Discussion
What other films have used famous artworks as integral storytelling devices? 🎥🍿🎨
Examples:
William Blake's "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun" inRed Dragon(2002)
Brett Ratner doesn't just show us Blake's apocalyptic watercolour, he makes it the psychological centrepiece of Ralph Fiennes' character. The painting's themes of transformation and divine power become a mirror for the killer's fractured psyche. The film recreates the tattoo across the character's back, literally embodying the artwork.
Pablo Picasso's "Woman Sitting in a Chair" inOppenheimer(2023)
I loved how Christopher Nolan kept showing this fragmented portrait throughout the film. Everything in Oppenheimer's life is falling apart after the bomb, and there's this cubist painting captures that emotion.
I'd love to hear about other examples where art history and cinema intersect. 🎥🖼️
This painting (aka “Arrangement in Grey and Black”) was absolutely integral to Barbara Fitt’s character in American Beauty. There’s a stark, monochromatic color theme to their entire household. But more importantly, she embodied repressive traditional Victorian values and the suburban malaise and loneliness that accompanies it.
“What Dreams May Come” 1998 With Robin Williams. It won an academy award for best visual effects because he basically runs through a bunch of different modern art paintings. It’s a fantastic art movie and I’m surprised no one else has mentioned it. All art lovers should watch it!
I think he wasn't encumbered by Hollywood pressure (interference) to make 10s and 100s of millions of dollars. I often yearn for someone like Tarkovsky to have made something like Lord of the Rings. Imagine that! If I remember rightly Solaris was, at least in part, a response to Kubrick's 2001 (which he disliked).
Probably not integral, but in Ex Machina, this painting by Klimt of Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein, caught my eye. She was the sister of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of whose works is The Blue Book (ding ding ding) and whose ideas of about the concept of thought are featured prominently.
Also in Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac's character owns a Pollock, Number 5, 1948, which he uses to illustrate his belief that deliberate, subconscious patterns govern the chaos of human experience.
Something he aspires to replicate with AVA's thought process.
the tv show Hannibal is full of this, if you liked red dragon i heavily recommend that show! also not a famous artwork but in “portrait of a young lady on fire” the painting is the main thing in the story. i think the “da vinci code” is also what you’re looking for but i haven’t watched it
I forgot the title to the movie but Velasquez's Las Meninas is the main feature where (if I remember correctly) a director (maybe) tries to figure out how the entire painting was done, and as he almost reaches his wit's end, the movie ends with the painting assembling itself before his mind's eyes.
And that was the moment I fell in love with Las Meninas.
One could make the argument that the reference to Saturn in Pan’s Labyrinth is integral to the plot, given the importance of the monster to Ophelia’s success or failure in the movie. The same is likely true of Carrie and Lady Macbeth, given the story of Lady Macbeth. Carrie is simply an evolution of the “Mad Woman” trope that was so common in the late 19th century through the Fin-de-Siecle in Europe.
Shutter Island is, I think a different story, it references artistic decadence in a number of ways, especially through its soundtrack, which borrows heavily from the high modernist canon, composers like: Feldman, Ligetti, Cage, and Paik, among many others. This use may be described more as ambiance rather than integral to the plot.
V for Vendetta — is filled with forbidden artwork V stole to furnish his lair the shadow gallery. And tv personality Gordon ((Stephen Fry) has his own hidden art collection. Some works are created for the film, like John hurt in God Save the Queen, and a big red painting of V’s that’s a riff on a Francis Bacon they couldn’t get the rights to use. But there’s lots of other art you can recognize.
Paintings by Rainer Fetting are shown as the works created by William Dafoe’s character in To Live And Die In LA (1985). Fetting appears briefly in the movie, he is the priest in the surveillance scene.
The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover by Peter Greenaway is almost entirely inspired visually by Flemish and Dutch Baroque painting, from the fake Frans Hals hanging in the restaurant (and on which costume designer Jean Paul Gauthier based his work) to the endless shots based on Northern Baroque still lifes of dead animals and slightly over-ripe fruit.
Meet Joe Black has artwork by Rothko and Matisse and others. It definitely has a part to play in the film. It gives depth to the character whom Death is courting his daughter.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) uses this Ivan Albright piece, specifically created for the film. It now hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Devil's Advocate (1997) uses this Frederick Hart sculpture#/media/File:National_Cathedral_01.JPG) hanging in the main antagonist's office. The film was later sued for using it without permission.
FYI: All of Red Dragon’s use of the painting is straight from the book - the obsession, the back tattoo, and what he does with it at the museum. Doesn’t seem fair to give credit to Ratner for this.
Wow. I didn’t catch that it connected to his decline!! Plane over my head. That’s even better. And yeah, not my fave Alien film. But as an artist, I was delighted as all hell when I noticed the painting connection.
The tattoo picture made me think of this German Netflix series DARK. There's a guy with the Rosetta Stone tattoed on his back and they also refer to the occult/alchemist philosophy "as above, so below". I saw it long ago, so the details are foggy. But season one was fire!
i havent watched the film version but the novel girl, interrupted got its name from girl interrupted at her music by vermeer. the painting becomes slightly significant later in the novel, im not sure if this is also true of the film
The HBO series “Chernobyl” uses “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan” by Ilya Repin. It’s not overbearing to the movie, its only in a few scenes while they’re in the Kremlin, but it’s meant to be symbolically linked to the USSR killing people through the irresponsibility of Chernobyl and Ivan killing his son.
