back about 15,000 documents for safety reasons.

The memo presents an unvarnished portrait of Mr. Maliki and notes that he relies for some of his political support on leaders of more extreme Shiite groups.

Here one finds a world of back-stabbing, board-room coups, pressure tactics, cheating and stifling working conditions - in short, an unvarnished portrait of the nation's vaunted business system that is rarely found in newspapers and textbooks.

The show includes unvarnished portraits of historical figures like the legendary gunfighters Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

When we read the unvarnished portraits of foreign leaders, we gain invaluable knowledge of the motives, behavior, and flaws of American partners and enemies - ones that will help citizens judge for themselves the wisdom of American policy.

Still, Ms. Kuryla's determination to present an unvarnished portrait of an often unlikable woman makes "Freak Weather," which opens today at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, an unusually accomplished if imperfect debut.