- Awards
- 1 win
Photos
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Featured review
Offbeat documentary about the artist
"Hopper's Silence" is an amusing and insightful film portrait of the late artist Edward Hopper and his wife Jo. Filmmaker and Hopper student Brian O'Doherty has adopted a "Citizen Kane" approach to discovering the man and the import of his work, and mix of a self-mocking tone regarding the glibness of such pre-Ken Russell "serious" documentaries with a serious analysis of the paintings makes for an entertaining package.
O'Doherty matches the usual pan-and-zoom perusal of paintings (and their details) with well-shot footage of the actual locations and subjects which inspired them, noting that Hopper's later works were improvised from memory rather than direct observation. He died in 1967, wife Jo following in 1968, but O'Doherty has Bolex footage of the couple in their Washington Square studios, plus a very funny old tv interview he did, in which the taciturn Hopper proves to be a most uncommunicative subject (and O'Doherty's own brash leading questions are served up for amusing self-satire in retrospect). To find out about the duo, helmer relies on personal recollections of Whitney Museum's Lloyd Goodrich plus friends John Clancy and Barbara Novak.
The beauty and strength of the paintings achieve most of the film's impact, but O'Doherty's cute use of a spoof film-within-a-film "Hopper's World", mocking the pedantic approach and his juxtaposing of images from 20th Century-Fox's tough guy Tyrone Power-starrer "Johnny Apollo" with Hopper's urban compositions give the film a light-hearted dimension.
Purists may squawk, but there is no denying the filmmaker's deep feelings about his subject and his desire (a la current biopic champ Russell) to transcend the boundaries of the academic approach. As the film's title suggests, Hopper remains an enigmatic, private figure, but with suitable voiceover narration we gain some insight to his paintings. O'Doherty ends with a study of an empty room, expressing the Hopper goal of painting inside and outside at the same time", a typical study of light and stasis.
My review was written in October 1981 after a New York Film Festival screening.
O'Doherty matches the usual pan-and-zoom perusal of paintings (and their details) with well-shot footage of the actual locations and subjects which inspired them, noting that Hopper's later works were improvised from memory rather than direct observation. He died in 1967, wife Jo following in 1968, but O'Doherty has Bolex footage of the couple in their Washington Square studios, plus a very funny old tv interview he did, in which the taciturn Hopper proves to be a most uncommunicative subject (and O'Doherty's own brash leading questions are served up for amusing self-satire in retrospect). To find out about the duo, helmer relies on personal recollections of Whitney Museum's Lloyd Goodrich plus friends John Clancy and Barbara Novak.
The beauty and strength of the paintings achieve most of the film's impact, but O'Doherty's cute use of a spoof film-within-a-film "Hopper's World", mocking the pedantic approach and his juxtaposing of images from 20th Century-Fox's tough guy Tyrone Power-starrer "Johnny Apollo" with Hopper's urban compositions give the film a light-hearted dimension.
Purists may squawk, but there is no denying the filmmaker's deep feelings about his subject and his desire (a la current biopic champ Russell) to transcend the boundaries of the academic approach. As the film's title suggests, Hopper remains an enigmatic, private figure, but with suitable voiceover narration we gain some insight to his paintings. O'Doherty ends with a study of an empty room, expressing the Hopper goal of painting inside and outside at the same time", a typical study of light and stasis.
My review was written in October 1981 after a New York Film Festival screening.
helpful•30
- lor_
- Jan 6, 2023
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $100,000 (estimated)
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content