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Long before a new superhero movie came out every quarter, Warner Bros. and Tim Burton redefined the genre forever with 1989’s “Batman.” Three decades after that blockbuster shaped pop culture, WB has released it and its three sequels in 4K Blu-ray form, allowing young viewers a chance to see how superhero movies have changed since the ‘80s and ‘90s, and those who remember this unusual franchise the opportunity to revisit it.
The 4K releases have been controversial in the way some of them, particularly Burton’s first film, have been color timed in a way that arguably doesn’t reflect their original theatrical release. A slight change in hue can really alter any film, but especially one that relies so heavily on dark shades like black and blue. And “Batman” does look a little “off” to me, although it’s been 30 years since I saw it three days in a row as a young teenager on opening weekend. The other three look better, especially “Returns,” and all of them have strong sound mixes.
As for the movies themselves, what’s striking first about “Batman” is how tactile it feels compared to the modern superhero movie. Actual set design, detailed costume/make-up work, and practical effects make it feel less like a cartoon than the CGI-heavy affairs that make millions now. It’s funny that a movie that probably felt like garish overload in 1989 looks downright tame now in how it allows its plot time to breathe, and actors a chance to build characters. What’s most noticeable is how simple it is when compared to modern blockbusters that incorporate dozens of characters, most played by household names. “Batman” is a four-person show: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, and Tim Burton (with honorary mentions to Danny Elfman and Robert Wuhl). It feels almost small compared to the MCU and DCEU, allowing Keaton and Nicholson to construct their characters off each other—Keaton’s Batman being the straight man to the insanity of Nicholson’s Joker. On that note, Nicholson is truly inspired here, giving the kind of bonkers performance that's too rarely allowed in blockbusters of any era.
Speaking of bonkers, it is still hard to believe that “Batman Returns” got made. Controversial at the time and relatively unsuccessful, it is now viewed by many as the best of this era of Batman films and one of Burton’s best. But from the very beginning, Burton’s vision feels more daring and confident than in the first film, and he gets more than he could have dreamed of getting out of Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Danny DeVito as The Penguin. Watching it now reminds one how few auteur-driven films we get in the modern superhero era. This is undeniably a Tim Burton movie, full of his influences and vision in every frame. With the occasional exception (“Black Panther,” “Wonder Woman”), superhero movies today feel like the product of a committee more than an artist. What scared people about “Batman Returns” in 1992 is what makes it so revelatory today. It’s one of the best and strangest movies of its kind ever made.
But "Batman Returns" earned $100 million less than the film that came before, and so there was upheaval. Everyone was replaced, including Burton and Keaton, although the former does get a producer credit on 1995’s “Batman Forever,” a movie that was designed to bring fun back into the Bat-verse. Val Kilmer replaced Keaton, Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey filled the villain roles of Two-Face and The Riddler, and Nicole Kidman was the love interest. What could go wrong?
Watching it today, it seems obvious that new director Joel Schumacher was trying to do something that felt like Burton’s films (at least the first one) but he didn't have the vision or passion to do it. “Batman Forever” starts promisingly enough—the casting is strong and early scenes with Jones and Carrey are effective—but it gets weaker as it goes along. If the Burton Batman films shows us something we miss in today’s movies about men in tights, the Schumacher ones show us how far we’ve come. This is a hollow, clunky film.
Although it’s masterful compared to “Batman and Robin,” one of the truly worst blockbusters ever made. Everything that’s wrong about “Forever” is amplified in “Robin,” a movie that's shockingly incompetent at times. It’s crystal clear that Schumacher and everyone else behind the camera was just taking a job for the money. That’s what happened over the course of these films—a passion project became a cash grab. Everyone who makes a superhero movie should consider on which side of that spectrum history will place them.
Get your Batman Blu-rays here.
“It scares us just thinking about it.”
