| By Eric Kohn Painters don't have it easy. Working with a medium that stretches back to the caveman, the largely intangible collection of colors and forms that fill a canvas rarely hold much value unless the creative mind behind their arrangement chooses to infuse them with life. This year's popular Sundance entry My Kid Could Paint That featured the gallery successes of a four-year-old, displaying the hasty decision-making that often afflicts the art world. Dealers and exhibitors tend to alter their definition of quality to suit the current style. As a result of this largely deleterious procedure, the strain placed on painters as they try to pour meaning and permanence into their work often becomes overwhelmed by the business paradigm. Movies, which invert reality almost as often as they reflect it, provide the perfect vehicle for showcasing the painting process. Given that both forms are inescapably visual, cinema allows paintings to carry the same value as they would in a gallery - and imbue them, through background and careful presentation of the artist's subjectivity, with the proper level of context. Milos Forman's upcoming Goya's Ghosts, about the troubled life of the famous Spaniard around the time of the Peninsular War, illustrates how the world's undying chaos can provide the spark of creative genius. If the painter's world is often dark and foreboding, it's also alive with the endlessly captivating process of searching for inspiration. Somewhere beneath the messy conflation of gloss and satin lies a greater truth, and these brave souls - both the painters and the filmmakers who study them - aim to find it. In the following list, we've selected titles that stretch across boundaries of language, race and gender, but each entry deals exclusively with the struggles of real people. 10. Rembrandt (Alexander Korda, 1936)
British director Korda has made better films, but the real star of this immersive biopic is Charles Laughton in the title role. Aside from his astonishing physical resemblance to the brilliant Dutch painter, classic screen star Laughton brings his character to life through passionate exclamations that underscore his motivation. Although surrounded by wealth and accolades, Rembrandt is ultimately enslaved by his talents. In a particularly memorable scene, the artist abandons a wake for his recently deceased wife and returns to his easel. The actor throws the full force of his expressive abilities into the performance to convey Rembrandt's inescapable need to create.
9. Frida (Julie Taymor, 2002)
Hollywood stars love to land awards-friendly performances of real people (think Jamie Foxx in Ray), but Salma Hayek's remarkable transformation into acclaimed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is something more than a career-booster. Hayek rejects her recognizable persona and presents Kahlo as an unforgettable combination of powerful femininity and taboo-shattering principles. Director Taymor is better suited as a stage director, and as a result, the movie is hindered by occasionally sluggish pacing and an uneven script. But it makes up for these shortcomings with a vibrant visual style that brings Kahlo's remarkably surreal creations to life.
8. The Agony and the Ecstasy (Carol Reed, 1965)
Most people know Reed for his wonderful World War II thriller The Third Man, but Orson Welles's performance nearly steals the show. In The Agony and the Ecstasy, Reed demonstrates a keen eye for aesthetic wonders. The sprawling story follows Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) as he struggles with an unlikely assignment - painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Early on, Reed's camera slowly tilts to the heavens, demonstrating the sheer scale of the task at hand. Heston applies the same sense of grandeur to Michelangelo that he did for Moses, but Reed's sense for the painter's majestic era really makes the movie worthwhile. Shot in glorious Technicolor, the story is preceded by a short documentary that sets the stage for Michelangelo's intense livelihood.
7. Pollock (Ed Harris, 2000)
The directorial debut of acclaimed actor Harris suits him perfectly, and not just because of his striking resemblance to the painter known for his abstract compositions of oil spills and drips. Harris plays Jackson Pollock as a man who works in bursts of excitement, swirling around his canvases and tossing color wherever it belongs. "You've done it, Pollock," one character tells him. "You've burst it wide open."
6. Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (John Maybury, 1998)
Maybury has made more music videos and experimental films than straightforward narratives. Love is the Devil offers a remarkably revealing examination of British painter Francis Bacon, but conventional storytelling takes a backseat to Maybury's mind-blowing theatrical strategies that make the movie incessantly involving. Bacon comes across as a flamboyant elitist snob, but no less an artist. This near-paradox leads to the breakdown of his bedfellow, George (Daniel Craig), who loves the man but can't stand his socialite behavior. Rapid editing and mood lighting highlight the tensions between art and obsession.
5. Basquiat (Julian Schnabel, 1996)
An inexplicably underseen gem about the world's greatest graffiti artist, Basquiat explores the way that self-expression, in the best circumstances, allows dedicated minds to transcend monetary boundaries and gain recognition. Jean-Michel Basquiat's explosive works expressed rage and opposition to the system that prevented him, particularly during his homeless stage, from making progress. Although plagued by drugs to the end of his too-few days, the painter (perfectly portrayed by Jeffrey Wright) managed to leave his mark with a singular vision that continues to transfix and befuddle collectors and amateurs alike. Schnabel, a painter himself and an old friend of his subject, portrays Basquiat as a benevolent countercultural icon.
