There have been many attempts by the film industry to make movies about artists and their art. Many of them are boring or preaching. Most lack the impact and inspirational power of the craft or the artists profiled. Almost all but a few have failed. Case in point, Jacques Rivette’s exceptionally slow but much revered film La Belle Noiseuse — about a painter’s relationship with his model — fails to inspire anyone who’s at least somewhat familiar with the process of making art. Even the recent Loving Vincent, which was meticulously rendered in the style of Van Gogh’s paintings, isn’t able to hold one’s attention for long. But here is a selection of films about art that I think do excite and inspire us as creatives.
Pollock (Directed by Ed Harris)
I love Ed Harris’ portrayal of iconic modernist painter Jackson Pollock. The film has a great energy to it. Buoyed by Jeff Beal’s inspirational score, Harris’ Pollock (the director himself plays the title character) feels completely believable. We witness the rebel-like attitude of the action painter pioneer as he battles through his desires and fears, including both his envy of other artists (note his disparaging remarks about Picasso and his slight jab at friend and fellow contemporary Willem deKooning) as well as his existential dread (he’s fully aware how fleeting success is and how luck has such a large part to play as he openly acknowledges that he’d be nothing if not for wife and painter Lee Krasner who was his biggest supporter and promotor.) The film travels through the most inventive years of Pollock’s life — his meeting Krasner, his introduction to and relationship with critical figures such as millionaire collector Peggy Guggenheim and influential art critic Klem Greenberg, his shocking car accident that would end his life at only 44 years of age. Whenever I watch Pollock I feel the urge to paint. It isn’t a film that glorifies the painter but it moves you which is what art is supposed to do.
Shine (Directed by Scott Hicks)
Scott Hicks’ 1996 film Shine is a story about redemption. Based on the true life story of pianist David Helfgott, it follows the life of a child prodigy whose upbringing and circumstances lead to a gradual psychological breakdown and eventual seclusion inside a mental institution. Less a film about music itself, it nonetheless captures the deep psychological challenges each artist faces in living up to his talent and destiny. In David’s case, we witness a young shy boy who’s tormented by the strict parenting of his obsessive and even abusive father played with piercing intensity by Armin Miller. Growing up to become an artist is always scary despite even obvious talents. In Hicks’ film, we witness the harshness of that reality both for the artist and his family, which is poverty stricken and desolate. When David finally makes it to the Royal Academy of Music, much to the dismay of his father who cruelly disowns him, he suffers a terrible and dramatic mental breakdown. What follows is what happens to David after he’s already spent much time institutionalized. The much older David (played by Geoffrey Rush) is brought out of the clinic due to the kind generosity of a nurse/caretaker who takes him in, exposing David again to the outside world. It is there happenstance gives rise to David’s second chance at growing up. Of course, he can’t fully do so but nonetheless arrives at a place of joy and maturity to rediscover and reclaim his excellence in his craft. Shine is wholly inspiring — it moves the heart and gives hope to all of us who might have experienced a less-than-ideal upbringing that redemption is possible. The music, of course, is wonderful and made me a lover of Rachmaninov’s powerful compositions. Geoffrey Rush’s wonderfully accurate and transformative depiction of the real David Helfgott is amazing and is most deserving of the Oscar for Best Actor.
Midnight In Paris (Directed by Woody Allen)
I love this film. I think it’s one of Allen’s most charming and creative. More about art’s influence rather than about an artist’s work, Midnight in Paris stars Owen Wilson as a Hollywood screenwriter who’s on a trip with his wife Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her family. Wilson’s character, Gil Pender, is rather unspectacular. Married to a picture-perfect wife with money to spare and a secure if not inspiring career, he’s lost. He wants to be a real writer but no one seems to care or want him to deviate from his “stable” life. In Paris, he begins to discover himself. And it all begins on a solo midnight stroll where he happens upon a vehicular carriage that takes him back in time — a time of the Golden Age of French creative and social life, the 1920’s. There he meets the heroes of his dreams — Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and even artists like Picasso and Salvador Dali. He even finds himself falling in love with the beautiful Adrianna (Marion Cottilard). Unfortunately his magical road trip occurs only at midnight and ends with him back in the present time (2010) where life is back to the banal. Back in modern reality Gil is trapped — accosted by his wife (who believes Gil has lost his mind) and put down by her parents and mocked by Paul, a pedantic critic whom his wife Inez is absolutely infatuated with. Midnight in Paris is, in its totality, funny, original and magical. Wilson is terrific in his role and at the end, it seems we do learn something; it’s easy to think that the past was better than the present but like Gil says at the end to Adriana after having arrived at another time-transported age: “we’re always gonna think there was another Golden Age better than the one you’re in… you see what I’m saying? These people didn’t have antibiotics!”
Dreams (Directed by Akira Kurosawa)
Dreams is not a film particularly about art or artists — although one of its stories does feature the painter Vincent Van Gogh (aptly portrayed by legendary director Martin Scorcese) — but about the visions artists have. It’s a strange and almost disjointed movie, composed of eight vignettes, each one a dish that illuminates the imagination. Apparently based on actual dreams the director had himself, they come across as mythic — one about a soldier’s terror from the past, another about a boy’s visit with Shinto-like Fox gods, and even an apocalyptic vision about a nuclear meltdown. Each story in Dreams is magical and gorgeous to look at it while carrying with it a harrowing sense of both existential wonder and terror. The film feels like a series of living illustrations that moves through the seasons of nature and that of our hearts and minds, allowing us as viewers to both witness and participate in — it feels less like a viewing and more like an experience. Kurosawa doesn’t use any of his familiar actors here, so in that sense the film is lacking in character performance. Fortunately, that’s more than made up for in its stunning compositions and powerful mood, representing again the true power of the film.
8 1/2 (Directed by Federico Fellini)
Federico Fellini’s glorious epic 8 1/2 can be both hypnotic, dizzying and confusing. Beautifully shot in black in white, it captures the dream-like atmosphere that often exists in the mind of the artist. In this case, the artist is film director Guido Anselmi (played by Marcello Mastroianni) which makes this film somewhat autobiographical in many ways, as Fellini, a successful pioneering director himself, was arriving at his own creative crossroads. It’s a film filled with rich imagery intertwined with issues and themes about ego, sexual desire, ambition, and existential plight. When watching 8 1/2 one has to be immensely patient; there often seems no logic at times, as characters shift in and out of scenes leaving the viewer’s grasp on what’s real versus what’s imagined uncertain thus echoing the protagonist’s own dilemma. And that’s the beauty of the movie. The characters seem to be buoyed by their own fantasies and it even looks that way, as the pioneering cinematography makes the characters seem to float and dance on the sets rather than walk in them. The opening scene (where Guido escapes from his vehicular gridlock and literally floats into the sky) foreshadows what we’re about to experience but we don’t realize the depths and psychological impact of it until the last scene; once we arrive there we begin to understand that life is beautiful and that it’s meant to be celebrated no matter how little sense any of it actually makes.
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