Artists on Film

Hellooo everyone!

This was the topic from one of my lectures that I had today and found it really interesting! Just wanted to share with you an insight of how films emphasis an artists background.

The main aspect was influencing ideas based on TV and films for artists this would include theater, opera, or even poetry.

The themes behind the popular backdrops are:

• Independence from patronage- breaking away from their primary fame and choosing independent solo careers.
• Voyeuristic feelings and emotions whilst sitting through the artists story.

From what I have learnt today 'Artists on Film' reinforces artists turbulent stories rather than the whole story put together in truth, and doesn't collaborate the audience with the film entirely, so what's the point?

In my opinion i'd rather read a couple of novel sources in order to understand the artists past life than working through a film of exaggerated and false interpretations just to sell the film to an audience.

Although on the other hand the film could very well be a visual representation of life at that time so its useful how a director can use knowledge, research, lighting, sets and actors to creatively interpret artists life on film.

Rembrandt 'The Night Watch' (1642)

Charles Laughton once again teams up with Korda for this moving, elegantly shot biopic about the Dutch painter. Beginning when Rembrandt’s reputation was at its height, the film then tracks his quiet descent into loneliness and isolated self-expression, following the death of his wife to the unveiling of Night Watch to the ecclesiastical excommunication of his late-in-life lover and maid, Hendrickje Stoffels. Though black and white, Rembrandt is shot by cinematographer Georges Périnal with an attention to light that’s particularly Rembrandtesque.

In the scene where Rembrandt presents his 'Night Watch' painting, that it is a nocturne Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenhurch, and not until late in the 18th Century did it acquire the name by which it is now known. Unfortunately, both "Night" and " "Watch" are wrong. The civic guards who are depicted had, by the time Rembrandt painted them, become quite pacific; it was no longer necessary for them to defend the ramparts of Amsterdam or to go out on watches by night or by day. Their meetings had been diverted chiefly to social or sporting purposes; if they may be said to have any particular destination in the painting, it is perhaps to march into the fields for a shooting contest or to take part in a parade.

As I could see from that clip not much art is shown which again proves that the film isn't really about the artist or their work.

It was by far the most revolutionary painting Rembrandt had yet made, transforming the traditional Dutch group portrait into a dazzling blaze of light, color and motion, and subordinating the requirements of orthodox portraiture to a far larger, more complex but still unified whole.

 In Rembrandt's hands what was, after all, a commonplace affair became filled with Baroque pictorial splendor, loud with the sound of drum and musket, the thud of ramrods, the barking of a dog, the cries of children. In the forefront Captain Banning Cocq - in black, with a red sash - and his lieutenant in yellow lead the forward drive of the still unformed ranks. 

The sense of movement is reinforced by converging diagonal lines: on the right, the foreshortened spontoon in the lieutenant's hand, the musket above it and the lance still higher; and on the left, the captain's staff, its line repeated above by another musket and the banner. 

The effect on the viewer is direct; he feels that he had best get out of the way.

Toulouse Lautrec- La Goulue (1892) Moulin Rouge

When the brassy dance hall and drinking garden of the Moulin Rouge opened on the boulevard de Clichy in 1889, one of Lautrec's paintings was displayed near the entrance. He himself became a conspicuous fixture of the place and was commissioned to create the six-foot-tall advertisement that launched his poster making career and made him famous overnight. 

He turned a spotlight on the crowded dance floor of the nightclub and its star performers, the "boneless" acrobat Valentin le Désossé and La Goulue, "the glutton," whose cancan skirts were lifted at the finale of the chahut.

In the scene you see straight away that its an alienated life separated from society, troubled by drink ( an exact description of an artists life stereotype) emphasis and exaggeration of Toulouse dying over a broken heart in the film whereas state of death was syphilis.

Soften light and heightened colours remind me of the vivid underworld nightlife of New Orleans bourbon festivals. The clip and the work conjure up leisurely wealth based around that time.

Again, left out the importance of the artists work and shown little reference of the Toulouse sketches for a brief number of seconds.

Camille Claudel 'Le Homme' (1893)

…MUSE AND MISTRESS. “MADEMOISELLE SAY”

Letter from Auguste Rodin to Camille Claudel, C.1886, [L.1451]

While Rodin recognized the young woman’s talent from the outset, he also fell in love with her almost immediately. The two sculptors’ complicated love story has inspired many overly romanticized interpretations.

This intense love affair, encompassing their personal and professional lives, inspired both artists, whose works functioned as declarations, criticisms or echoes of one another. 

Based on the artists life and what it was like in the 19th century for women artists. The scene showed Camille inspiring Rodin in the use of materials and her own intuition of concept life sculptures. (As seen in the pose of the woman in the film compared to the sculpture 'Le Homme' itself) although I must admit the sculpture looks more masculine than it does feminine.

After giving this lecture much thought I had come to the conclusion that  these films were not made for making money but that they were independent projects for catching artists stereotypical facts and proving them wrong critically.