Niki de Saint Phalle (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Niki de Saint Phalle |
| Country of production | Germany , Switzerland |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1995 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Schamoni |
| script | Peter Schamoni |
| production | Peter Schamoni for Peter Schamoni Film, Munich Praesens Film, Zurich |
| music |
Frédéric Chopin Erik Satie Igor Stravinsky Helmut Binzer Philip Glass Moondog |
| camera |
Mike Bartlett Rodger Hinrichs Ernst Hirsch Peter Rosenwanger Michael D. Murphy Peter Whitehead Bernard Zitzermann François de Menil |
| cut | Thomas Krattenmacher |
Niki de Saint Phalle is a German-Swiss documentary directed by Peter Schamoni from 1995 . The long title of the film is Niki de Saint Phalle: Who is the monster - you or me?
action
Niki de Saint Phalle is introduced through scenes of shooting pictures and excerpts from her experimental film Daddy , Jean Tinguely introduces himself as an artist who creates machines that are useless. In 1962, both staged the anti-nuclear art campaign The End of the World in the Nevada desert.
Niki de Saint Phalle recapitulates her artistic development. She was born as Catherine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle: however, her mother named her Niki as the name suited her better. Even as a rebellion against her family, she kept the name when she became active as an artist. She started with the aggressive shooting pictures in which she could express her anger against men, their family and humanity. Instead of becoming a terrorist, she became a terrorist of the arts, she says. Her art led from anger to pain, resulting in suffering female figures, including prostitutes, women in labor and brides. One day the pain in her was over and she was able to create figures of joy with the Nanas , which she also feels as the glorification of the woman.
At the instigation of Pontus Hultén , she created the oversized Nana Hon for the Moderna Museet in Stockholm , which was a huge success. In addition to the construction of the sculpture, the subsequent dismantling is also shown. Excerpts from a dance performance by Roland Petit with Nanas are shown as well as the group of figures Le paradis fantastique by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely for the roof of the French pavilion at Expo 67 in Canada. In 1970 she created a children's playground for a poor district in Jerusalem, followed by Nanas for Hanover and a playhouse in Belgium. Niki de Saint Phalle increasingly has health problems that she attributes to a polyester allergy. Sometimes she works with an oxygen device. Starting from the Nanas, she created a variation, the all-devouring mothers that Tinguely found repulsive. Another change came in the 1970s when she directed and also appeared as an actress. In the experimental feature film Daddy she is directed against men and above all father figures and thus processed the rape by her father in childhood in a semi-documentary manner. Un rêve plus long que la nuit (A dream longer than the night) with her daughter as the leading actress shows the hell of the adult world. When she had to choose between film and sculpture, she chose the latter.
At the age of 50 she received land in Tuscany from friends and devoted herself to her life's work, building the tarot garden . The materials glass and ceramics and mirrors dominate the sculpture garden. Niki de Saint Phalle presents her favorite places in the garden. Other works, such as the Stravinsky Fountain in Paris, are shown and explained. Tinguely dies in 1991 and his self-planned funeral becomes the last major production. For the next two years, Niki de Saint Phalle campaigned for her husband's legacy and completed the oversized sculpture head / Le Cyclop in the forest of Fontainebleau , which was begun in 1969 . Retrospectives in Bonn and works in Paris determine the next few years. Her health situation deteriorates, so that she is regularly dependent on breathing apparatus. Her doctors advise her to go to San Diego and, in fact, her health is improving to the point where she can go without a breathing apparatus. She begins to discover new motifs for herself, including orkas after visits to SeaWorld , which she puts together mechanically in motion and lets fall apart, partly based on Tinguely's work. Another motif is paragliding - the last shots of the film show Niki de Saint Phalle flying high in the air with a paraglider.
production
Niki de Saint Phalle combines interviews with contemporary witnesses with contemporary recordings and film clips. You can see scenes from the films Daddy , Niki and Un rêve plus long que la nuit . Documentary scenes in southern France, Tuscany and San Diego were shot on location from 1993.
The film premiered in November 1995 at the Leipzig IFF. It was released in theaters on February 1, 1996. It was released on video on October 20, 1997 and on DVD in 2005.
Niki de Saint Phalle is dubbed in the film by Andrea Jonasson . The film dispenses with additional comments.
criticism
The film service called Niki de Saint Phalle an "impressively composed portrait [...] In an almost sensual way, the film makes you want to travel to the locations of the imaginative, poetic art objects and at the same time shows how to be intolerant of new and provocative art forms depriving yourself of such pleasure. "
“A life for art, a portrait for the senses,” wrote Cinema .
Der Spiegel criticized the fact that the film “becomes an homage to herself by the artist. The viewer learns nothing about her first adventurous marriage to the writer Harry Mathews , and art criticism is completely omitted. A little distance would have done Schamoni's respectful portrait good. "
Awards
In 1995 Niki de Saint Phalle received the Documentary Film Prize at the Bavarian Film Prize . It was also nominated in 1996 for the German Film Prize in the category of best full-length feature film.
In 1995, the film evaluation agency awarded Niki de Saint Phalle the title “Particularly valuable”. The jury's statement said, among other things, that it was a “fascinating film, both in terms of its cinematic design and the statements made by the artist Niki de Saint Phalle and her works. It is a masterpiece of a filmmaker who has absolutely sovereign access to this artist. ”The film gives the viewer“ extended access to the artist ”, the film set high standards for future artist biographies.
literature
- Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely. Who is the monster - you or me? . In: Hilmar Hoffmann (Ed.): Peter Schamoni. Film Pieces . Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart 2003, pp. 48-61.
Web links
- Niki de Saint Phalle in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Niki de Saint Phalle at filmportal.de
- Niki de Saint Phalle on schamoni.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Niki de Saint Phalle. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ See cinema.de
- ↑ Round and in a good mood . In: Der Spiegel , No. 6, 1996, p. 198.
- ↑ See Niki de Saint Phalle on fbw-filmb Bewertung.com