Visual art on film with Saffron Maeve
CONTOURS | Beyond biopics and documentaries with the Toronto-based critic, curator, and academic.
I realize, with a small pang of guilt, that I’ve neglected to provide any kind of food update lately. I haven’t not been eating—quite the opposite. The (hopefully not false) promise of spring has me wandering the city and nibbling on whatever I can get my hands on, which I admittedly do in the winter, too. But it always feels more desperate then.
The best thing I ate this month was probably the EB BB, Elbow Bread’s take on a pbnj that’s constructed by the principles of a cake-building—a precise mixture of spreadable textures and flavors. Walnut butter, a light cream cheese, a silky, schmear of dates, and crispy shards of feuilletine, layered onto slabs of sourdough black bread. It is hefty enough to share, odorless enough to sneak it into Metrograph, and good enough to leave you thinking about it for at least a week. Who wants to split one?
ɪɴ ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱꜱᴜᴇ:
꩜ ɴᴇᴡ ʀᴇʟᴇᴀꜱᴇꜱ
꩜ ᴍᴏᴠɪᴇꜱ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴀʀᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ꜱᴀꜰꜰʀᴏɴ ᴍᴀᴇᴠᴇ
SHORT TAKES
Like a dream half-remembered, INVENTION is a grief-laced journey into the secrets our loved ones leave behind. A collaboration between Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez, its peculiar autofictional quietude won’t be for everyone, but neither are the losses we carry.
I missed a big opportunity for a double feature post last week. THE SHROUDS, the new film by David Cronenberg arrived in theaters—and it’s also a meditation on the death of a loved one, wrapped in conspiracy, wit, and eerie intimacy. The latest and best release thus far from Saint Laurent’s production arm is also kinda sexy, but then so are most Cronenberg movies to some extent. Anthony Vaccarello designed the titular shroud, a leathery, reptilian cocoon that channels the louche sensuality of his haute couture, but read to me as more Rick Owens. Either way it remains unquestioningly a design of the filmmaker’s imagination.
Guy Pearce eating matzoh ball soup and pastrami on rye without pickles is a key scene in this death-haunted movie, but not in the way that you’d think.
Time stretches and warps under the weight of grief in Constance Tsang’s debut feature, BLUE SUN PALACE, where two Chinese immigrants are drawn together by what’s missing. Set discreetly in Flushing, it is a New York movie—albeit one that doesn’t announce its setting. Instead this quiet drama leans into the everyday anonymity of its surroundings—the nondescript massage parlors, cramped living spaces, and sterile eateries—to highlight the distinct, parallel world of immigrant life. It is savagely tender. The opening scene, of a young woman gnawing at chicken across from an older man played by Lee Kang-sheng has never been more prone to make your heart swell.
On the other side of the spectrum, THE FRIEND wears its NYC textures proudly. I was reminded of lived-in uptown apartments of Nora Ephron movies. For all its sentimentality, this adaptation of a Sigrid Nunez book almost convinced me I could be a dog person. Available to stream starting 4/28.
ART IN THE MOVIES
CONTOURS is monthly screening series at Paradise Theatre of films which thematize visual art.
When I think of art on film, my mind tends to drift toward artist documentaries and biopics. But Saffron’s programming pushes those boundaries, widening the frame. -
Yes, there are still biopics and docs—only more unconventional ones, like Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Mystery of Picasso, a rare, hypnotic window into the artist at work or Jane B. par Agnes V. an “imaginary biopic” that collapses the boundaries between artist and subject.
The series also ventures into the art of the heist, with films like How to Steal a Million starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole; and the rich interplay of theater / music / visual design with Sunday in the Park with George, where cinema and stagecraft merge into something new.
And that’s not to mention movies about muses, buildings, statues, and what happens when artists use film strips themselves as their medium.
What are your favorite art movies?
In addition to being a spectacular writer, curator, and academic, Saffron is an all around delightful human being who look forward to to seeing in her native Toronto every fall. She’s guest-curating two standout programs in NYC next week, including CONTOURS, so I decided to ask her about it. That, and where she likes to eat.
Tuesday 3/29: Five short films by queer feminist filmmaker Pratibha Parmar, part of Alfreda’s Cinema at BAM.
Wednesday 3/30: Vali: The Witch of Positano, CONTOURS at Spectacle Theater.
So how did CONTOURS come to be?
The soft pitch is cinema that falls under the umbrella of visual art (painting, sculpture, illustration, graffiti, performance, architecture), which, of course, comes in many forms: biopics, documentaries, art heists, filmed installations, experimental fare.
I’d been drawn to intermediality in cinema for a long time, often curious about the boundaries between a film, an exhibition, or theater. I loved how haptic films about art felt and how easily they could draw your eye using certain visual techniques. It first started as a little project of cataloguing those films, but I was eager to see them in an amplified format. Thankfully, a local Toronto theater was similarly intrigued and brought me on board.
How does programming compare to writing criticism? Are there any similarities? Do they engage different aspects of your thinking?
I think the accoutrements of a film screening (an introduction, a Q&A) often necessitate the same instincts as critical writing—which is probably why so many critics become programmers. I’ve always felt programming picks up where criticism leaves off.