Before calling upon its own time-spanning cinematic universe of cursed objects and malevolent spirits, James Wan’s “The Conjuring”—among the most terrifying horror films of the 21st Century—opened with these words back in 2013. They were spoken by a pair of young nurses haunted by Annabelle, a bizarrely compelling collector’s item doll seized by a sinister presence aiming to eventually possess a human spirit. The 1968 case of Annabelle served as our isolated introduction to Ed and Lorraine Warren (played throughout the series by the dedicated duo Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga with spiritual conviction); a pair of religious paranormal researchers who contained the evil in their room of ominous conduits before “The Conjuring” launched into its own story. As Ed Warren put it, it was just better to keep the genie in the bottle instead of destroying the doll.
I realize this context reads a bit like homework as most “something-something universe” summaries often do. Nevertheless, it is an important set up for the latest and only sufficiently creepy franchise spinoff “Annabelle Comes Home,” which takes that same genie out of the bottle some years after the nurses got rid of it. In a way, this is the chronological “Annabelle” movie we all secretly wanted while watching “The Conjuring” years ago; it is actually surprising that it took nearly half a dozen sequels and underwhelming byproducts like “The Curse of La Llorona” or “The Nun” to show us what happened when the Warrens added another item into their growing family of locked-away demons. If only the half-baked story could also meet our expectations, or at least match the logic of the previous two “Annabelle” films.
In this installment by debut director Gary Dauberman (the scribe for the earlier two Annabelle movies), we pick up exactly where the opening scene of “The Conjuring” left off. After an eventful car ride that announces the severity of Annabelle’s menace, the Warrens decide to contain the doll in a blessed glass case in their residence, away from the eyes and ears of their precocious 10-year-old daughter Judy, played by the soulful “Gifted” actress Mckenna Grace with astuteness beyond her years. A totally normal kid considering the circumstances—who amongst us would have turned out okay if we were raised in a haunted house by demonologist parents constantly making the headlines?—Judy gets bullied in school all the same, having trouble even recruiting enough friends to come to her birthday celebration.
While most of the kids are mean to her, Judy seems to have lucked out with her affable babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman)—the charming teenager happily signs on for the task to look after the troubled kid while the Warrens take off on an overnight trip. A gifted clairvoyant like her mother—she even gets her own “I see dead people” scene—Judy appears to be unusually mature about her views on death and afterlife, at least enough to advise Mary Ellen’s firebrand of a friend Daniela (Katie Sarife) who still harbors wounds about her deceased father. If only that were adequate for Daniela—her pain proves to be so deep that she ends up being the one to sneak into the forbidden room of artifacts to communicate with her father, only to involuntarily awaken whatever’s inside Annabelle.
Along with his cinematographer Michael Burgess, Dauberman swiftly utilizes every nook and cranny of the Warren house for maximum spookiness—predictably, the well-choreographed scenes in the artifact room are the film’s strongest. And yet, while it’s fun to be in the company of an all-girls squad who have to survive a sleepover fright fest, the scares of “Annabelle Comes Home” don’t push the envelope much further than creaky floorboards and teased horrors hidden from camera’s view only to be revealed seconds later for generic jump scares.
But the real problem here is the lack of a sincere story. Daniela’s initial and completely implausible break into the prohibited room—clearly marked with various warning signs—followed by her opening of Annabelle’s case labeled with a massive “Positively Do Not Open” notice, makes very little sense. We only vaguely comprehend how a curious teen could be that fearless, and only mildly sympathize with her reasons to stubbornly put everyone in danger’s way. Meanwhile the script (also by Dauberman, from a story by Wan) doesn’t grant Daniela the generosity of smarts. For the most part, her actions and bravery seem senselessly obtuse, begging the question, why can’t she just ask the Warrens to safely initiate a connection with her father, if it could be done at all?
Still, “Annabelle Comes Home” isn’t entirely without its guilty pleasures. “The Conjuring” universe has always sported top-notch period costuming, and the latest chapter follows suit with Leah Butler’s skillful designs that tiptoe around the transitional looks of the early ‘70s. Dauberman also does right by the wacky humor of the franchise, which he delivers through a character named Bob, so adorably smitten with Mary Ellen that he pledges to survive his own little corner of horrors. Eventually, Dauberman hits an unexpectedly sweet note with the accumulation of various female coming-of-age stories. But “Annabelle Comes Home” proves it’s perhaps time to put the genie back in its bottle and bring this particular creepy doll series to a decisive close.
