Friday, September 30, 2011

the body is our tool/wanting to see it












Ballet dancer Sarah Lamb on Degas. I like how she notices imperfect dance pose but acknowledges the possibility of either a changing art form or a tired dancer.

Wanting to see it:

I sometimes want to see representations of artists on film, and often am irritated with what I find. As with other subcultures (forgive the use of this term please) I think we sometimes embrace so-so movies because they at least represent us. (I can practically hear John Waters saying, and why should want that from the mainstream anyway???) What most of my students are exposed to are the music biopics, ie Ray, Cash, etc. Going back a bit further, Coal Miner's Daughter is a guilty pleasure. In all, the trajectory is tidied for maximum plot arc.

Specific to my medium, I'm always looking for good depictions of 4x5 photographers. And if for the purpose of this post we exclude both the super obscure and the documentary, where do the large format artists show up in the mainstream? I have to say, at least Jude Law's psychotic photographer character in The Road to Perdition was using his gear correctly.

Can anyone think of depictions of artists on film, dead on, terrible, or otherwise?

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