Painters Painting

United States

1973

116 Min

Color, Black and White

English

Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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PROD Emile de Antonio, Vincent Hanlon

CAST Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Barnett Newman

Painter’s Painting offers a rare glimpse into the nascent American art movement that finally established America as a place where world-class art is produced. Emile de Antonio recognized his friends to be the center of this postwar movement, even when the New York art establishment thought of them as jokes. Films from that era reveal relaxed conversations over tea (or over the canvas) with Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Philip Pavia, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol to name a few. —AMC

Director

Emile de Antonio

Emile de Antonio (1919-1989) was a leftist documentary filmmaker who attended Harvard in the same class as John F. Kennedy and described himself as a “Marxist among capitalists.” De Antonio worked primarily with pre-existing footage, relying solely on editing (he disdained narration as “inherently fascist”) to create his stinging, often riveting critiques of the American establishment. He continually ran afoul of the government and the FBI and on one occasion, during the making of a film about the radical Weather Underground movement, received support in his battle for artistic freedom from a number of Hollywood figures including Warren Beatty, Hal Ashby, Mel Brooks and Jack Nicholson. —TCM.com