Looking for a little inspiration this spring? I've watched two great movies about painters in the last week and thought I'd share them. Surprisingly I found them at Blockbuster, but they are also available from Netflix. Here's the synopsis from the Seraphine website:
SÉRAPHINE is the story of Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (Yolande Moreau), a simple and profoundly devout housekeeper who in 1905 at age 41, self-taught and with the instigation of her guardian angel began painting brilliantly colorful canvases. In 1912 Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), a German art critic and collector – he was one of the first collectors of Picasso and champion of naïve primitive painter Le Douanier Rousseau – discovered her paintings while she worked for him as a maid in his house in Senlis outside Paris. A moving and unexpected relationship develops between the avant-garde art dealer and the visionary cleaning lady leading to Séraphine’s work being grouped with other naïve painters – the so-called “Sacred Heart Painters” – with acclaimed shows in France, elsewhere in Europe and eventually at New York’s MOMA . Martin Provost’s poignant portrait of this now largely forgotten painter is a testament to the mysteries of creativity and the resilience of one woman’s spirit.
I was very moved by this very French, slow paced, visually rich film. Watch it with patience and wonder.
Local Color was a surprisingly rich film as well. A coming of age story sprinkled with discussions about representational art versus abstract art and why one pursues art at all.
If you are looking for some other great films get on over to Lisa Hoffman's Ever Changing Journal for "The Top 45 Must See Documentaries" – enter them into your Netflix Queue and the next time your clan croons, "what should we watch?" you'll have your list at hand. Many of them are available to play instantly. Way cool.
Sorry about the weird spacing in the last part of this post – I just don't have the energy to dick around with TypePad for an hour to try and fix it. Can you relate?