Artists in Film
Shortly after seeing In a Dream, I watched Basquiat for the first time. Very different films, but both about artists.
As part of one of my other jobs, I coordinate a monthly film series, which we split between “movies you missed the first time around” (we’ve shown films like Chop Shop, Shotgun Stories, and most recently, Wit) and films about artists – most recently In the Realms of the Unreal, about folk artist Henry Darger, and this month we’ll be showing Matthew Barney: No Restraint.
So all this watching of films about artists and working with artists has made think about the way artists are portrayed in films. In a discussion group I lead at work, we recently talked about an article from The New Republic called “Love the Art, Hate the Artist”. In it, Javier Marias says:
The truth is that artists are usually seen as megalomaniacs and, very often, as loudmouths, who suffer greatly and cut off their ears, or pretend to be suffering and drag themselves histrionically through the mud. They are people who take themselves very seriously and are, by and large, vain, ambitious and rather on the stingy side.
With predictable frequency, they slide into some form of addiction (alcohol, drugs, gambling), which leads them to inflict the most bizarre and harmful behavior on their loved ones. They find it equally difficult to cope with either success or failure and require unhealthily large doses of attention. With apparent determination, they get themselves into inadvisable situations and set off along gratuitously self-destructive paths. They strive at all times to be brilliant and deep, which is tiring for them and tiresome in the extreme for those around them, as well as for the reader or viewer. They also take pride in being enigmatic, which is a dreadful bore; plus, they’re obsessed with their work, which is all that really exists for them.
And it’s true, at least for many films about artists – and not undeservedly. After all, these films are based on real people. Basquiat is a prime example: barely likeable, Jean-Michel wanders around arrogant and detached from even those he loves, with the only goal of becoming famous. He gradually alienates or simply leaves all the people who helped him become who he was. In a Dream’s Isaac Zagar starts out far more likeable, but he wrecks that himself halfway through.
I started naming other films that portray artists of various stripes: Frida, In the Bedroom, Almost Famous, Adaptation, I’m Not There, Amadeus, Factory Girl, Immortal Beloved, Mr. Holland’s Opus, even Bleu, and many more. There are dozens more I haven’t seen but a fair sampling reveals that onscreen artists are generally woefully self-absorbed, and often a little crazy – or a lot. It’s not that this is unearned by the people in these films, but that there aren’t a lot of biopics about artists who changed the world and weren’t a little crazy.
The irony in all of this is that most filmmakers would call themselves artists, and yet it seems to me that there are very few films made about filmmakers as artists. (I can only think of one off the top of my head – last year’s What Just Happened, which was pithy and felt a bit guilty, and, though affectionate, definitely did not portray directors in a good light.)
One possible explanation is that Western culture, in general, is enamored of the idea of artist-as-tortured-genius – a sort of special type of human who simply doesn’t conform to the general guidelines of civility and responsibility that govern mere mortals. Borrowing from romantic notions perpetuated by Rousseau and, later, Baudelaire, we want the artist to embody something about ourselves we wish we could express: a detachment from society, a devil may-care attitude toward society, and some kind of immortality gained through originality and creativity.
A second explanation is simply that well-behaved people are less interesting to watch. The cheerful composer who is faithful to his wife and is a great father and breadwinner is just not terribly fascinating to us. Conventionality seldom sells tickets.
So now I want to find a filmmaker who’s managed to take an artist of any discipline whose fascination lies not in his or her degeneracy but in the way they lived their life – for the good of their family, the people around them, or even just the general good of the world – and has made it into a good story. I want to expand my own horizons. I want to have resources for the artists with whom I work to see healthy art-making portrayed.
Audience participation time: Why do you think there are so many of these kinds of artists in the movies? What films can you think of that portray an artist in a positive light?
To add another to your list, Kieslowski’s Camera Buff is a film about a filmmaker’s denigration.
Last year’s Man on Wire has a theme running through it about the power of art that just is; beauty alone as justification for art and as the only “why” necessary (which may not be a fully Christian idea), but Petit definitely does have some trials after the event. However, by framing the film as more of a mystery caper, we are drawn into the power of art itself and the process of the artist without the complete “tortured genius” aspect – by holding the audience in suspense (despite our foreknowledge of success) the questions are not about the creative process itself but about the end result; the final creation.
