Watching the rebels...
January 20, 2011 8:05 AM   Subscribe

Movies about artistic rebels (preferably with their circles of friends)...

Looking for movies about artistic rebels of all kinds:

- Groups especially preferred: The Bloomsbury Circle, the Harlem Renaissance, American expats in Paris, Colette in France, etc.
- Individuals/couples okay: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera; Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz; Anais Nin and the Millers; Charles Bukowski

Other things:
- Non-English-language films okay
- Artists, poets, writers, thinkers, intellectuals of all kinds, etc.
- Sexual rebels (LGBT, polyamorous, divorced if unusual for that time, etc.) are preferred (Oscar Wilde, Anais Nin)

Are there any movies about Neruda, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Baudelaire, Borges, Jackson Pollack, Warhol?

Thanks!
posted by 3491again to Media & Arts (35 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
Are you specifically looking for movies based on the lives of real people?

If not, Jesus of Montreal is a great film about a theater troupe that puts on a powerful Passion Play which ends up pitting them against the church. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097635/
posted by fuzzygerdes at 8:11 AM on January 20, 2011


Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Surviving Picasso, F for Fake (sort of)
posted by ifjuly at 8:20 AM on January 20, 2011


Pollock
Basquiat
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:21 AM on January 20, 2011


I Shot Andy Warhol, Henry and June, 24 Hour Party People

If you can stomach it, The Doors movie (hilariously craptacular and inaccurate), Factory Girl maybe.
posted by ifjuly at 8:21 AM on January 20, 2011


Frida
Prick Up Your Ears
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:22 AM on January 20, 2011


Wilde (I need to get better at thinking of everythingallatonce)
posted by ifjuly at 8:23 AM on January 20, 2011


Wilde
Tropic of Cancer
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:24 AM on January 20, 2011


A movie making the circuit right now, A Man Within, about William S. Burroughs. Gonna go see it tonight.
posted by edgeways at 8:30 AM on January 20, 2011


Seconding Mrs. Parker and the Viscious Circle
Carrington
posted by libraryhead at 8:46 AM on January 20, 2011


Camille Claudel
posted by cda at 8:51 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Naked Lunch.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:52 AM on January 20, 2011


Impromptu - about the friendship of Frederic Chopin and George Sand, with Franz Liszt showing up as well.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:56 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's supposed to be pretty awful, but Total Eclipse - about Rimbaud and Verlaine.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:58 AM on January 20, 2011


And of course, Henry & June - about Anais Nin and Henry Miller.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:00 AM on January 20, 2011


Oh yeah... and Love Is The Devil - about painter and sexual rebel Francis Bacon.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:01 AM on January 20, 2011


Quills - about the Marquis de Sade, who scores as a writer, an intellectual, and a sexual rebel.

He's a presence - and presiding spirit of sorts - in Marat/Sade too.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:04 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Howl -- Allen Ginsberg and the obsenity trial regarding is work "Howl"
posted by wg at 9:07 AM on January 20, 2011


Haunted Summer about the Shelleys and Lord Byron.
posted by Knowyournuts at 9:08 AM on January 20, 2011


Downtown 81
posted by rhizome at 9:08 AM on January 20, 2011


Marquis is a unique take on the Marquis de Sade.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:14 AM on January 20, 2011


Uh... Short Bus? The Agony and the Ecstasy?
posted by alex_skazat at 10:14 AM on January 20, 2011


Might be a slight stretch, but The Barbarian Invasions (along with its prequel, The Decline of the American Empire).
posted by timetoevolve at 10:16 AM on January 20, 2011


Exit Through the Gift Shop is a film by/about Banksy and his experiment Mr. Brainwash.
posted by workerant at 10:27 AM on January 20, 2011


The Cool School
Herb and Dorothy
Beautiful Losers
In a Dream - Moving Documentary about an artist and his family, filmed by his son.
you might also enjoy Alice Neel
posted by ljesse at 10:51 AM on January 20, 2011


Beautiful Losers
posted by pajamazon at 10:51 AM on January 20, 2011


aka preview fail
posted by pajamazon at 10:53 AM on January 20, 2011


The Universe of Keith Haring is now streaming on Netflix. It's pretty great.
posted by ColdChef at 10:55 AM on January 20, 2011


A documentary about one of Andy Warhol's cohorts, Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story (I watched it on Hulu) is a really interesting peek into that art scene.
posted by backwords at 11:12 AM on January 20, 2011


Il Postino (The Postman) is not exactly about Pablo Neruda, but he is a major character in the (fictional) story, which takes place during his exile from Chile.
posted by malapropist at 2:36 PM on January 20, 2011


Lust for Life. Swing Kids
posted by IndigoJones at 3:05 PM on January 20, 2011


I'm sure you already know about Henry and June. I'd suggest Reds, too, though that might be more political than you're looking for.
posted by Mael Oui at 7:53 PM on January 20, 2011


Savage Messiah, a biopic about the life of French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 9:59 PM on January 20, 2011


They certainly aren't rebels, but Topsy-Turvy is a very good film about the creative process Gilbert and Sullivan go through in putting together their first production of The Mikado.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 10:35 PM on January 20, 2011


The Anniversary Party
Peter's Friends

Both these movies are fictional, but draw from the lives of the real-life actors/friends in the films.
posted by Ellemeno at 3:52 AM on January 21, 2011


Trumbo

Also, if you count journalism as artistic (and i definitely think it can be), then:

Tell the Truth and Run, George Seldes
posted by kristi at 10:43 AM on January 21, 2011


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