Last night's festivities at the Music Box Theater's Cinepocalypse festival included a special presentation of “Into the Dark: Culture Shock,” the next film in Hulu and Blumhouse’s monthly holiday horror series, which also had its trailer release today. This July 4th-based installment, directed by rising filmmaker Gigi Saul Guerrero, feels very much like it came from Blumhouse—it could easily take place in the worlds of “The Purge” or “Get Out,” while telling of a Mexican immigrant who comes to America and encounters disturbing artifice. But "Culture Shock" has an anger, mystery, and unflinching perspective that makes it stand out, serving up the type of socio-political horror that is both compelling to watch and primed to start some debates.
The movie starts with an opening credit sequence that flashes news clips and shocking, foreshadowing imagery, accompanied by “America the Beautiful”—very “Purge”-like down to the song, and maybe an opening credit sequence worth skipping. But then "Culture Shock" throws you right into the life of Marisol (Martha Higareda in a very strong performance) a pregnant Mexican woman (the result of a traumatic rape) who wants to get to America, a place that the men around her call “super nice.” There are so many factors that say Marisol shouldn't do the journey—including that she's due to give birth any day now, she's already been ripped off trying to migrate before—but she persists. Guerrero has a very lean approach to her storytelling in this part of the story, showing matter-of-factly the unpredictable process of how a woman like Marisol would get from small village to the American border—including all of the people who would rip her and others off along the way. It’s telling within the big picture of "Culture Shock" that this part has a horror element of its own, showing the vulnerability that she and others have when venturing through darkness to an uncertain destination.
Marisol does make it to the border—in a tense scene that involves being chased by murderous cartel members—and suddenly wakes up in a hyper dreamy, cream-colored world. She’s in a town called Cape Joy, and it’s scary as hell: Everyone is indeed super nice, including her host Betty (Barbara Crampton, her piercing gaze and smile working overtime) and the other pastel-wearing, smile-plastered residents, who are working to build a 4th of July display at a gazebo. It’s not long before Marisol starts to notice the artifice of this world—just as Marisol is shown to be heroically stubborn in the previous chapters, she's incredibly conscious of what’s around her. Soon, she starts to unravel the truth about the America before her eyes.
Written by James Benson, Efren Hernandez and Gigi Saul Guerrero, “Culture Shock” has characters who are straight-forward enough (like a man who migrates with her and is then transformed, named Santo [Richard Cabral]) and an ultimate horror scheme that comes with equal shock and obviousness. Whether you more or less agree with the movie and its critique on the United States—which does not present America as place that anyone, citizen or immigrant, should simply accept as is—you get what the movie wants to say.
Yet while those factors might sink some other movies, “Culture Shock” boasts Guerrero's assured, scrappy direction, which is divided into three very different looking thirds, each with their own visual edge. And when it wants to be gross (like listening to and watching the robotic citizens of Cape Joy stuff food into their mouths) or wants to be in-your-face with violence (as in a third-act explosion of gore) it works. The world of “Culture Shock” always feels like a tangible B-movie nightmare, and it can be as visceral as it is thoroughly American.
Guerrero was in attendance for the screening, and spoke a little bit afterward about the process of making “Culture Shock.” She talked about coming into the project, when it was only a script, and with an infectious smile shared that she told the people at Blumshouse that she was going to make it “so Mexican.” Throughout “Culture Shock,” there are important cultural flourishes—even the way that it flashes Spanish credits in its opening credits, or along with its fully subtitled first third. It feels specific, yet inclusive. The film welcomes all to see America through the eyes of a migrant, and it’s not a vision of horror you'll soon forget.
