Meta details
Watched in December 2025 through Metrograph streaming
Summary
Expected a straightforward documentary and was surprised that it was a Warhol-esque “improvisatory narrative-nonfiction hybrid” film. Reads as early reality television but the drama is non-verbal. Instead it’s artsy gay sex scenes and Hockney tearing through his canvas in frustration. Hockney apparently hated this movie and tried to pay director Jack Hazan to not release it!
The movie features his breakup with his muse Peter Schlesinger (of Portrait of an Artist painting fame—he’s the guy standing over the pool) so it’s quite intimate, even if not completely real.
The celebrity of art
- Falling in love w art / design thru fashion. Considering Hockney’s closeness with textile designer Celia and his graphic sensibilities that elevate his paintings
- Room of my own, to draw a room of my art within the art - Hockney’s studio
Cinematography
- Testing your patience to convey an emotion, a mood
- Shot idea: fidgeting fingers
Project ideas
- Write post of celebrity of art
- Make a zine of stills from movie