Movies about artists

I took a summer course in July, here at Hofstra University where I also teach. The course, was taught by Professor Alexander Naymark and met four days a week for 2 hours ten minutes each afternoon. The curriculum examined how artists' biographies are portrayed in the movies. For 16 days we watched a lot of movies about artists. Most were made for entertainment, not as documentaries.

Some, like The Girl with the Pearl Earring, are largely fiction because in the case of Vermeer, for example, we don't know much about the artist and we know even less about his family and life. So when the film imagines him with a shrewish wife and a controlling mother-in-law, we are left to wonder how likely that really was. We do know that his Catholic family had eleven children. It wasn't easy being an artist, even in Holland's so-called Golden Age.

In other cases we have a great deal of information about the artist portrayed, particularly artists of more recent history. Basquiat is a wonderful film made by another artist (Julian Schnabel) who knew and exhibited with Basquiat in some of the same galleries, at more or less the same time.

Here is a list (in no particular order) of some of my favorite movies about artists:

Rembrandt (1936) Charles Laughton in the title role and Elsa Lancester as Hendrickje Stoffels. Laughton seems to have had a great time with this role and, judging from recent Rembrandt bios and research, his portrayal may not have been far off the mark.

Basquiat (1996) Jeffrey Wright in the title role and a youthful Benicio del Toro as his close friend, David Bowie as Warhol, also Willem Dafoe in a cameo of sorts, Christopher Walken, Courtney Love and Tatum O'Neal

Goya's Ghosts (2006) Milos Forman's movie was around for about ten minutes when it was released in 2006. Like Girl with a Pearl Earring, it is a piece of fiction using some historical figures. Stellan Skarsgard is endearing as Goya. Randy Quaid is a delight as the oafish Spanish King Carlos IV. Natalie Portman is the beautiful young woman tortured by the Inquisition. Javier Bardem is the evil and powerful cleric of the Inquisition.

Moulin Rouge (1952) If you can get past the corny device of having Jose Ferrer simultaneously play both Toulouse-Lautrec and his disapproving father, the count, and if you can get past a lip-syncing Zsa-Zsa Gabor as the chanteuse, Jane Avril, then this is a fun recreation of the time and place. The causes and details of Toulouse-Lautrec's early demise are conveyed in a simplified Reader's Digest style.

Surviving Picasso (1996) This was Merchant-Ivory at their best and although I don't think Anthony Hopkins was the obvious first choice to play Picasso, he does a terrific job. (Who else could credibly portray figures as disparate as Picasso and Nixon in one acting career?) Based on Arianna Huffington's book, the movie focuses on Francoise Gilot's ten years as one in a parade of wives and mistresses who had to live with this monster and creative genius.

Modigliani (2004) I'm not sure this film, which was written and directed by Mick Davis, got much exposure here in the U.S. when it was released but Andy Garcia does a great job of capturing the essence of the tragically creative figure. His no-less-tragic lover, Jeanne Hebuterne is played by Elsa Zylberstein. A beautifully sad story, well told.

Frida (2002) Julie Taymor does a pretty good job of capturing the essence and key points of Kahlo's art, career, personality and struggles, physical and otherwise. Selma Hayek and Alfred Molina as Kahlo and Rivera. After seeing this film again recently I went to an early 1980s edition of Encyclopedia Brittannica to see what it had to say about Kahlo. Nada. The artist did not exist for art historians until the mid 80s. In part, we have collectors like Madonna to thank for that.

Artemesia (1997) That would be Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653), daughter of the more famous Orazio Gentileschi. French film with screenplay and direction by Agnes Merlet. With a lithe and tanned Valentina Cervi (photo, above) in the title role. This is a sexed-up version of a story only partly understood by historians. Artemsia studied with her father and then apprenticed with his rival, Tassi, who later finds himself charged with her rape. All the ingredients of a Hollywood thriller. Well done but not without some significant distortions to what facts we do know.

I've left Lust for Life and The Agony and the Ecstasy off my list of favorites. It's subjective, I know, but I find those two a little heavy-handed in that mid-20th century Hollywood kind of way.

Tomorrow: Artists whose biographies would make great movies.