Filmmaker Sonia Bible considers Rosaleen Norton “the most persecuted artist in Australian history.” With a new documentary, she’s hoping to set a more accurate record of the life of woman who in the 1940s and 50s scandalized the country with her occult art, and bold sexuality.
Documentary
Posted inArt
In Heaven There Is No Les Blank: The Rooted Works of a Great American Documentarian
Following the short stack of “Yum, Yum, Yum! 3 Movies by Les Blank,” which played at its Cinema Fest this past June, BAMcinématek is now serving up a 17-movie Blank banquet.
Posted inArt
Art Deco Behemoths Communicate from NYC to the World
Far from being obsolete, New York City’s early 20th century communication infrastructure has been transformed into internet data centers. Two of its most gargantuan structures are the Western Union and AT&T Long Lines buildings in Lower Manhattan, constructed between 1928 and 1932 under the design of architect Ralph Walker.
Posted inFilm
One Day Pina Asked… and Chantal Akerman Listened
Beginning life as an installment in a European television series on modern dance, One Day Pina Asked… (1983) is the best cinematic reflection on the late, great modern dance choreographer Pina Bausch.
Posted inOpinion
Life-size Dolls of the Dead and Disappeared
“I never thought it would turn into this,” 64-year-old Ayano Tsukimi says while surveying her decade-long dedication to making dolls of the dead and disappeared in her nearly abandoned town of Nagoro, Japan.
Posted inArt
Celebrating the Art of Documentary
Just as the history of cinema is filled with questions and contestations — did the Lumière brothers invent motion pictures, or does the Edison company’s kinetoscope deserve the credit? — so too is the history of documentary.
Posted inArt
Woman of Mystery: Finding Vivian Maier
Today, the name “Vivian Maier” is far from unknown. People around the world have seen and read about Maier’s photographs, taken in New York, Chicago, and countless other places during the second half of the 20th century.
Posted inArt
A Cape-Wearing Futuristic Architect Gets a Documentary
Sporting purple sequins and proposing buildings with moveable dragon fly wings, Eugene Tssui wants to redefine the way we live through an “evolutionary architecture.”
Posted inFilm
Why a New Film on Particle Physics Is Essential Viewing
In terms of understanding the very nature of our world, it’s hard to overestimate the significance of the Large Hadron Collider, and a new documentary makes a very convincing case.
Posted inOpinion
Kung Fu Grandmas in Kenya
Kung Fu Grandma, a new short documentary by London-based director Jeong-One Park, explores a group of elderly Kenyan women who have studied kung fu to protect themselves from rapists.
Posted inArt
All Style, No Substance: Williamsburg in 3D
Stereoscopic, or 3D, vision is a technique usually associated these days with blockbuster movies. But, using a simple stereo camera, Carlton Bright rollerbladed around Williamsburg from 2003 to 2013 documenting a series of “modules” or “vignettes” about the neighborhood he loves and calls home.
Posted inArt
How to Paint Like Vermeer, as Explained by a Techie
CINCINNATI — Tim Jenison is an imaging software engineer who talks like Oracle founder Larry Ellison but looks like artist Chuck Close. Jenison believes he has solved one of the greatest mysteries in art: how did 17th-century Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer paint so photo-realistically 150 years before the invention of photography?
