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Two
decades, 200 films
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Montreal’s Festival of Films on Art turns 20
by JOANNE LATIMER
 It’s
hard to believe that the Festival of Films on Art is celebrating its
20th anniversary this year. It has grown enormously, though sporadically,
and festival director René Rozon outdid himself again by getting
200 first-rate films together for the anniversary edition, which launches
this Tuesday, March 12.
Competition looks tight among the 40 chosen contenders for the competitive
categories. Canada’s most promising entry is Raymond Klibansky—De
la philosophie à la vie, a documentary by Anne-Marie Tougas on
the lives of ex-British secret servicemen who operated during World
War II. A special nod to the home team should also go to Serge Giguère’s
documentary portray of Suzor-Coté, titled after the artist.
Portraits of
the artists
Make note of screenings
for competition entries with strong name appeal, like films on Alberto
Giacometti, Alfred Stieglitz, Picasso, Alex Colville, Ingmar Bergman,
James Turrell, Agnes Martin and the opening film on land artist Andrew
Goldsworthy. As per usual, the fest curators have moved well beyond
insipid Biography-style simplicity; these are dimensional docs worth
catching.
Breaking down the rest by genre is most helpful. Architecture buffs
will be clamouring to see Berlin Babylon, about the radical reconstruction
of the city after The Wall fell in ’89, and a new documentary on
Frank Lloyd Wright’s famed S.C. Johnson & Son headquarters
in Wisconsin. There’s a film about I.M. Pei, Norman Foster, Livio
Vacchini and the new MOMA in New York.
Those addicted to the History Channel will need to see La Guerre du
Louvre, by Jean-Claude Bringuier. It’s a gripping account of the
removal of nearly 4,000 art works from the Louvre at the end of ’39.
Archival footage shows the rapid dismantling of the permanent exhibits,
and how 37 convoys of five trucks took weeks to empty the famous museum
when Nazi encroachment was rightly feared.
Fashion victims
Fashionistas will
be impressed to learn that there are two films by David Teboul on Yves
Saint Laurent, both filmed with the designer’s participation while
he closed his fashion house in January of last year. Both claim unprecedented
access to the designer, “for the first time.” One of Teboul’s
documentaries, called Yves Saint Laurent—5 avenue Marceau, shows
Laurent ensconced with family, friends and apprentices while preparing
for a new collection. Teboul’s second film, called Le Temps retrouvé,
is a portrait comprised of interviews—and there’s a sensational
archival clip of Laurent at Christian Dior’s funeral.
Also of note is a 1984 French film on Japanese design sensation Issey
Miyake (who allegedly avoids the “fickle artifices of fashion”),
an intriguing little film on Karl Lagerfeld, and a film on the late
designer Versace, in which his friends and long-term lover, Antonio
D’Amico, speak out about the final day of his life.
For films on film, catch Art That Shook the World, about the filming
of Battleship Potemkin, or the great bio-pic Kurosawa. There’s
vintage romance in Larry and Vivien: The Oliviers in Love, about the
tragic mental illness that drove the famed lovers Laurence Olivier and
Vivien Leigh apart, while Pavla Ustinov recounts the tale of Rosanna
Seaborn, a woman who spent 50 years working to create an epic film about
the 1837 rebellion in All or Nothing.
Fine art films abound, of course, crossing a broad range of media. Sure-fire
hits include the films on Christian Boltansky by Alain Fleischer (the
fest is holding a special tribute to Fleischer this year), Roger Pomphrey’s
film called Life, Death and Damien, about controversial artist Damien
Hirst, a film on design guru Philippe Starck, a tribute film on John
Ruskin narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, and a wacky film on painter
Lucian Freud’s model, Leigh Bowery. For Canadian content, Pierre
Letarte’s film crew gets permission from painter Jean-Paul Riopelle
to shoot Riopelle, Estérel 90, about the artist’s finishing
touches on his immense canvas named Hommage á Rosa Luxembourg
in 1990.
Always exciting and chatty, the films on literature are excellent this
year. There’s another on Jack Kerouac, (Henry Ferrini’s Lowell
Blues) and a disturbingly twisted documentary on James Ellroy’s
obsession with solving his mother’s murder. :
The Festival
of Films on Art screens from March 12–17. Info: 847-1637 or www.artfifa.com
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