Let’s be honest – it’s all about the sex. You could say that about film and art in general, but specifically I’m talking about the upcoming film series at the Clark. Officially the series has the decorous title of “The Age of Claude: Films of Painting & Performance in the 17th Century” – it takes off from the subject of the Clark’s winter exhibition, “Claude Lorrain: The Painter as Draftsman,” noting that the artist was born in 1600 and his life nearly spanned the century. It turns out that era, at least as seen through the lens of the 20th century, was obsessed with sex.
The free film showings run on Fridays at 4:00 pm, starting on March 2nd. The series starts with three English language films, then after two weeks off, returns with three French films, but each of them depicts erotic conflicts in a high-collared, buttoned-up age seething with secret passions.
March 2nd: Rembrandt. (1936, 85 min.) Charles Laughton is magnificent and touching as the great but embattled Dutch painter, and his wife Elsa Lanchester (best know as the Bride of Frankenstein) plays Rembrandt’s beloved Saskia. Directed by Alexander Korda, this is one of the peaks of British cinema.
March 9th: Girl With the Pearl Earring. (2003, 99 min.) Vermeer’s famous painting is brought to life, and the Delft of 1665 is brought to light, by director Peter Webber from Tracy Chevalier’s novel. Colin Firth is the painter, and Scarlett Johansson is the servant Griet, who captures his eye and other organs.
March 16th: The Draughtsman’s Contract. (1982, 103 min.) Director Peter Greenaway is characteristically puzzling and provocative, not to say perverse, in this story of an artist commissioned to do renderings of an English estate in 1694, and the payment he demands from the lady of the manor.
April 6th: Carnival in Flanders (La Kermesse Heroique.) (1935, 115 min.) Director Jacques Feyder emulates Bruegel in visualizing a Flemish town invaded by the Spanish, in which the women try a novel form of homeland defense. This classic film is a sex farce with a premonitory political twist.
April 13th: Cyrano de Bergerac. (1990, 138 min.) Gerard Depardieu bursts to stardom as the tumescently-nosed Cyrano in this highly-acclaimed version of the Rostand play, directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau and lavishly orchestrated with a real feel for the period, the poetry, and the characters.
April 20th: All the Mornings of the World (Tous les Matins du Monde.) (1992, 115 min.) Gerard Depardieu returns, as court composer at Versailles, and his son plays the same character as the young and randy student of another musician, with a seducible daughter, in Alain Corneau’s melodic film.
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