If “Anna” were made by any other filmmaker, it could be dismissed as little more than a shameless attempt to copy the offbeat and visually stylish action epics of French filmmaker Luc Besson that goes disastrously wrong right from the start and only gets worse as things progress. In fact, “Anna” was written and directed by Besson himself and it still feels like a misfired rehash of his greatest hits. In the wake of the enormous box-office failure of his previous film, the wildly ambitious sci-fi saga “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets," it makes a certain amount of sense that he might want to retreat to something a little more familiar as a way of reestablishing his commercial standing, but even long-standing fans of his will find it hard to muster much enthusiasm for this startlingly lazy bit of by-the-numbers hackwork.
As the film opens in 1990, Anna (Sasha Luss), a beautiful young Russian, is selling nesting dolls in a Moscow market when she is spotted by a scout for a French modeling agency and sent off to Paris to work. Before long, she catches the eye of a fellow countryman, a wealthy businessman who is one of the investors in the firm, using the money that he makes illegally selling weapons to the enemies of the world. After a couple of months of flirtation, it seems as she is about to go to bed with him until she puts an end to the whole thing by cooly putting a bullet in his head.
Three years earlier, the brilliant-but-downtrodden Anna was living on the fringes of society with an abusive criminal boyfriend and a desperate need to escape her horrible circumstances. This escape comes in the form of Alex ((Luke Evans), a KGB agent who recognizes the usefulness of her combination of beauty, brains and ambition and offers her a chance to join the organization and work with him and his boss, the imperious Olga (Helen Mirren, evidently using this film as an audition reel for the role of Edna in the inevitable live-action remake of “The Incredibles.”), with the promise that she will be free to go after five years of service.
Back in 1990, Anna is maintaining her cover as an up-and-coming model, even going so far as to establish a romance with fellow model named Maud (Lera Abova) while knocking off the occasional target—generally while wearing something of a fetishy nature—and carrying on a clandestine romance with Alex in her spare time. Eventually, Anna’s cover is blown by Lenny Miller (Cillian Murphy), an American CIA agent who wants to put her to use for his own particular ends to settle a gruesome score depicted in an otherwise mystifying prologue. With no other alternative, Anna agrees and even begins sleeping with him as well. Before long, however, Anna just wants to be rid of all entanglements and deploys her cunning, sexuality and ability to kill many people while wearing what appears to be the entire Victoria’s Secret spring line.
At this point, some of you with longer memories may be thinking that this description of “Anna” makes it sound quite similar to “La Femme Nikita,” the 1990 action hit that marked Besson’s major international breakthrough. In fact, it is so similar in so many ways that it feels as if Besson dug up an early draft of that screenplay and simply shot that after changing the character names and some of the locations. (This might explain why the story insists on taking place around 1990 even though the technology employed by the characters throughout is almost distractingly anachronistic.) Now if Besson had chosen to rework such familiar material as a way of exploring the change in gender attitudes in genre filmmaking since the release of “La Femme Nikita,” that might have been an interesting approach (especially considering how the film’s release comes on the heels of several allegations of sexual misconduct, including rape, that have been leveled against Besson over the last year or so), but the only significant addition here is a distractingly fragmented time structure in which a shocking revelation is made and then the story rewinds to spend a chunk of time explaining the backstory behind the new development. This approach adds nothing of value or interest to the proceedings and has clearly been deployed in an attempt to distract viewers from recognizing just how predictable everything really is.
I have been a passionate fan of Besson’s films for years and have embraced his films—yes, even “Valerian”—for their impeccable and distinctive style, the intricately choreographed action sequences, the cheerfully oddball narratives often studded with moments of welcome wacko humor and the charismatic performances from the actresses who have been the central figures of most of his stories over the years. Amazingly, virtually none of these elements are on display here. Instead of the infectious and almost gleeful energy that usually drives his films, Besson just seems to be going through the motions, and his work, despite the contributions of such regular collaborators as cinematographer Thierry Arbogast, editor Julien Rey and composer Eric Serra, is as bland as can be. Aside from two admittedly standout sequences—Anna’s debut as an assassin in a crowded restaurant, in which she ends up using broken plates as lethal weapons, and a montage that juxtaposes her modeling and murdering gigs—the actions beats are ho-hum and the entire thing is lacking any real sense of humor. (The film has one ingenious idea—the conceit of a cutthroat killer going undercover in the equally cutthroat world of modelling—but does nothing with it other than the aforementioned montage and an off-putting bit where Anna gets revenge on a creepy photographer seemingly inspired by Terry Richardson.) As for Sasha Luss, she is undeniably gorgeous but does not bring much of anything else to the table here—she certainly demonstrates none of the undeniable screen charisma displayed by the likes of Anne Parillaud, Natalie Portman, Milla Jovovich and Cara Delevingne in their various screen collaborations with Besson.
