Painters in Film

   While looking up how artists are portrayed in the media, I found an amazing article by The Other Journal, which mentions that "there aren't a lot of biopics about artists who changed the world and weren’t a little crazy." During films, artists, painters in specific, are narcissistic,  self-destructive, messed up people, who cut their ears (Van Gogh anyone?!) and most times slide into addictions of some kind, whether that be alcoholism or drugs, it's noticeably present. Although I knew that stereotypes for artists are prominent in the film industry, I wasn't aware that films where the artist is actually a relatable, good person, are actually very scarce. The author of the article, Alissa Wilkinson, also states that it'd be interesting to watch more painters in film "where fascination lies not in his or her degeneracy but in the way they lived their life." Once again, I'm faced with the challenge of making a decision of going with or against the traditional media conventions.

   Although I do want to make the conflict of my protagonist a more external challenge rather than an unstable character herself, I'm afraid that the film will loose interest. The article mentioned above also writes about this, saying that Western culture especially gravitates towards more tortured characters. So to address both sides of the argument, I am going to try to find a balance between the artist dealing with not only some of her  inner struggles of fame and acknowledgment, but also with how the unknown external conflict ( that I will come up with very soon -hopefully!) affects her not only as an artist, but as a person. This way, I think I will nicely incorporate characteristics that will create a more original, non conventional protagonist that still remains interesting to the audience.

For further reading regarding this topic, you can check out my sources:

Wilkinson, Alissa. "Artists in Film." The Other Journal. N.p., 30 Apr. 2009. Web. <http://theotherjournal.com/2009/04/30/artists-in-film/>. 

Republic, The New. "Love the Art, Hate the Artist." New Republic. N.p., 10 Feb. 2009. Web. <https://newrepublic.com/article/64344/love-the-art-hate-the-artist>

Gaylord, Jim. "Art in the Movies." Wordpress. N.p., 29 June 2015. Web. <https://artinthemovies.wordpress.com>.