But another way to look at it is to find films that aren’t directly about art and thus might help us recapture an idea of art in it’s proper context – as another vocation that is not innately elevated above any other vocation. I think of films like Amelie – with her goal of bringing happiness to others and its glimpse of transcendence through small acts.
There’s an aside in Stranger than Fiction about why the female lead decided to be a baker; about how she wanted to change the world for good and decided to do it by baking rather than being a lawyer. As simple as that idea is; it taps into one of the central ideas of being an artist; of attempting to “redeem” the world through our examination of it, of putting things back to the garden. This is what L’Engle talks about a lot in Walking on Water.
So one theory (though by all means it is not a comprehensive idea, just a supposition towards a partial explanation) is that artists are displayed as tortured and self-destructive because there is no sense of what they are working towards. The desire to create may be innate, uncontainable, but for what purpose or to what end or even at what level, these are questions that aren’t answered innately – they are answered by philosophy and/or religion.
And in the past 100 years, there has been a great sense in the arts world of what is possible with art, but no strong answer to why. Art has become its own justification, and I just wonder if that leads to a lot of tortured geniuses with no grand scheme to work towards or to fit in. Rather, they do what they know how to do – create – but have no measurable sense of progress, success, or completion. And that seems like a ginormous burden.
“Western culture, in general, is enamored of the idea of artist-as-tortured-genius – a sort of special type of human who simply doesn’t conform to the general guidelines of civility and responsibility that govern mere mortals. Borrowing from romantic notions perpetuated by Rousseau and, later, Baudelaire, we want the artist to embody something about ourselves we wish we could express: a detachment from society, a devil may-care attitude toward society, and some kind of immortality gained through originality and creativity.”
This is well stated. Thomas Dardis wrote a book called The Thirsty Muse, which shows that Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald blew their talent on booze, whereas Eugene O’Neill got clean and went on to write more effectively sober. The point of the book is that this dear connection we maintain between the artist and whatever chemicals seem to foster their creativity is a sham.
Since reading that book I have wanted to see films about artists like Cornell or Bontecou – artists that simply worked without all the scene riff-raff getting in their way. The Chuck Close documentary is a good example. Also:
Andrei Rublev.
Burden of Dreams.
Rivers and Tides.
Gaudi.
Persepolis.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (kind of, he was eccentric)
Ryan (which is an excellent argument against the self-destructive artist myth)
Fictional ones: Barton Fink, Contempt, Ulysees’ Gaze, F for Fake
Most of the artists who stay in the spotlight do so as much for their rebellious, egocentric behavior as for their art. Their art becomes an extension of a drive to get attention, work that points back to themselves. They often have something worthwhile to reveal. Passion like that tends to build when someone is onto something good. But artists are frequently hasty to exploit the vision they’ve been given to draw attention to themselves.
I’m more interested in, and inspired by, artists mature enough to know better; artists who aren’t interested in saying “Look at what I can do”, but who instead are preoccupied with what they behold and then teach us how to see it, so we are left dazzled gradually by their Vision instead of by them.
That’s one of the reasons why I’m moved by Babette’s Feast. Here is a picture of an artist as a servant, who strives to give people a vision of something grand, an expression of the feast of grace offered us every day. That is why it is appropriate that the revelers conclude the evening of the feast by joining hands under the stars, and dear Christopher raises his hallelujah to the heavens. Meanwhile, Babette sits humbly in the kitchen, where only a few think to thank her for her investment. Looking back through the films I’ve seen, I can’t think of an artist more inspiring than her.
Can we say that this just extends to the portrayal of artists, though? Mathematicians and physicians seem to get a similar treatment…
Portrayal of artists as relatively normal that I can think of:
CS Lewis in Shadowlands
Philip Glass in ‘Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts’ (doc)
Cecil B. DeMille in Sunset Boulevard (granted, it’s only a bit part, but he’s the only humane person in the whole film)
A wonderful film on art, substance abuse, and masculinity is “Drunk on Wine, Women and Poetry” (Chihwaseon), about Korean painter Jang Seung-up. It’s got a very light touch to it, which somehow manages to avoid the elevation of the artist as sado masochist. I’m also a big fan of Cronenburg’s “Naked Lunch”, which I consider to be a tragedy.