4. Vincent and Theo (Robert Altman, 1990)
Kirk Douglas's over-the-top impersonation of 19th century artist Vincent Van Gogh in Vicente Minelli's Lust for Life has its moments, as does the sprawling biopic Van Gogh by French director Maurice Pialat. Neither movie, however, attains the marvelous intensity of Altman's bleak character study. Giving equal screen time to the tribulations of the painter (Tim Roth) and his classy art dealer brother (Paul Rhys), Altman presents an eloquent study in synchronicity: The brothers are both driven mad by Vincent's paintings, albeit for different reasons: Theo can't figure out how to market them and Vincent is tortured by their limited appeal.
3. Crumb (Terry Zwigoff, 1994)
Zwigoff revisited the creative scene recently in Art School Confidential, but his debut feature remains the masterpiece of his canon. An insightful look at the life of seminal Sixties cartoonist Robert Crumb, Zwigoff's documentary boldly attempts to explain the sexually deviant qualities of Crumb's work. Surrounded by a troubled family and critics who refuse to give his work a chance, Crumb speaks his mind about the unsettling fantasies that motivated his groundbreaking "Zap Comix" and other works. "I hate myself as much as I hate everybody else," he admits, suggesting that art is intrinsically narcissistic.
2. Andrei Rublev (Andrey Tarkovsky, 1969)
Not just one of the greatest movies about painters, but a masterpiece of cinematic expression. Tarkovsky spent years trying to gain recognition for his ingenious guide through the life of Russian painter Rublev (Anatoli Solonitsyn). It's a wonder that it took so long to receive the appropriate praise. The magical epilogue features a camera drifting through the clouds before beginning a terrifying, uncontrolled descent to Earth, providing an apt metaphor for the transience of being - a recurring theme in Rublev's work. The finale finds Rublev painting his acclaimed "Holy Trinity," and a final shot that shows black and white imagery evolving into a gorgeous palette conceived by Rublev drives home the idea that great art illuminates the darkness of reality.
1. F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1974)
Welles had a tough time finding budgets for his later projects, but his final completed work, F for Fake, provides balance to his career: The documentary-narrative synthesis ranks up there with the director's debut Citizen Kane as a near-perfect accomplishment. Examining the art world with a delicious blend of reverence and irony, Welles serves as an omniscient narrator guiding viewers through an epistemological view of the global art scene. While he discusses a mysterious anecdote about Pablo Picasso, much of the narrative is dedicated to the exploits of the wildly talented art forger Elmyr de Hory. "Is it just a forgery?" Welles asks rhetorically, referencing de Hory's creations. "Is it not also a painting?" ART AND SOUL Here's a look at a few recent movies - and a couple of not-so-recent ones - that deal with artists working in other media. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2000)
Mitchell adapts his own play about a transsexual rocker who trails her former lover as he embarks on a successful tour with songs that she composed. Although emotionally grueling, Hedwig remains great fun throughout, thanks in part to the jovial rock tunes by Stephen Trask and Mitchell's gender-bending performance in the lead role. The movie is formally playful, incorporating animation and sing-alongs rather than straightforward drama. Nobody stays happy throughout Hedwig, but the main character survives her messy life by remaining close to her music.
Performance (Nicholas Roeg and Donald Cammell, 1970)
Mick Jagger's greatest performance in Roeg's finest film. James Fox plays a criminal who hides out at the home of a faded rock star (Jagger). After a while, the two men begin to notice their shared vanity, and they begin to form a strange bond. Knowing that Jagger's career is still going strong doesn't detract from the impact of his role; the directors seem to suggest that a rock star and a musician aren't necessarily the same person, since stardom threatens to compromise an artistic vision.
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr, 1991)
This fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary follows the difficulties encountered by Francis Ford Coppola in his beleaguered attempt to finish production on Apocalypse Now. The movie's greatest juxtaposition is provided by the contrast of Coppola's physical state before and after the shooting process: His optimism transforms into weariness and borderline insanity. It's not all his fault, of course - Marlon Brando's descent to Hell and Martin Sheen's heart attack didn't help matters either.
Living in Oblivion (Tom DiCillo, 1995)
Equally accomplished work by DiCillo and star Steve Buscemi, who plays a temperamental independent filmmaker desperate to find a way through each day. Aside from the refreshing fact that this is one of the few movies where Buscemi's character doesn't get axed, Oblivion credibly portrays the difficulties involved in disseminating an artistic notion without the strength of commercial support. DiCillo draws from his own experience, populating the story with thinly veiled versions of figures from his professional life.
Misery (Rob Reiner, 1990)
In this stunning Stephen King adaptation, Reiner sketches a spooky contrast between a writer's view of his own work and an obsessive fan's contorted perspective. Paul Sheldon (James Caan) gets in a car wreck in the woods, where he's rescued by the maniacal Annie (Kathy Bates, in an Oscar-winning role) who brutally forces him to rewrite the story. His hesitation to do so - even when facing death - speaks to an audacious and threatening relationship of the writer and his work. | 
