Marvel of Art

pick 2 films and answer the question by comparing those 2 films 

LIST OF FILMS:

Dramatic films about visual artists

1

. The Agony and the Ecstasy, 1965, American film starring Charlton Heston, based on the Irving Stone novel about Michelangelo.

2. Lust for Life, 1956, American film starring Kirk Douglas, based on the Irving Stone novel about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.

3. Vincent and Theo, 1990, American film directed by Robert Altman and starring Tim Roth about the life of Vincent Van Gogh and his brother.

4. Loving Vincent, 2017, An animated (hand-painted) film worked on in the UK, Poland and US. The film uses 125+ artists to animate the story behind new evidence concerning Vincent’s death/suicide.

5. Camille Claudel, 1988, French film with subtitles about the 19th century female sculptor who worked in Paris with Auguste Rodin, became his mistress and struggled with the art world and society.

6. Total Eclipse, 1995, a dark dramatic film shot in the UK, Belgium, and US about the lives of 19th century French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio.

7. Moulin Rouge, 1952, British film directed by John Houston, based on the life of 19th century French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. (This is not the 2001 film with Nicole Kidman.)

8. Girl with a Pearl Earring, 2003, American film about the Dutch painter Vermeer which stars Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth

9. Frida, 2002, American film about the life of Mexican Surrealist painter Frida Kahlo and her marriage to Diego Riveria. Stars Salma Hayek.

10. Pollock, 2000, American film about the 20th century Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock. Stars Ed Harris.

11. Artemisia, 1997, French film about female Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi

12. Goya’s Ghost, 2006, American film about the Spanish Baroque painter Francisco Goya. Stars Natalie Portman and Javier Bardem

13. Big Eyes, 2014, American film based on the life and strange story of 1960’s pop artist Margaret Keane. Directed by Tim Burton

14. Modigliani, 2004, Film based on the early modernist Italian painter based in Paris. Stars Any Garcia.

15. Caravaggio, 1986, A UK film, a fictionalized biopic of famed 17th century Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio. Directed by Derek Jarman. An odd mix of fact and myth.

16. Basquiat, 1996, An American film based on the all too short life of 20th century NYC painter Jean Michel Basquiat who rises to fame and overdoses. Directed by Julian Schnabel (famous NYC painter) and stars Dennis Hopper, Willem Dafoe, and David Bowie as Andy Warhol.

17. Factory Girl, 2006, American film about the relationship between 1960’s NYC socialite Edie Sedgwick and pop artist Andy Warhol.

18. My Left Foot, 1989, UK biopic based on the true story of Irish painter, Christy Brown, who fights cerebral palsy to become an artist. Stars Daniel Day Lewis who won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

19. Final Portrait, 2017, UK biopic about 20th century NYC sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti. Stars Geoffrey Rush

20. Shine, 1996, Australian biopic of the dramatic life of 20th century pianist David Helfgott. Stars Geoffrey Rush who won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.

21. Amadeus, 1984, American film based on the comic/tragic life of 18th century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Winner of 8 Academy Awards and 4 Golden Globes.

22. Born to be Blue, 2016 American film of the re-imaging of the life of Jazz musician Chet Baker. Staring Ethan Hawke

23. Miss Hokusai, 2015, Japanese animated film Set in 1814, Miss Hokusai focuses on O-Ei, the daughter of famed artist Tetsuzo, better known by his pen name Hokusai, as she tries to navigate the various aspects of her life.

24. The Monuments Men, 2014, American film based directly on the story of the Nazi attempt to gather Europe’s great masterpieces of painting and sculpture to take them back to Berlin during WWII. An American group of artists, architects, and museum directors travel to Italy and France to find and save the artworks. Stars Gorge Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, and John Goodman*

25. American Splendor, 2003, American film which is an original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman

Harvey Pekar

. It stars Paul Giamatti and Harvey Pekar. Nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe Award and has won several other film festival awards.

26. I’m Not There, 2007, An innovative biopic about Bob Dylan where the musician is played by six very different actors (and one actress) during different scenes from his life. It is a wild ride to stitch this story together as you watch it but a very creative take on the story. The film is hard to quantify as part biopic, part myth. It was nominated for an Oscar and has won dozens of film awards.

Documentary Films about visual artists and musicians.

1. River and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy working with Time, 2001, a documentary about Scottish natural material sculptor/photographer Andy Goldsworthy. Interviews and video of several of his recent projects.

2. Exit through the Gift Shop, 2010, A strange documentary about trying to locate the graffiti artist known as Banksy. The film covers several artists who are a part of world of graffiti culture.

