Movies about artists?

August 20, 2006 12:18 PM

Can you help me compile a list of artist movies?

I am compiling a list of based-on-fact accounts of artists in movies / films for a possible project. I have some of the usual suspects rounded up: Lust for Life, Basquiat, Pollock, Love is a Devil, Goya in Bordeaux, Camille Claudel. Know of any more?

posted by lalalana to media & arts (37 comments total)

Define artist. You've got some painters and sculptors here. Is that what you're limiting your research to or are you also looking for writers, photographers, musicians, etc?
posted by dobbs at 12:29 PM on August 20, 2006

Modigliani.
posted by scody at 12:31 PM on August 20, 2006

Here's a mess of them. And these.
posted by beagle at 12:32 PM on August 20, 2006

The Agony and The Ecstacy (1965)
posted by misterbrandt at 12:32 PM on August 20, 2006

Vincent and Theo, F for Fake
posted by dobbs at 12:35 PM on August 20, 2006

Frida. Girl With a Pearl Earring. F for Fake is brilliant.
posted by brundlefly at 12:38 PM on August 20, 2006

Amants de Montparnasse
posted by fire&wings at 12:40 PM on August 20, 2006

Surviving Picasso, I Shot Andy Warhol, Artemisia, Mr. Bing & l'Art Nouveau, Crumb.

Also, this list from Facets Multimedia, who have documentaries and biopics galore.
posted by hydrophonic at 12:41 PM on August 20, 2006

Also: Edvard Munch and Rembrandt.
posted by scody at 12:42 PM on August 20, 2006

And here's a quiz!
posted by hydrophonic at 12:47 PM on August 20, 2006

Dobbs- I was hoping for the list be of painters, sculptors, new media, not so much literary figures. I want to go over them to get a sense of perceptions of these figures as well as art in general.
posted by lalalana at 12:54 PM on August 20, 2006

Basquiat
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:55 PM on August 20, 2006

How to Draw a Bunny is about the life, art and death of Ray Johnson.
posted by RoseovSharon at 12:57 PM on August 20, 2006

HBO had a series call The Artists' Specials
Degas and the Dancer
Monet:Shadow and Light
Mary Cassatt - American Impressionist
The total list of The Artists' Specials

Does How to Draw a Bunny count?

Artemisia: The Movie
posted by nimsey lou at 12:59 PM on August 20, 2006

My Left Foot
posted by furtive at 12:59 PM on August 20, 2006

American Splendor (unless Harvey Pekar counts as "literary")
posted by misterbrandt at 1:03 PM on August 20, 2006

Crumb (unless you don't count comics as art, in which case I don't know what to say to you).
posted by limeonaire at 1:11 PM on August 20, 2006

How to Draw a Bunny counts tangentially because it is about peoples memory and perceptions of an artist. I am mostly looking for non-documentary type items, though.
I've seen American Splendor, and I think that comics and graphic novels are strange because they are getting split attention in the art world and in English departments. I'm into Splendor, great movie.
posted by lalalana at 1:11 PM on August 20, 2006

By the way, I definately count comics as art-- I am all for an expansive notion of art. Just for the purposes of this project, I am trying to start with a narrow scope, but I don't have really exlusive notions of what is or isn't art.
posted by lalalana at 1:15 PM on August 20, 2006

Regarding American Splendor: Harvey doesn't draw, so I'm not sure he qualifies, but Robert Crumb also shows up in the movie and he draws lots of stuff, so maybe it should still be on the list. In addition, there's a documentary called Crumb devoted entirely to the Bob and his family members (several of whom are also cartoonists and/or artists).
posted by Clay201 at 1:16 PM on August 20, 2006

Camille Claudel
Frida Kahlo
Jackson Pollock: Love and Death on Long Island
posted by cda at 1:17 PM on August 20, 2006

The Moon And Sixpence
posted by AmbroseChapel at 1:19 PM on August 20, 2006

Pollock, Stellar film.
posted by Meemer at 2:24 PM on August 20, 2006

Vincent & Theo
Adaptation
My Dinner With Andre
posted by mkultra at 2:33 PM on August 20, 2006

Fictional movies, not what you asked for, but good in their own way:

New York Stories
The Horses Mouth

Not fiction:
The Mystery of Picasso
posted by coevals at 3:19 PM on August 20, 2006

Do straight documentaries count? Rivers and Tides.
posted by furiousthought at 3:42 PM on August 20, 2006

Do architects count?

My Architect

Sketches of Frank Gehry
posted by vers at 4:46 PM on August 20, 2006

The best movie about an artist I know of is Derek Jarman's Carravagio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio).
posted by R. Mutt at 5:14 PM on August 20, 2006

Artist fiction movie to go with Coevals.
Slaves of New York
posted by nimsey lou at 6:33 PM on August 20, 2006

Pretty as a Picture
posted by blim8183 at 6:40 PM on August 20, 2006

Age of Consent

Sidetrack: I tried to order The Agony and the Ecstacy from Suncoast about 10 years ago and was told quite frankly "We don't sell THAT kind of movie here." The girl was a little embarassed when she finally looked it up.
posted by Yorrick at 6:51 PM on August 20, 2006

It's definitely Hollywood Product, but ... Incognito

Rivers and Tides is an incredible documentary.
posted by intermod at 8:07 PM on August 20, 2006

Basquiat played a version of himself in Downtown 81
posted by nonemoreblack at 8:31 PM on August 20, 2006

Do Hitler movies count?
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 11:03 PM on August 20, 2006

Actually, there is a movie that deals with the young Hitler as an artist ...Menno Meyje's Max (2002). John Cusack plays the the art dealer (Max) who "discovers" the young artist Hitler (Noah Taylor).
posted by R. Mutt at 7:05 AM on August 21, 2006

Lust for Life: Vincente Minneli's 1956 view of van Gogh and Gauguin.
posted by Rash at 8:39 AM on August 21, 2006

The best movie I've seen about Gauguin, Wolf at the Door with Donald Sutherland and Max Von Sydow, and one of my favorite movies about BEING an artist, La Belle Noiseuse, with Emmanuelle Béart and Michel Piccoli as model and artist.
posted by coevals at 9:19 AM on March 15, 2007