<論文>モダニズムとその脱構築 --映画のなかのポロック、ウォーホル、バスキア

Abstract

This essay examines biopics produced during the post-modern or post-media era whose subjects were Modernist artists, and discusses the events depicted in them in relation to painting philosophy, movie techniques, art world, commercialism, et cetera. Specifically, we look at Pollock (2000) directed by and starring Ed Harris, Basquiat (1996), which depicts the relationship between Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Creole painter who passed away at the young age of 27, and Andy Warhol, who was the darling of the media, directed by Julian Schnabel, a postmodern painter and filmmaker, and Mary Harron's I Shot Andy Warhol (1995) and George Hickenlooper's Factory Girl (2006), two unique movies that capture Warhol's life from a woman's perspective. These discussions will establish the following three points. First, it is possible that the more one attempts to faithfully reproduce a painter's creative process, the more deconstructed, as paradoxical as it may seem, the fundamental principles of modern art such as the artist's "originality" and spontaneity become, regardless of the intentions of the director. Second, we find quite a few shots and scenes where a struggle that may be described as Oedipal plays out between the artist, on whom the movie is based, and the movie director. This seems to be the case with not only Schnabel, who was a director and a painter, but also with Ed Harris, who boldly attempted to tackle the challenge of portraying Pollock's life. Here also lies the cause of deconstruction of Modernism caused by movies. Finally, the subject may be depicted as a sort of abject being in movies where the artist, who was also the darling of the media, and his works are captured from a woman's perspective. Here, criticism of the mechanism of art world is implied. Biopics on painters tend to be shunned by both film studies and studies of art as mere fiction tainted by clichés. However, an interesting problem emerges when they are seen from a place where those two fields intersect.