10 favourite Asian films about artists, from Vincent van Gogh in Dreams to Gong Li-led Zhou Yu’s Train
- We recall 10 of the best Asian movies about artists, including Akira Kurosawa’s take on Vincent van Gogh with Martin Scorsese as the tortured Dutchman in Dreams
- Vivian Wu and Ewan McGregor lead The Pillow Book by Peter Greenaway, Gong Li is a muse in Zhou Yu’s Train, and Takeshi Kitano directs Achilles and the Tortoise
Artists, by their very nature, are mysterious and unpredictable figures, forced to experience and interpret the world around them through a prism of abstraction.
But their commitment to their pursuit is precisely what makes them so endlessly fascinating. Their willingness to push, harm or even destroy themselves for the benefit of their craft, sets them apart from the rest of society.
While cinema loves nothing more than to dissect itself – there are perhaps more films about filmmakers and the filmmaking process than any other art form – those who dedicate themselves to the classical fine arts of painting, sculpture, poetry or, in recent years, even photography, are equally alluring and mysterious.
Easier to appreciate than to explain, perhaps, the accomplishments of the lonely, tortured artist will never grow old.
Here are 10 of our favourite depictions of artists, and the art that they create, in cinema from across the region.
1. Terrorizers (1986)
Winner of the Golden Horse Award for Best Film, Edward Yang De-chang’s postmodern mystery owes more than a passing debt to Michelangelo Antonioni’s swinging 60s-set Blow-Up (1966).
