Girl With A Pearl Earring (2003, Webber, UK, Luxembourg)
9/23/2010 7:00:00 PM
This compelling drama, directed by Peter Webber, is based on Tracy Chevalier's book, which presents a hypothetical schema of the events behind Vermeer's 1665 painting, "Girl with a Pearl Earring." Scarlett Johansson stars as Griet, a housefhold servant in the home of Johannes Vermeer, who is wonderfully acted by Colin Firth. Vermeer's patron (Tom Wilkinson) is attracted to Griet and commissions a painting of her, Vermeer's wife and children dislike her but Griet's ability to understand the painter's art interests Vermeer and her beauty captivates him. Hence, we have a household full of tensions and jealousies.The film shows us the process of Vermeer's art and gives us an understanding of the famous painting even though the story may be apocryphal. The film is exquisitely photographed and many of its scenes look like seventeenth century miniatures.
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Seraphine (2008, Provost, France)
10/28/2010 7:00:00 PM
This wonderful film won seven Cesars-the French equivalent of our Oscars and is practically unknown in the United States. It presents the story of Seraphine of Senlis (1864-1942), portrayed by Yolande Moreau, in a phenomenal performance that you will not forget. Seraphine was an impoverished country washerwoman who painted exquisite, almost ecstatic pictures of flowers and fruit. She was untrained and often stole blood and candlewax in order to make paint. She was discovered in 1914 by the German art critic Wilhelm Uhde, portrayed by Ulrich Tukur, who initally placed her in the group of "naive" artists such as Henri Rousseau. Even today she is difficult to categorize. The film follows herinability to believe that anyone wanted to buy her art to a gradual transformation into Seraphine's more confident painting and the manic wildness and disorder of the later paintings as she becomes more and more driven and eventually insane. Seraphine is guided by religious visions and is not approachable. The film is absolutely fascinatin!
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Book Club/ Persepolis
11/12/2010 6:15:00 PM
Wise, Funny, and Heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. She paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life.
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Camille Claudel (1989, Nuytten, France)
11/18/2010 7:00:00 PM
Isabelle Adjani was nominated for an academy award for her role as Claudel in this biography of the French sculptor who struggled to be recogznied for her art and who was the mistress of the successful sculptor Auguste Rodin, portrayed by Gerard Depardieu in the film. This film also introduces the theme of the connection between artistic genius and insanity which we will also see in two of our remaining films. Nuytten does an excellent job of presenting both artists' parallel passions to sculpt and the reasons why it was so much more difficult for a woman who lived in this era to achieve artistic recognition and fame.
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Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh (1987, Cox, Australia
1/20/2011 7:00:00 PM
Many critics have stated that this film is the best film about an artist that they have ever seen. Paul Cox decided tp present Van Gogh's life by having an actor (John Hurt) read from the many letters that the artist wrote to his brother Theo. As the letters are read, Cox uses consonant visuals: many of the paintings themselves, tiny details of the paintings and drawings that enlarges, landscapes, and staged tableaux of local peasants that the artist might have seen. The visuals are carefully selected and arranged so that the viewer has an idea of some of the things that may have influenced Van Gogh, including his microcosmic view of the world from the years spent in a mental asylum. You will gain a different kind of appreciation for this passionate artist because of the unusual technique that the director chose to memorialize the painter and his works.
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Rivers And Tides (2001, Rieldelsheimer, Germany)
2/17/2011 7:00:00 PM
Our Film is an astounding meditation on the fragility of nature and is unlike any art film that you have ever seen. This multi-prize winning film documents a portion of the work of the incredible Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy is an environmental artist who works with such unusual artistic materials as stone, mud, grass, sand, driftwood, and ice. His creations are mutable earthworks which often collapse and are meant to be evanescent. His view of nature and the world in which we live is highly personal and we are privileged to share it in this absolutely extraordinary film.
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