0091 – In the Realms of the Unreal (2004)

spacetime coordinates: 1892–1973 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. 

In the Realms of the Unreal is a 2004 documentary film directed by Jessica Yu about American outsider artist Henry Darger.

An obscure janitor during his life, Darger is known for the posthumous discovery of his elaborate 15,145-page fantasy manuscript entitled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred watercolor paintings and other drawings illustrating the story.

The film’s style is atypical of a documentary. Because there are only three known photographs of Darger, and because of his reclusive lifestyle, the film is mostly a narrated biographical account, accompanied by animated versions of events from his magnum opus, which is also surveyed in detail. Interviews with his few neighbors and other acquaintances are included.

In the last entry in his diary, he wrote: “January 1, 1971. I had a very poor nothing like Christmas. Never had a good Christmas all my life, nor a good new year, and now… I am very bitter but fortunately not revengeful, though I feel should be how I am…”

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049 – Shirley: Visions of Reality (2013)

spacetime coordinates: 

saturday, august 28th 1931 paris, 11 p.m.
sunday, august 28th 1932 new york, 9 p.m.
monday, august 28th 1939 new york, 10 p.m.

wednesday, august 28th 1940 new york, 10 p.m.
friday, august 28th 1942 new haven, 8 p.m.

thursday, august 28th 1952 new york, 6 a.m.
tuesday, august 28th 1956 new york, 9 a.m.
wednesday, august 28th 1957 pacific palisades, 6 p.m.
friday, august 28th 1959 cape cod, 11 a.m.

monday, august 28th 1961 cape cod, 7 a.m.
wednesday, august 28th 1963 albany, 7 p.m.
thursday, august 28th 1963 albany, 9 a.m.

Faithfully reproducing 13 of Edward Hopper‘s tableaux three-dimensionally on set, the basis of the film is the story of an independent and opinionated New York actress (Stephanie Cumming) whose life we follow through three turbulent decades of American history, from 1931’s Great Depression to the Riots of 1963.

“Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city,” Edward Hopper once remarked of his masterpiece Nighthawks, the famous scene depicting a downtown diner late at night. In fact, many pieces in Hopper’s oeuvre, a sun-drenched yet grimly nostalgic memento of midcentury modern America, depict solitary figures engaged in an act of reflection. Whether we see them deep in thought in the morning sun or swallowing whisky at a bar after dark, Hopper’s paintings conjure a sense of curiosity for his subjects’ past – and indeed, Vienna-born director Gustav Deutsch was so inspired by this aura of mystery that he decided to create Shirley: Visions of Reality, an exquisite example of interdisciplinary cinema based on the imagery in Hopper’s paintings.

read more: www.anothermag.com

0026 – Proteus: A Nineteenth Century Vision 2004

The animated documentary Proteus explores the nineteenth century’s engagement with the undersea world through science, technology, painting, poetry and myth. The central figure of the film is biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel, who found in the depths of the sea an ecstatic and visionary fusion of science and art.

Selections from the the film Proteus:

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imdb

0002 – Goya’s Ghosts (2006)

spacetime coordinate: spain 1792

Goya’s Ghosts is a 2006 Spanish-American film, directed by Miloš Forman (his final directorial feature before his death in 2018), and written by him and Jean-Claude Carrière. The film stars Javier Bardem, Natalie Portman and Stellan Skarsgård, and was filmed on location in Spain during late 2005. The film was written, produced, and performed in English although it is a Spanish production.

“-So how do you want me to ride?
-How do you want history to perceive
you, madam?
-The way I am,
young and beautiful.”

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Although the historical setting of the film is authentic, the story about Goya trying to defend a model is fictional, as are the characters Brother Lorenzo and the Bilbatúa family.

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