Dan's Papers - October 13, 2006 - "Movies On My Mind" at Pollock-Krasner

The Pollock-Krasner house, once the site of many private discussions among famous artists about art, is playing host once more to "Movies on My Mind: Artists Pick Their Favorite Films." This annual film screening series, hosted by Dan's Papers art critic Marion Wolberg Weiss, offers an opportunity for lovers of all artistic mediums to watch a celebrated contemporary artist's favorite film with them, and then join in discussion and question and answer session with the artist after the film has ended. There are two more evenings in the series.

On Friday, October 12th, Donald Sultan will present Topsy-Turvy, the 1999 film based on the lives of composers Gilbert and Sullivan. Mr. Sultan participated in an event similar to this one at the Baltimore Film Festival, and he has said that this film is his personal favorite because it is "very visual and very well done." In fact, he thinks that it is "almost the perfect movie." Although it is a sort of cult classic, Topsy-Turvy is often overlooked on lists of great movies. Yet if an artist whose works are so graphically exquisite believes this film to be visually stunning, it must be quite a sight to behold.

On the following Friday, October twentieth, celebrated painter April Gornik will introduce Hayao Miyazaki's animated film Spirited Away, perhaps the most beautiful and delicately complex animated film ever created. Ms. Gornik has been quoted as admitting that this film was her second choice, next to Paul Thomas Anderson's three-hour-long Magnolia, which Ms. Weiss deemed too long for the event. However, Spirited Away seems to be more relevant to Gornik's own work than any live-action film. The vastness and vibrancy in Gornik's vistas could be the painterly answer to Miyazaki's sweeping, computer-animated landscapes in the ethereal world he has created in Spirited Away.

In her essay discussing visual literacy, Gornik discusses why, though it is a viable artistic medium, photography cannot have the same effect as an object created by hand, because she believes photos to be the work of a machine. With this in mind, her choice of an animated feature, painstakingly painted by hand, cel by cel, seems to fit flawlessly into Gornik's aesthetic ideal.

Gornik's own landscapes depict our world in a similar fashion to Van Gogh's absinthe-soaked canvasses, but replaces Van Gogh's unsteady undertones with a distinctly placid awe of these vibrant vistas. In Spirited Away, the audience sees the world through the eyes of Chihiro, a young heroine who has stumbled into a beautiful place, where the ethereal unfamiliar landscape begs to be explored.

Gornik has voiced her belief that American children are not taught to read visual symbols and mediums as they should, and thus they grow into adults without "a sensitivity to the basic language of art." Although Spirited Away cannot teach children about medium or texture, it is one of the very few widely-available modern films which forces the viewer to read the images, as opposed to simply processing plot points fed to them via descriptive dialogue. Miyazake's film became a sensation in this country not because of its sparse dialogue but owing instead to the beauty and complexity of its images. By forcing children to unravel the visual story, Spirited Away teaches that very same visual sensitivity that April Gornik avidly promotes in both her writing and her painting.

Movies are personal; we sit in the dark, surrounded by the sounds and inundated by images for only a short while. The combination of visual matter and sound has proven to be the most effective way to reach a human being's mind and heart, and the images and stories from movies seem to linger in our minds long after the film has ended. Because of this intimate relationship between viewer and film, asking someone what his or her favorite movie is usually results in not only the naming of a title, but a carefully-thought-out explanation accompanied by a list of specific reasons which prove that this choice is worthy. While it is difficult to say with certainty that another person might agree, when a celebrated artist decides to share his or her views on this topic and also field questions, it offers insight into that artist and their own art as well, whether it be film, sculpture, painting, or any other medium.

The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center is located at 830 Fireplace Road in The Springs in East Hampton. For more information about this or any other event at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, please call 631-324-4929.