Coming to the Clark

This season offers an innovation in film programming at the Clark -- “Artists from Screen to Scholar,” a series of feature films about artists offered in a context that only the Clark can provide. On selected Thursdays at 7:00 pm, a Clark-related or invited scholar will introduce a film about the life and work of an artist, and then after the screening serve as interlocutor for a comparative discussion of film and artist. This format begins with a documentary about the contemporary artist Christo and continues with three films from three nations about the multifaceted Spanish painter Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, each presented with expert commentary.

Thursday, October 16, 7:00 pm
“Interrogating The Gates: Christo Documented and Elucidated”
When “The Gates” were installed in Central Park back in February 2005, the Clark offered a very popular marathon screening of five Maysles Brothers’ films about earlier Christo projects. By then Albert Maysles had been following this project since 1978, from conception to rejection and thence to approval and triumphant realization, and his work was picked up and completed by Antonio Ferrera. This documentary (2007, 98 min.)debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and was thereafter broadcast on HBO, but can now be seen at proper scale at the Clark, with context and commentary provided Lisa Green, the Clark’s Director of Communications and Design.

Thursday, October 23, 7:00 pm
“The Many Faces of Goya: Take One”
Goya’s Ghosts (2006, 114 min.)
Director Milos Forman tries to recapture the Hapsburg magic of Amadeus, turning his attention to Spain in the same era, and portraying Goya as eyewitness to the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and the Napoleonic occupation. Stellan Skarsgaard plays Goya, whose role as painter gives him an inside view of history in the making, with the changes embodied in characters played by Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman. Michael Cassin, Director of the Center for Education in the Visual Arts, based at the Clark, will elaborate and debunk the portrait of the artist presented here.

Thursday, November 6, 7:00 pm
“The Many Faces of Goya: Take Two”
Goya (1971, 134 min., in German with English subtitles)
This is a very rare opportunity to see this massive Eastern European co-production in its original widescreen glory. Derived from a novel by Lion Feuchtwanger, it’s an epic biography of the great artist directed by Konrad Wolf. Presented in cooperation with the Center for Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Williams College, the film will be introduced and illuminated by Barton Byg, longtime teacher of German and film at UMass Amherst and founding director of the DEFA Film Library there.

Thursday, November 20, 7:00 pm
“The Many Faces of Goya: Take Three”
Goya in Bordeaux (1999, 105 min, in Spanish with subtitles)
Director Carlos Saura takes on Goya, one Spanish master to another, looking back from his approaching death in exile in 1828 to the passionate passages of his earlier life. The production is lavish and phantasmagoric, interspersed with tableaux-like recreations of Goya’s work, particularly the series of etchings, “The Disasters of War.” Mark Ledbury, Associate Director of Research and Academic Programs at the Clark, will bring his scholarly expertise to the presentation and discussion of artist and film.