Born in 1911, sculptor Louise Bourgeois has been a major figure in contemporary American art since the early '60s, having earned an international reputation for her abstract pieces that embrace the appetites of human sexuality and the emotional dynamics of youth in a rich variety of ways. Filmmakers Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach offer an intriguing look at Bourgeois, her art, and her working methods in the documentary Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine. Active and
alert in her mid-nineties, Bourgeois discusses how her life history impacts her work, her relationship with her family, the techniques she uses to create her sculptures, and how the emotional outlet of her art has helped her survive. The New York premiere of Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine was scheduled to coincide with the opening of a major retrospective of Bourgeois' work at the city's Guggenheim Museum; it was the last film from co-director Marion Cajori, who died in the summer of 2006 before it was completed. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
This uncommonly elegant and evocative portrait of Louise Bourgeois reveals much about the haunting and haunted master while leaving intact the thing you cannot explain.
The artist's festering recollections of her girlhood mesh with guided first-person tours of her sculptures, creating a privileged look into a psyche rendered solid.
This complex, utterly fascinating docu evolves in almost as varied and unpredictable ways as has its 96-year-old subject, famed sculptress Louise Bourgeois.
Remarkably and unsentimentally self-reflective, the artist talks to filmmakers Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach about a lifetime of tough work and tougher questions. Fascinating stuff.
Marion Cajori makes a brave attempt to grapple with a subject who resists explanation; while she may not always succeed, the journey is frequently illuminating.
Despite Bourgeois's on-camera effusiveness, this film suffers a little from curtailing much background information; but fans of Bourgeois as a personality will find a lot to like here.
Filmmakers Marion Cajori (who died in 2006) and Amei Wallach are smart enough to grant us just the right amount of access to the great artist's full range of emotions.
Frequently roving around and taking awe at Bourgeois's massive artwork, the filmmakers may understand the artist as a woman and a living creature but they often treat her as if she herself were a museum piece.
Art world iconoclast, feminist icon, cranky old Frenchwoman with a sharp tongue and a gothic family history: Artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois is all these things and more.
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