Emile de Antonio | |
---|---|
Born | Emile Francisco de Antonio May 14, 1919 Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Died | December 15, 1989 70) New York City, New York, U.S. | (aged
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Occupation(s) | Director, producer |
Spouse | Nancy de Antonio |
Emile Francisco de Antonio (May 14, 1919 [1] : 3 – December 15, 1989) was an American director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political, social, and counterculture events circa 1960s–1980s. He has been referred to by Randolph Lewis as, "…the most important political filmmaker in the United States during the Cold War." [2]
De Antonio was born in 1919 in the coal-mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. His father, Emilio de Antonio, an Italian immigrant, fostered the lifelong interests of Antonio by passing on his own love for philosophy, classical literature, history and the arts. [1] : 8 He attended Harvard University alongside future president John F. Kennedy. Despite this, de Antonio was familiar with the working class experience, making his living at various points in his life as a peddler, a book editor, and the captain of a river barge (among other duties). [1] : 340 He would later go on to make a film about Kennedy's assassination called Rush to Judgment (1966), an early rebuttal of the Warren Report. [3]
After serving in the military during World War II as a bomber pilot, de Antonio returned to the United States where he frequented the art crowd, often associating with such pop artists as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, in whose film Drink de Antonio appears. Warhol was famously quoted praising de Antonio with the words, "Everything I learned about painting, I learned from De." [4]
In 1959, de Antonio created G-String Productions in order to distribute the Beat Generation film Pull My Daisy , and it was at this time that de Antonio discovered filmmaking. His first film, Point of Order! (1964), was a compilation film covering Joseph McCarthy and the Army-McCarthy hearings. In 1968, de Antonio signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. [5]
De Antonio chronicled this art scene in his documentary Painters Painting (1972). He did not actually begin creating films until the age of 43, after making significant contributions to the modern art world through his uncensored promotion of the work of his contemporaries. [3] In 1969, the Metropolitan Museum of Art held a water-stone exhibition titled New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940–1970, that included 408 works by 43 artists. Curator Henry Geldzahler granted de Antonio the unique opportunity of exclusive access to the works included in the show, and exclusive rights to filming it. [3] Until this point, de Antonio noted, "I disliked films on painting that I knew. They were either arty, narrated in a gush of reverence, as if painting were among angelic orders, or filmed with violent, brainless zooms on Apollo's navel, a celebration of the camera over the god. They revealed nothing at all about how or why a painting was made." [1] : 50
The intimate opportunity of access to the show, and the similarly close relationships with many of the artists, led de Antonio to select thirteen painters to profile in his film, in addition to critics, curators, dealers, collectors, and other influential figures in the contemporary art world. Combining interviews with live footage of the artists at work in their studio, de Antonio and cinematographer Ed Emshwiller created a groundbreaking work that captured abstract expressionism and other major contemporary art movements in a way no film maker had ever before. [3]
In an interview regarding his filmography, de Antonio spoke about his relationship with the painters and his role in the creation of the film: "I was probably the only filmmaker in the world who could [have made Painters Painting] because I knew all those people, from the time that they were poor, and unsuccessful and had no money. I knew Warhol and Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and Stella before they ever sold a painting, and so it was interesting to [do the film about them]." [6]
De Antonio was the creator/producer of many politically-motivated films (including the 1969 Oscar-nominated In the Year of the Pig [7] [8] ) attracting a substantial amount of controversy, and was also known for aligning himself with Marxist thought. His films are critiques of various aspects of American culture or politics, on the whole reflecting a certain degree of political dissension. Over the course of his professional life, de Antonio was under surveillance by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. This surveillance resulted in a 10,000-page dossier on de Antonio, and is the subject of his "autobiographical swansong," Mr. Hoover and I. [9]
On December 15, 1989, de Antonio died of a heart attack in front of his Lower East Side home. [10]
A still photograph used in the film that displayed Marine Corporal Michael Wynn later was incorporated into the album cover for The Smiths' second album Meat Is Murder (1985). The insignia on Wynn's helmet was changed to "meat is murder". [11] [12]
Andy Warhol was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one of the most important American artists of the second half of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid- to late-1950s. The movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane mass-produced objects. One of its aims is to use images of popular culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony. It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques. In pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, or combined with unrelated material.
Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the immediate aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depression and Mexican muralists. The term was first applied to American art in 1946 by the art critic Robert Coates. Key figures in the New York School, which was the center of this movement, included such artists as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Norman Lewis, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell and Theodoros Stamos among others.
Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artworks which incorporated everyday objects as art materials and which blurred the distinctions between painting and sculpture. Rauschenberg was primarily a painter and a sculptor, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance.
Point of Order! is a 1963 American documentary film by Emile de Antonio about the Senate Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954.
Elaine Frances Sturtevant, also known professionally as Sturtevant, was an American artist. She achieved recognition for her carefully inexact repetitions of other artists' works.
Painters Painting: The New York Art Scene 1940-1970 is a 1972 documentary directed by Emile de Antonio. It covers American art movements from abstract expressionism to pop art through conversations with artists in their studios. Artists appearing in the film include Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Hans Hofmann, Jules Olitski, Philip Pavia, Larry Poons, Robert Motherwell, and Kenneth Noland.
Events from the year 1964 in art.
Underground is a 1976 documentary film about the Weathermen, founded as a militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), who fought to overthrow the U.S. government during the 1960s and 1970s. The film consists of interviews with members of the group after they went underground and footage of the anti-war and civil rights protests of the time. It was directed by Emile de Antonio, Haskell Wexler, and Mary Lampson, later subpoenaed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an attempt to confiscate the film footage in order to gain information that would help them arrest the Weathermen.
Henry Geldzahler was a Belgian-born American curator of contemporary art in the late 20th century, as well as a historian and critic of modern art. He is best known for his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and as New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, and for his social role in the art world with a close relationship with contemporary artists.
In the Year of the Pig is an American documentary film directed by Emile de Antonio about American involvement in the Vietnam War. It was released in 1968 while the U.S. was in the middle of its military engagement, and was politically controversial. One year later, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 1990, Jonathan Rosenbaum characterized the film as "the first and best of the major documentaries about Vietnam".
Millhouse: A White Comedy is a 1971 documentary by Emile de Antonio following Richard Nixon's political career from his election to the House of Representatives in 1946 to his election as President of the United States in 1968. It begins with Nixon's "last press conference" in 1962 after his loss in the race for Governor of California in which he famously said, "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore." Then a collage of videos show Nixon's trajectory from his House campaign to his involvement in the Alger Hiss case, election to the Senate in 1950, election as Vice President in 1952 including the full Checkers speech, campaign for the presidency in 1960, campaign for Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, and his triumphant election as President in 1968 as the "New Nixon". The film featured interviews but no voice-over.
Athan George Theoharis was an American historian, professor of history at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As well as his extensive teaching career, he was noteworthy as an expert on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, and U.S. intelligence agencies, having written and edited many books on these and related subjects.
Marie Menken was an American experimental filmmaker, painter, and socialite. She was noted for her unique filming style that incorporated collage. She was one of the first New York filmmakers to use a hand-held camera and trained Andy Warhol on its use. Her film Glimpse of the Garden was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
Deborah Kass is an American artist whose work explores the intersection of pop culture, art history, and the construction of self. Deborah Kass works in mixed media, and is most recognized for her paintings, prints, photography, sculptures and neon lighting installations. Kass's early work mimics and reworks signature styles of iconic male artists of the 20th century including Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Ed Ruscha. Kass's technique of appropriation is a critical commentary on the intersection of social power relations, identity politics, and the historically dominant position of male artists in the art world.
Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo, Japan, and studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. After seeing Barnett Newman's exhibition at French and Company in 1959, he gave up musical composition and enrolled at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He also studied at the Art Students League of New York. Poons taught at The Art Students League from 1966 to 1970 and currently teaches at the League.
James Francis Gill is an American artist and one of the protagonists of the Pop art movement.
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Race Riot is a 1964 acrylic and silkscreen painting by the American artist Andy Warhol that he executed in 1964. It fetched $62,885,000 at Christie's in New York on 13 May 2014.