Of course, Besson has made bad movies in the past but even in clunkers like “The Family” and “The Lady,” he was at least making some kind of discernible effort. “Anna,” on the other hand, is so aimless and listless that you can hardly believe that he was even on the set for the majority of its production. All he has to offer here is the aforementioned two decent action scenes, some interesting underwear and a Helen Mirren performance that is mildly amusing, though it will not take up too much time in any future Lifetime Achievement highlight reels. Of course, there will be some who will decry that someone under the kind of cloud of suspicion that Besson is still facing should not be allowed to make and release any film in this current climate. Ironicaly, if this had actually happened to “Anna,” though, it would have only been doing Besson a favor.
It’s the stuff of classic country tunes, this tale of heartache, honky-tonkin’ and hard-won redemption. It’s also the stuff of every movie about an underdog who dreams of music stardom, with its hardscrabble origins, a raw talent, inner demons and a final triumph upon a glittering stage.
But “Wild Rose” trashes those tropes and repeatedly upends your expectations of how a film like this is supposed to play out -- how it should look, how it should sound. It also has the benefit of an electrifying, star-making performance in Irish actress Jessie Buckley. As the title character, she is truly wild in all the best and worst possible ways: unfiltered and unpredictable, manic and magnetic, a charmer and a child. But while director Tom Harper gives Buckley the opportunity to take over the screen and mesmerize us, he also knows well enough to sit back and watch and listen during the quiet moments. When Buckley’s Rose allows herself to be vulnerable, to expose herself to the uncomfortable revelations that come with introspection, it can be as powerful as when she’s belting out a song from the heart.
From the start, “Wild Rose” has an unexpected premise: It’s about a young Scottish woman who aspires to be a country singer. (In an amusing running bit, she rolls her eyes and exasperatedly corrects anyone who refers to the genre as “Country & Western.”) Rose was raised in a working-class section of Glasgow, the only child of a longtime bakery attendant (a subtly no-nonsense Julie Walters, providing tough love). But she believes she should have been born in America, and that she belongs in Nashville.
When we first see Rose, she’s getting out of prison after a year behind bars on a drug charge, strutting away in a white-fringed leather jacket and matching cowboy boots that provide a stark contrast amid the gray Scottish skies and reflect her isolation. It’s telling that the first stop she makes is for a quick romp with her boyfriend (to whom she sings Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight” instead of ringing the doorbell) rather than to her mother’s house, where her two young children await. They carry the country legend names of Wynonna (Daisy Littlefield) and Lyle (Adam Mitchell). They are 8 and 5. They barely know her -- and she has no clue how to get to know them. As compelling as the flashy musical numbers can be in “Wild Rose,” seeing Rose struggle awkwardly to connect with her children during more intimate moments packs an even greater punch.
Despite being a single mother of two in her early 20s, Rose is still totally selfish at this point. A brash loner who says whatever’s on her mind -- usually in the most profane way possible, which is both shocking and adorable -- she has a tendency to undermine whatever progress she makes toward becoming responsible and reliable. She’s got swagger for days, but she can’t help getting in her own way. The great tension of “Wild Rose” comes not from wondering whether she’ll ever make it to Nashville to live her Grand Ole Opry dreams but rather whether she and her children will ever share a hug.
And yet for all her failures and frustrations, Rose comes alive when she sings. This is true both on stage at the local bar where they offer country line dancing lessons and in her own bubble of blissful oblivion, vacuuming with her ever-present headphones on while working as a housekeeper for a wealthy family. Sophie Okonedo brings a welcome sense of warmth and a different kind of maternal energy as the posh wife and mom who starts out as Rose’s employer but becomes a fan and maybe even a friend.
