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Okay, Digital Media Tree is now on a new server. Everything should be the same here. I'm still working on my review of One Hour Photo--it's harder and more involved than I thought! I only saw the movie once, and came out of the theatre with the theory that Sy Parrish, the moto-photo manager/nutjob played by Robin Williams, is a latent artist. On the surface the story is about his psychological meltdown but on a subtext level--what the images are telling you--it's about the personal paradigm shift of a frustrated creative type. None of the other reviews discussed that aspect. I still think I'm onto something but to make the piece work I have to explain some of the underlying art precedents--Hanne Darboven, Sophie Calle, Wolfgang Tillmans, etc. [Addendum: I finally finished the piece and it's here.]
Speaking of art in movies, it's ironic to me that Jeremy Blake's colorfield animations were tapped for Paul Thomas Anderson's movie Punch-Drunk Love. In an article published last year, I noted that Blake's work was primitive compared to Hollywood's most run-of-the-mill magic (say, the credits in Hollow Man) but that the art world was gaga for how "high tech" it was. Evidently PT Anderson is awed by the aura of art and picked Blake to incorporate some of that "art mystique" into the film (or maybe found his work inexpensive by Hollywood standards?).
In any case, I was right that Blake's art looks really low tech up there on the big screen, compared to what we're used to seeing. But, to add another irony loop, it kind of works on that level! I'm not sure what the hell these color bars and Morris Louis blobs are doing in the movie: I suppose they represent the zany hallucinatory state of its mentally ill main character, played by Adam Sandler. Considered alongside the toy organ that keeps popping up incongruously in the film, I thought of the Optigan, a '60s keyboard instrument with discs that "played colors." (See Bruce Sterling's "dead media project.") Anyway, I thought the Blake stuff worked but maybe not for the reasons anyone involved with the project did. Am I wrong? What was PT Anderson thinking?
Maybe PTA included the Blake because its slightly crude, retro look invoked the '60s, in a movie that is in many ways a self-conscious throwback to the madcap counterculture comedies of that era (e.g., Coppola's You're A Big Boy Now). But Blake isn't celebrated in the art world for being crude and retro--his work is sold as the latest cuttin' edge computer art! There's a contradiction that needs to be addressed here.