Jan. 24, 2013 - Issue #901: Children can’t choose
Beauty is Embarrassing
A man and his word paintings
And so director Neil Berkeley's Beauty looks to unveil the guy behind those works, and trace his arc from art-obsessed Tennessee kid to accepted art-world outsider.
That said, it's pretty standard doc fare: talking heads of family, friends and the likes of Matt Groening and Paul Reubens walk us through the arc of his life, alongside White himself. Probably the most interesting outside input comes from an art critic and an art dealer, both in LA, both of whom freely admit the art world's early inability to recognize White's uniqueness and skill—particularly in his word paintings, found landscape portraits that he writes perspective-tilted phrases like 'Hotties 24-7' or the film's title over. They together note the art world's inability to take humour seriously, and it's probably the most unique point Berkeley manages to get across here.
As a presence on screen, White is pretty affable, a guy who masks any ego he might have under a wry sense of sarcasm and approachable, down-to-earth personality. (It's also fun watching his beard's lack of continuity throughout Beauty: it grows, shrinks and disappears throughout the film without any regard to the scene that came before.) Is there a particular struggle? Only in his unshakable devotion to doing it his way. Even Mimi Pond, White's wife, calls him "a hardworking motherfucker." (A skilled, acclaimed artist in her own right, she also notes the sadness of letting her own art career fall by the wayside to raise their children as his profile rose and he devoted more and more of his time being the breadwinner.)
Still: it's hard to fault a guy for just plugging away at his craft until he made it, especially when it's as weird and wonderful as it is here. And in profiling White's rise, Beauty is a warm, inviting portrait of a sweet Tennessee weirdo who made good with his indelible spin on art. It serves as an ample introduction to his oeuvre, and, in doing so, gently aspires to inspire.
Metro Cinema at the Garneau vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus
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