With crit, my aim is always to tease out a film’s history or influences in my own language. This involves describing and contextualizing certain images (which I love), but at a certain point you have to say, alright, now watch them for yourself and report back.
Since you’ve been sitting with this topic for the past few years, what is the big takeaway about the portrayal of art in films or films about art? Have you had any personal revelations or insights? Or noticed any trends on how these films have evolved over time?
Less so original insights, but the years of research have led me to incredible scholars/theorists covering the subject, like Brigitte Peucker (Incorporating Images), Erika Balsom (After Uniqueness; Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art), Susan Felleman (Art in the Cinematic Imagination), Angela Dalle Vache (Cinema and Painting), and Steven Jacobs (Framing Pictures; Screening Statues). For fun, I wrote a syllabus on art in cinema as I was firming up CONTOURS, and now, I’m beginning (very light) dissertation research on the subject!
One thing I have gleaned from these films is they rarely engage formally with an artist’s output. I had a grand, romantic idea at the outset that these films would try and inhabit the feeling of the artworks themselves, but very few have done so.
Trends-wise, biopics are of course the hot thing, but I want more ambling documentaries about artists in their ateliers (Dream of Light, Miotte vu par Raúl Ruiz, Jackson Pollock 51, Impressions of Upper Mongolia, or Alain Resnais’s painter series) or museums (Statues Hardly Ever Smile, Louvre City, The Children of the Museum, This Island)
Let’s talk about your Spectacle pick: Vali: The Witch of Positano. How did you find it?
In late 2023, I went looking for a few things: experimental documentaries about painters and films about women artists, since there simply aren’t many of the latter. It may have been someone on an online forum who recommended Vali, which I managed to watch (in terrible quality) on Internet Archive. I tracked down one of the co-directors but didn’t want to reach out right away as I wasn’t sure what the series would “look” like yet.
Toronto and New York have vastly different audiences, and I knew if I showed the film in Toronto, it would be an impossible sell—not because of the film itself, but because repertory culture here is in such straits and people like to come out to titles they recognize. I bookmarked it to return to once CONTOURS had gained some traction, and Spectacle just seemed the most natural environment for Vali’s playful, occult weirdness.
Do you have a personal favorite art + film?
I truly cannot pick one, but my instinct is to say La Belle Noiseuse (pictured second from the top), which I showed last August, or How to Steal a Million, which my whole family came out to watch. (I also love I Shot Andy Warhol and would love to screen it alongside the Cory Arcangel short film by the same name.)
Obivously Contours programming isn’t limited to movies about real artists, but who would be the subject of your dream biopic?
I’m anti-contemporary biopics, so I can’t answer this with full sincerity. But give me Cole Escola as Marina Abramović and I’ll be satisfied.
What advice would you give to people who are just getting into movies about how to tackle watching everything?
I’ll keep it very brief: be curious, be excited to learn new things and to have your aesthetic sensibility, patience, and beliefs challenged. It’s an enormous privilege.
Get the latest info on CONTOURS here. More quick takes with Saffron below.
What’s the last thing you saw that made you laugh? Wet Hot American Summer.
What’s a movie that devastates you? El Sur or Smooth Talk.
A movie that surprised you? The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter.
A movie you rave about that more people should see? Any Lucile Hadzihalilovic film.
What’s been languishing in your queue? Plenty of Rivette.
The last film you couldn’t finish? I tried rewatching Vox Lux and couldn’t make it past the opening credits.
A character you relate to? Every single character in both Mermaids and I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, somehow.
Where are you a regular? Mac’s Pizza! It’s right by the theatre where I program and has a lemon pepper cream slice.
What’s your diner order? Mushroom omelette, coffee, and orange juice.
How do you take your coffee? Black.
Your favorite restaurant in your city? Cafe Polonez.
What dish/food reminds you of childhood? Really tart cherries.
Your favorite food scene in a movie? The diner scene in Five Easy Pieces.
Build your perfect sandwich: A grainy bread, heirloom tomatoes, bocconcini, mint pesto, pickled veg galore (red onion, beets, carrots, turnips), salt, pepper.
What’s the best dessert? I’m partial to an almond croissant, but if I were feeling decadent, kaju barfi or a pista roll.
What's your preferred treat/pick-me-up? Any swanky $9 variation on matcha, I fear.
I wish I could think of one more visually in line with an "art movie" but I found Pollack with Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden to be noteworthy. But more for its exploration of character and relationship than the art itself which to me makes it more align with/ feel like a "literary film" than an art one. I love what Saffron said, "I had a grand, romantic idea at the outset that these films would try and inhabit the feeling of the artworks themselves, but very few have done so." it makes me excited at the possibility of what a true delivery of this would look like.
Topkapi is my favorite heist movie. Peter Ustinov is great.
I saw a film on the second tier TV channel when I stayed home sick as a young kid. It was a group of guys who cracked a safe with explosives during the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. I think it was made in the mid-1960s and I thought Dean Martin was in it. Now, I saw it because I had a serious fever and may have hallucinated Dean Martin or even the fact that it was good. My brother found the name of it for me a few years back but I'm afraid to watch it since it might suck. I'll dig up the name if anyone wants to watch it for me.