3. Faces Places, 2017, Agnes Varda, one of the leading lights of France’s honored French New Wave cinema era, and professional photographer and muralist, J.R., partake on a special art project. Together, they travel around France in a special box truck equipped as a portable photo booth and traveling printing facility as they take photographs of people around the country. With that inspiration, they also create special colossal mural pictures of individuals, communities and places they want to honor and celebrate. Winner of several film awards and nominated for an Oscar

4. Crumb, 1994, An intimate (and at times uncomfortable) documentary about the 1960’s cartoonist Robert Crumb. As creator of Zap Comics, Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural, this film follows Crumb around and interviews his family (who are as strange as they come). Directed by Terry Zigoff

5. Maria Abramovic, the Artist is Present, 2012, Documentary film about the Serbian performance artist, in connection with her 2012 art performance at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, The Artist is Present

6. Tim’s Vermeer, 2013, Inventor and graphic artist Tim Jenison seeks to understand and recreate the painting techniques used by Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer*

7. Waste Land, 2010, On the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro is Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, where men and women sift through garbage for a living. Artist Vik Muniz produces portraits of the workers and learns about their lives. Nominated for an Oscar and winner of a number of film festival awards*

8. Finding

Vivian Maier

, 2013, While working on a history book in the winter of 2007,

John Maloof

, an avid flea market and auction attendee, purchases a box of negatives at an auction in hopes that he can find photographs for his project. He only knows that the photographs were taken by an unknown person named Vivian Maier. Although he does not find any photograph appropriate for his book, John does believe that the photographs have an artistic quality rivaling that of the most renowned photographers of the era. In whatever public forms he displays the photographs, he gets the same response to them from the general person on the street. In addition to eventually acquiring all the other boxes of negatives of Vivian’s that were at the auction, John goes on a quest to find out as much as he can about Vivian to understand better the woman behind the camera and perhaps her motivations and/or the reason for the photographs themselves*

9. The Devil and Daniel Johnston, 2005, A documentary about the noted outsider musician Daniel Johnston and his fight with bipolar disorder. The film won the top award for the director at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Daniel Johnston, manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist is revealed in this portrait of madness, creativity and love.

10. Sky Ladder:The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang, 2016, Trace the rise of contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang from childhood in Mao’s China to global art world superstar, and join his quest to realize his lifelong obsession: Sky Ladder. The artist’s main medium is fire and fireworks and his huge performance events will ignite your imagination

11. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, 2012, A documentary that chronicles artist and activist Ai Weiwei as he prepares for a series of exhibitions and gets into an increasing number of clashes with the Chinese government. His rise in the international art world centers around his political/protest ideas and his ability to mount huge exhibitions. This film won a long list of awards and nominations from film festivals world wide

12. A day in the Life of Andy Warhol, 2015, Andy Warhol created some of the most instantly recognizable art of the 20th century. But perhaps his greatest work of art was himself – the cool, enigmatic pop art superstar. In this film, Stephen Smith sets out to discover the real Andy Warhol – in the hour-by-hour detail of his daily life

13. The Cardboard Bernini, 2012, A documentary about the making of a large series of sculptures made out of cardboard by artist James Grashow.

14. Lady Gaga Five Foot Two, 2017, About the life and activities of Lady Gaga. Shows her offstage life and struggles. Recently won an MTV award.

15. Searching for Sugar Man, 2012, Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock n roller known as “Sugar man”. The musician released two albums in Detroit in the 1970’s that became very popular in South Africa without the musician knowing about it.

16. Marely, 2012, A documentary about the life and legacy of the reggae star Bob Marley. Interviews with family and friends and discussion of the singers past and beliefs.

17. Basquiat, Rage to Riches, 2017, Nearly 30 years after his death, this documentary film of Jean-Michel Basquiat details how the self-taught Brooklyn-born artist rose to be one of the greats on the international art marketplace.

18. Gerhard Richter-Painting, 2011, a documentary film starring Gerhard Richter, Norbert Arns, and Hubert Becker. A documentary on the German artist that includes glimpses at his studio, which has not been seen in decades.

19. Chef’s Table, Grant Achatz, (TV show 2015-), Discover the amazing story of one of the greatest innovators of cooking as an art, how he started experimenting with flavors, textures and aromas, and how he battled a disease that almost killed him

1

World Humanities Dramatic Film Analysis

Spring 2021

Due: Thurs Feb 4th11:30pm in D2L assignment folder

Dramatic Film Assignment (do not write on Documentary films)

Writing Assignment 1: Use this as a prompt to write a 2 page analysis of two dramatic films from the list provided (dramatic films only). Answer the 4 questions below for both films comparing and contrasting when possible. I will grade it based on the rubric below.

Questions to be answered about the two films:

1. What is the social status of the two artists within their social/cultural structure?

2. What does the role of artist suggest about their time and place in history?

(Are they celebrated/rewarded? Are they reinforcing social, religious, or political elements or are they working against any of those?)

3. Is the artist reflecting society (being a mirror) or are they attempting to mold/change society (being a hammer)?

4. How is the role of creativity viewed within the plot of the film? (is it divine inspiration, individual genius, or are they reacting to larger events?)

Rubric (I use this for grading the assignment)

For each category rate the presentation from 1 to 5 (with 5 being the highest rating). Also use the category box for any comments related to that aspect of the presentations. Presentations are graded out of a total of 20 points.

Rating and comments

Research (outside sources, evidence of research, properly siting the sources)

Use of specific examples from the two films

Clearly analyzing the film and identifying the role of the artist within the society

Overall length/quality of the paper as it related to the assignment.

Total points___________________________