Brett Whiteley documentary traces the tumultuous life of art's 'hand grenade'You couldn't make this stuff up. Well, you could, but people might accuse you of creating a tale so over the top as to be unbelievable. Browse by name to Russian, Nigerian and Ukrainian scammers. Report scammers.A caricature. But Brett Whiteley was over the top. From his woolly halo of ginger curls, which garnered comparisons to Shirley Temple and Harpo Marx, to his hippy patois, words rushing from his mouth in a near- unintelligible stream of consciousness, to his compulsive devotion to art. He was the archetypal romantic artist, whose trajectory was as sprawling as it was sensational. And destroy himself he did. But what an extraordinary existence along the way. Photo: Supplied. Whiteley is a ready- made star; his life a fusillade of adventure, comedy, conflict, risk and tragedy. It's material gold for a film- maker – a journey of surplus artistic ambition and international success before the fall into an unforgiving current of heroin addiction. Get the latest news on celebrity scandals, engagements, and divorces! Check out our breaking stories on Hollywood?s hottest stars! During the 6th annual ESSENCE Black Women In Hollywood Awards, actress Gabrielle Union took the stage to accept the 2013 Fierce & Fearless award. Find out how. Submit Dating Complaints Against Cheaters & Liars; Share Your Dating Scam Stories; Help Others Remain Safe By Report A Cheater; File ANONYMOUS Complaint. His mother, Beryl, who died in 2. For better or worse, he fulfilled that destiny. Best known for his lyrical 1. Sydney Harbour, his repertoire was as diverse as the artists from whom he plucked with bower- bird- like intensity, from Piero della Francesca to Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse to Francis Bacon, Lloyd Rees to Russell Drysdale. In 1. 96. 1, aged 2. London's Tate gallery. In 1. 97. 8, he won the trifecta of Australian painting prizes, taking out the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman. His works now sell for millions. And yet, despite Whiteley's reputation and status in the Australian canon – topped only by Sidney Nolan – when director and co- writer James Bogle began canvassing the idea of making a documentary on Whiteley, he was surprised to find how few people in the broader community knew of him. He wasn't deterred. Don Featherstone's Difficult Pleasure records the artist at his Surry Hills studio in Sydney, and in London and Paris with new girlfriend Janice Spencer, who dutifully flashes a leg when required to add some . Bogle is a . But Bogle says that wasn't his biggest challenge. Photo: David Dare Parker. Photo: Supplied. Whiteley left Australia in 1. Italian Government Travelling Scholarship, returning in 1. Europe, America, Fiji and beyond. In Paris, during their first visit to the Louvre, Wendy burst into tears in front of Giotto's paintings of Saint Francis. In New York, they lived in a one- room . In Fiji they swapped penthouse for bure, escaping the frenzy that fuelled Whiteley's The American Dream, which was influenced by Picasso's famed anti- war work, Guernica. The most difficult aspect of making the film, says Bogle, was dealing with four decades of archival material, including photographs, notebooks, letters, press clippings, film and television footage, and the many texts written about Whiteley. And mixing that up with documentary- style and drama- style, and using CGI, and using a hell of a lot of stuff from Wendy's personal and family photo albums. At the beginning it felt overwhelming. I don't know whether you could make too many films like that, it's really intense. The collages are fabulously fun, the CGI magical, but the re- enactments not always as successful, particularly the portrayal of the artist himself. Unlike Featherstone, Bogle did not have the benefit of Whiteley's presence, but he still wanted the immediacy of a story told by the artist himself, in the present tense. The film begins on this note – we hear only a voice, speedily tripping over itself, tapping out an existential rant, set to a jazzy percussionist score, culminating with the clash of a high- hat and the word . The voices of Wendy, his sister Frannie Hopkirk and others move the narrative along, but it's Whiteley's words that one savours most. His description of his first encounter with Wendy, for instance: . The sex, drugs and rock'n'roll are not downplayed, but they never overwhelm the art. Whiteley's prolific output is the focus, artworks blown up to full screen, from childhood drawings to early abstractions, sensual nudes, the Lavender Bay paintings, self- portraits, bird paintings and more. The camera lingers over his work, relishing its energy, carnality, boldness, madness, beauty. She wouldn't have allowed it unless the art was central.? Tragic drug story or something. It's the only point about making a film about Brett Whiteley and his life. I don't say you don't mention any of those things, but it's that he was an artist, otherwise who would be interested? Gabriella Coslovich is a former senior arts writer with The Age and the author of an upcoming book on the controversial Whiteley art fraud trial, to be released by Melbourne University Publishing in October. If you like Hegre Art then come on in we have what you want here!
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