This is a look at artist Art Spiegelman and how the great works of his life were tied to tragedy, in particular the Holocaust that destroyed his extended family which he turned into Maus, and the events of 9/11 which was turned into In The Shadow Of No Towers.
Directors Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin primarily focus on Maus and the trauma that spawned it. While not everything you might want to know about the books, it's close. I'm mixed on that. While what here is choice, the problem for me is that as a fan of Spiegelman I had heard much of this before (thanks to the copious use of footage). It's understandable because the film was paid for in part by American Masters but as a long time fan of Art Spiegelman I was bit disappointed because he did so much more.
Understand I was a fan of his work before I knew who he was thanks to his work for Topps cards. He did work for their baseball cards and most importantly Wacky Packages and later Garbage Pail Kids. I loved his sense of bent humor and completely understand how he, like myself was warped by Mad Magazine. As I got older I was aware of his work in underground comics. And then Maus hit and the world found out about him. But their was a boatload of other things than Maus and it's breezed over.
If you are fine with that this film is top form. If you really want to know about a man whose art has changed the world (it really had even before Maus) you may find yourself wanting to know more.
No comments:
Post a Comment