Will You Be My Friend [Flash]
posted by MiltonRandKalman on Oct 9, 2008 - 12 comments

Koyaanisqatsi [more inside]
posted by phrontist on May 10, 2008 - 72 comments

Rivers And Tides sic transit gloria mundi
posted by vronsky on Apr 18, 2007 - 28 comments

Eroica. Film director Andrzej Munk’s tragic death at age thirty-nine might have formed the plot for one of his own darkly sardonic works: a Polish Jew and an active resistance worker during the war, he was returning home from shooting his film Passenger at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1961 when an oncoming truck struck his car. He left behind only four feature films, but his influence was prodigious. As one of the key figures of the postwar “Polish School” of filmmaking, along with Wajda and Kawalerowicz, he helped to shape a vision that broke with the official social realist optimism of Eastern-bloc dogma and cast a skeptical eye on official notions of heroism, nationalism, and life in the Stalinist-occupied state. Mentor to Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski, his influence can be felt even in the films of a later generation of Polish filmmakers — directors like Zanussi and Kieslowski. More inside.
posted by matteo on Dec 7, 2005 - 7 comments

Into the realm of Henry Darger When Henry Darger died in Chicago on April 13, 1973, he was a destitute man whose final days were spent at a home for the elderly. Now, 30 years later, Darger ranks among the greatest outsider artists America has ever seen. Found in the astounding clutter of Darger's one-room apartment was a 15,000-page fantasy epic, bound by hand in 15 volumes, titled "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion." Along with this were three separate volumes filled with 300 drawings, including 87 multi-sheet horizontal panels, some 12 feet long with drawings on both sides. The discovery of Darger's NSFW work spawned numerous books, a play, a British rock band (the Vivian Girls), and an excellent y2karl MetaFilter post. And now there's also Jessica Yu's documentary "In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger," a portrait of the reclusive artist that has been shortlisted for the upcoming Academy Award nominations. Again, Darger's art can be disturbing and must be considered not safe for work (more inside)
posted by matteo on Jan 14, 2005 - 30 comments

The Documentary Photography of Desiree Dolron
posted by chill on Aug 30, 2003 - 10 comments

Like many of us, I enjoy the bad women, from your garden variety betrayed women to the problem girls, the untamed youth running wild. An all too brief gallery of documentary films about this fascinating subculture is up over at retrocrush.
posted by jonson on Jul 24, 2003 - 10 comments

Art in the twenty-first century. Twenty-one artists who are defining the visual arts for a new millennium discuss their life, their work, and their vision in Art:21 - Art in the Twenty-First Century, a four-part series premiering Fall 2001 on PBS. Art:21 offers a unique glimpse into 21 artists' personal experiences, sources of inspiration, and creative processes. The last episode played last night, but the site has a wealth of information on some amazing artists. Did anyone catch this?
posted by mad on Feb 8, 2002 - 8 comments