Event
A Bigger Splash (1974)
Fri Jul 26: 8.00pm
Sat Jul 27: 8.00pm
Sun Jul 28: 5.30pm, 8.00pm
Mon Jul 29: 3.00pm
Tue Jul 30: 3.00pm
Wed Jul 31: 8.00pm
Thu Aug 01: 8.00pm
Jack Hazan
UK
1974
1h 46m
About
Since the astonishing $90 million sale of David Hockneys Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), Jack Hazans A Bigger Splash is a film whose time has come again. About and starring Hockney and his swinging friends, this immersive, formally daring work was shot over the course of three years when the artist was creating his most recognizable paintings, including Portrait of an Artist and the eponymous A Bigger Splash. Embedded in Hockneys world and fascinated by his art, Hazan charts the course of Hockneys romance and breakup with Peter Schlesinger, the model for Portrait of an Artist, and achieves a hypnotic intimacy with Hockneys inner circle of friends, lovers, and fellow artists. Always at the center, however, is Hockney. Now in his mid-thirties, trademark oversized spectacles firmly in place, he has already been crowned one of his generations supreme painters. At fashion shows, art openings, and cocktail parties, we see a Hockney who, while always witty and good-natured, retains an air of mystery. Mentally, he is never far from his studio.
Partially scripted and loosely plotted, the main characters playing versions of themselves, Splash works on many levels. A document of glamor, love, sex, and creativity in early-1970s London and New York, the film also stages sustained encounters with Hockneys art, coming up against the hard boundary between painting and film. In doing so, it creates some indelible cinematic moments: a nude man climbs out of a pool and, dripping, caresses the mounted head of a moose; Hockney holds a lit Zippo to a canvas and stares while a crystal mobile clacks and tinkles. Pitched on the edge between documentary and fiction, between romance, biography, and experimental film, whatever A Bigger Splash is, it is a brave and original artist portrait, and an indispensable artifact of its time.
Description courtesy of Martin Schwartz; all images on this page courtesy of Metrograph Pictures.
For me, he [Hockney] touches the raw nerve of what cinema is abouteven if he is actually talking about painting. filmmaker Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper, Summer Hours)
The best film ever made about a living artist artist Ed Ruscha
One of the finest films I have seen about an artist and his work. filmmaker Martin Scorsese
An original, eye-opening film experience with an unexpected sense of humor. filmmaker Hal Ashby
Intimacy which is nothing short of startling defies comparison with any other art film or study in documentary biography. Film Comment
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LocationNorthwest Film Forum (View)
1515 12th Ave
Seattle, WA 98122
United States
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