But just when you think you know where that relationship -- and Rose’s trajectory -- are headed, “Wild Rose” switches things up on you, the screenplay from Nicole Taylor offering consistent surprises. Something else that sets the film apart: its soundtrack of country music tunes from a who’s-who of powerhouse female artists, from Wynonna Judd to Bonnie Raitt to Trisha Yearwood to Kacey Musgraves in the quickest of cameos for those who are paying attention. “Wild Rose” may sound like a familiar tune, but you’ve never heard it performed quite like this.
Within minutes of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s new documentary “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am,” it’s obvious that the distinguished author is a born storyteller. Her words are precious, perfectly placed in her melodic speech. Even her childhood memories come off as tiny epics, revealing some part of her, and by extension, some part of us in the process. Her reverence and awe at the power of the written word are as strong as ever. With a knowing smile, she revisits her memories in one-on-one style interviews, looking directly at the camera—at us—to tell her story. A chorus of scholars, critics and friends join her to sing praises for her work that she’s too modest to bring up herself.
Today, we know Toni Morrison as a Nobel Prize-winner, a staple on high school reading lists, and the occasional target of a book ban. But even as a child, she noticed the world around her differently. In the documentary, she remembers her grandfather bragging about having read the Bible five times. She thought it odd, but later, she would recognize that in his time, it was illegal for Black people to read, so his accomplishment was an act of subversion and instilled in her the feeling that the written word mattered. Morrison also recalled the childhood memory of a Black girl her age who prayed for blue eyes. She realized that the pain the girl was in was caused by generations of racism. That memory would become the basis for her first book, The Bluest Eye.
Throughout the documentary, its subjects explain the impossible barriers Morrison faced in her career, including the literary establishment who undervalued her abilities and the financial challenges as a single mother. White critics lamented her insistence on centering the Black experience, like when the New York Times declared Morrison too talented a writer to “remain a recorder of black provincial life” in its review of her second book, Sula. Morrison is later shown batting away similarly ignorant questions about her work in older interviews. Almost immediately in the documentary, she addresses the white gaze and explains with the patience of a teacher why whiteness was assumed to be the norm and why her work was so threatening to those assumptions. She touches on craft, her writing routine and how she writes about the Black experience for an audience that doesn’t need it spelled out for them.
Among the voices of admirers are fans and friends Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, and Sonia Sanchez. It’s an incredible array of testimonies, but I wish it went beyond unbridled platitudes. These are deeply sharp women, and I know they have more to say about Morrison’s work, like Oprah, who not only championed her books on her TV show, she produced the film of Morrison’s unflinchingly raw novel “Beloved,” but these moments pass by quickly in the film. Davis mentions how Morrison brought up other Black writers at Random House, where she worked as an editor, but her interview stops short of what it meant that not only did she succeed in this field but also opened doors for others. There is not a word of criticism of Morrison’s work that isn’t meant to be scorned at for its shallow, racist conclusions, which gives the documentary a very positive tone but feels like an incomplete portrait of a complex artist who did not hold back from confronting the worst of human history and its present.
Greenfield-Sanders, a documentarian known for working on the HBO anthology series like “The Latino List,” “The Out List” and “The Trans List,” is used to compiling different strands of stories into one greater tapestry. One issue with this approach is its stop-and-go nature of jumping from archival photos and television interviews to those taken in a present-day photo studio. Interspersed throughout the interviews are examples of Black art that illustrate things mentioned in Morrison’s books or in others’ anecdotes. The collection is impressive and thoroughly researched, but the extra additions slow the rhythm of this story just enough to lose some momentum.
Still, the documentary has the power to introduce Toni Morrison to a new generation of readers and share new stories with longtime fans. We get an empowering impression of the woman behind those words. We get a deeper appreciation of what it means for her to have published books and have them resonate with audiences. And we get a better sense of the behind-the-scenes struggles Morrison won against pay inequality and discrimination. Morrison’s legacy is more than just the titles on a reading list, and this documentary will likely help many viewers see just how monumental her accomplishments remain.
