Essay Film
From the 1950s onwards, filmmaking on art began to overlap with the essay film to give rise to a series of unique films in which directors could draw upon a range of filmmaking resources to express their personal vision of the world of art. A number of techniques and approaches explored in previous decades—dramatised paintings, critical analyses and tableaux vivants—were revisited and revamped by the likes of André Delvaux, Claudio Pazienza and Agnès Varda.
This programme selects a series of key moments from when the essay film met the arts: the critical essay, the poetic essay, the essay portrait and a re-examination of portraiture in painting and film, as Agnès Varda’s revealing feminist gaze beckons us to rethink everything we’ve just seen.
This series of films is organised by the Museo Nacional Centro de Reina SofÃa and curated by Guillermo G. Peydró.
The films in this programme will be screened at MACBA.
This programme ties in with Guillermo G. Peydró’s seminar Art on Film. Film on Art and the presentation of his book El cine sobre arte. De la dramatización de la pintura al cine-ensayo (Shangrila, 2019).
In addition, on 6 October 2020, the Filmoteca de Catalunya held a session with Guillermo G. Peydró entitled Film on Art after Auschwitz: Personal, Poetic and Political Filmmaking, as part of their Per Amor a les Arts programme.