James Castle – Portrait Of An Artist (2008/First Run DVD)
Picture: C Sound: C+ Extras: C Documentary: C+
As the
Far Right hates Artists unless they can label propagandists that way, Jeffrey
Wolf’s James Castle – Portrait Of An
Artist (2008) is a brief (at 53 minutes) to-the-point examination of a life
and what the life achieved in solitude belatedly being recognized as is too
often the case. Castle was born deaf in
1899 and taught himself to draw and create in ways that are more remarkable than
ever in an all-digital wallpaper world.
The program explores the man, his life and work as his surviving family
explains what they saw and know about him and his work.
Unfortunately,
some of this is more obvious than expected and the best is not made of the time
allotted as Wolf does not mix things up to try and find out even more and go
deeper in what could have been fine character study. The story here is still good and worth
seeing, but the more I watched, the more I hoped this would pick up. That leaves the viewer going more by the art
seen than should be the case.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image can be softer than one would ant
throughout, including some aliasing errors and color variance. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is barely stereo,
but is just fine for a documentary recording having location recording
limits. Extras include stills, resources
for educators and more interviews.
- Nicholas Sheffo