In spite of the seeming preponderance of contemporary celebrity artists, it’s relatively rare for a great painter to be successful in his or her own lifetime. That’s useful to bear in mind while watching “A Bigger Splash,” a 1973 film directed by Jack Hazan focusing on several years in the life of the British painter David Hockney.
This unusual and sometimes unsettling film is a kind of staged documentary that could not have been made without the cooperation of people who were going though genuine challenges in their life at the time. Its theme is encapsulated by something Hockney says early on: “When love goes wrong, there’s more than two people that suffer.” In “Splash” (and yes, Luca Guadagnino, for reasons of his own that are probably pretty indefensible, lifted this movie’s title for his own not-bad 2015 remake of the 1969 French thriller “La Piscine”), the love that goes wrong is between Hockney and Peter Schlesinger, who figures as a model in many of Hockney’s famous “pool paintings” of the early 1970s, many of which were painted in California.
But “A Bigger Splash” doesn’t have much water or sun, except in paintings or staged dream sequences. After the pouty Schlesinger leaves Hockney, the painter, whose platinum blonde hair and oversize black-rimmed spectacles made him an iconic pop art figure even as his painting split the difference between Warhol (the pop feel), Matisse (the color) and Francis Bacon (the anxiety, more understated here of course), falls into paralysis. He consults with friends, including the designer Celia Birtwill. He puts off gallery owners and managers. The critic and curator Henry Geldzahler comes to visit, bearing flowers.
Cheerfully pompous, Geldzahler discourages Hockney from going to New York for too long. “You’ll be competing with Milton Avery and Edward Hopper…the great New York painters. Southern California…you have already established yourself as the great Southern California painter.” Hockney absorbs all this but does not react.
Instead he torments himself with imagined scenes of Schlesinger making love with another man. And dreams of Schlesinger in white briefs, entering the scenes of past paintings. In his studio he takes a knife to a near-completed canvas, destroying it utterly.
He is then hit by inspiration. Two images, one of a semi-nude male figure seemingly at the bottom of a pool, the other of a fully dressed man at pool’s edge, peering down.
He conducts photographic studies of what he wants. These are shot at the pool of director Tony Richardson, at his house in the south of France. Nevertheless, this painting will conclude Hockney’s Los Angeles series. The manager who poses at Richardson’s pool doesn’t have the “right hair.”
The “right hair” belongs to Schlesinger. So Hockney goes to a tatty drag show where Schlesinger is working lights and screws up the courage to ask him to model one last time.
The resultant painting, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” had up until recently held the record for the highest price paid for a work of art at an auction — it sold for a little over $90 million in 2018. It’s still the highest-priced painting, as the piece that nudged it out of the artwork record was Jeff Koons’ sculpture “Rabbit,” which got $91 million.
This information is not appended to the restoration of this movie that premiered in June. The process as Hazan depicts it and, as it seems, Hockney lived it, has nothing to do with money. Yes, Hockney in the film is clearly well-off enough that he can piss off and mourn his lost love without the wolf approaching the door. Although the concerns shown by some people who live in close proximity to if not reliance on the Hockney machine of the time do reflect various levels of economic anxiety.
That Hockney’s arguable self-indulgence eventually led to the creation of a landmark of 20th century modern art is not given much weight here either, as the film is a contemporary portrait of the artist. What the movie, with its combinations of staged conversations and encounters and intimate documentary glimpses, is finally about is how a certain artist has to work. Hockney doesn’t theorize or make grand pronouncements or whine about how lonely he is. He marks time until something within him moves, and he’s compelled to paint. Martin Scorsese has praised this film, and given that he sometimes used to say, “If I could explain the impetus behind my films in words, I wouldn’t have to make the film” (or words to that effect), it’s easy to see why. Hockney gets his feelings out, justifies them to himself, though painting. And it’s revealing that the film is framed by scenes staged very late in the process of making the film, in which Hockney is seen to have pretty much all but forgotten Schlesinger.