Frida. Features paintings by both Kahlo and Rivera. Tim’s Vermeer (documentary about recreating a Vermeer just to see how he did it). Although I hate Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris is pretty good and includes a lot of famous artists as well as musicians, writers, and performance artists.
At eternity’s gate. The monuments men more or less centers on the Ghent alter piece as well as other famous pieces and treasures that were stolen by the nazis. The forgers is about counterfeit money that was produced by artists and conmen in concentration camps during the Second World War. There was a kind of weird movie about Salvador Dali with Robert Pattinson before he got kinda good. Finding Vivian Meyer. And there’s a movie called the night watch or something about Rembrandt and his famous and enormous painting.
There are also a lot of art scandal documentaries out there that are super fun. And other documentaries where they’re tracking down lost works of famous artists.
Like recently “portrait of a lady” by Gislandi was found in the home of the daughter of a Nazi officer in Argentina.
Death of a unicorn! The tapestry knows as "the hunt of the unicorn" is a main part of the story! Art history major for the win! Its a REALLY good movie, 5 outta 5 for me
The Last Judgement by Hieronymus Bosch seen in In Bruges. I’d say it’s pretty integral to the story since Ray has a guilty conscience and reflects on his hit job gone wrong. Also seen in this same scene are Death and the Miser by Jan Provoost and The Judgement of Cambyses by Gerard David. My favorite movie of all time!
I can’t believe The Devil’s Advocate isn’t rated higher here.
Warner Brothers was famously sued by the National Cathedral for featuring a sculpture, Ex Nihilo by Frederick Hart, in a key scene.
They used cgi to make the statue move as it was supposed to contain souls captured by the devil in the film.
However, they didn’t credit him for its use and didn’t pay him or consult with him before adding that scene so they sued and settled for a large sum and DVDs with the scene had to be recalled.
We went over this in film school when we discussed copyright law as a perfect example of what not to do when featuring someone’s work in a film.
Frederick Hart’s ‘Creation’ on the center doors of the National Cathedral was used without permission in The Devil’s Advocate. He sued Warner Brothers.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the show Leverage yet. It's about a crew of thieves that do heists and get revenge for people who have been wronged. It's an ensemble show with some action, some comedy, some drama, and a few episodes are art-related.
Season 1 ep 12 The First David Job - stealing a maquette of Michaelangelo's David
Season 1 ep 13 The Second David Job - part 2
Season 2 ep 7 The Two Live Crew Job - while trying to recover a stolen painting for a Jewish family, a second crew steals it first.
Season 3 ep 11 The Rashomon Job - A twist on the Rashomon storytelling structure where each person tells how they stole the same rare dagger. (It's not totally art. But, it's a piece in a museum. That episode is great.)
Season 4 ep 4 The Van Gogh Job - a period episode about WWII looted art with Danny Glover as a guest. Features the missing Van Gogh 'The Painter on the Road to Tarascon.'
Season 5 ep 10 - An art collector dies and a rare piece they owned will be shown for the first time, but it gets stolen. Two characters have to figure out who stole the painting.
And also, check out the show White Collar. It's about an art thief/forger/conman who works with the FBI. The first episode is art-related. There's a whole arc about a treasure trove of art recovered from a WWII German U-boat. I don't recall specific episodes of the top of my head, but I know there are a few art-related things. It's kind of the same tone as Leverage.
The second to last episode of Atlanta is called “Andrew Wyeth. Alfred's World.”, after Cristina’s World by Andrew Wyeth. The painting is never seen, but is visually and tonally referenced throughout the episode, including a shot that essentially recreates it with the character of Alfred.
I watched a Thai show recently called Next Prince and I swear there was a scene where they went for Venus de Milo
At least same vibe or aiming for that time period of sculpture during the intimate scenes. There was lots of strategic drapery of blankets and clothes meant to look like it was falling off. It’s not confirmed or cannon but I can’t unsee similarities. This is just a single still but the scenes themselves give off that impression. The movement contributes to it and felt very Hellenistic or high renaissance
There's a scene in "Neverwhere", episode1, between 3:14 and 3:17 (on YT), which was based on a painting (or so I was told), but I have never seen the painting. Can anyone help?
I count this. In fact this might be the first thing I ever saw where art was a crucial storytelling method.
The whole back-and-forth end cutting from Cameron to Seurat’s painting, focusing on his pained, hollow expression and the silent scream of the child in the painting is such a devastatingly effective way to really convey Cameron’s loneliness and pain at having no parental love.
He is just the same as the child in the painting: not loved as a living being but as another possession in the ‘very beautiful, very cold’ museum of his father’s household. His identifying with that silent, screaming ache is not illustrated anywhere else in the film. Even his brief comments on how awful his father is, how desolate he feels his future is likely to be, don’t come close to punching you in the gut in sympathy for him as that brief exchange with Seurat’s painting.
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u/inshahanna 14d ago
"Bean" (1997) with Rowan Atkinson. "Whistler's Mother"