Change Your Image
mh503
Reviews
David Hockney: Secret Knowledge (2002)
Catch it if you can; otherwise look at the book
Hockney's thesis is that from the Renaissance to the 1850's the dominant styles in painting depended on secret use of lenses to project images from three dimensional scenes onto flat surfaces such as walls. The artist would then trace the two-dimensional projection and fill it in later with paint. He points to areas in paintings that are blurry, in just the places where painters would have had to change the focus to get details from closer objects.In other words, they used simple cameras.
Hockney's style is engaging and persuasive. He also wrote a book with the same title which is more accessible. The video is not readily available, except in a few university libraries. It costs $150 to purchase from BBC films! The main reason to see the video, rather than read the book, is that the moving video camera yields a three dimensional effect much easier to take in than in the book.
Great Performances: Dance in America: Born to Be Wild: The Leading Men of American Ballet Theatre (2003)
A DVD worth watching over and over.
My mom got this DVDfrom PBS, I assumeand I borrowed it. My wife and I watch it over and over, 3 or 4 times so far at least. It sparkles with skill, grace, and fire. It takes you to the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Spain, and the Midwest to hear the dancers' teachers and loved ones talk about them and to see the environments in which they grew up and trained. It gives clips from old performances and the dancers' reminiscences. We also see them rehearsing a new dance made for the four of them, culminating at the end with a performance. I myself found the solos from classical ballet more exciting than the new dance, but perhaps that is just my conservative taste. They are all amazing dancers, and it is a real treat to experience such intense male energy, in four unique and individual expressions, all quite different from female dancers