Alexandre at Mnemosyne saw my linguist hero entry and wrote an entry (in French) about the art historian as movie hero. He's asking for more movie titles in the comments and is starting to get them. He's even got an acronym for an organization that will try to promote positive images of art historians in films: HARESSA (historiens de l'art pour une représentation valorisée et équitable de leurs semblables dans le septième art).
This set off some free association on a couple of my favorite films that touch on art: Peter Greenaway plays the invisible art historian as director in some of his films, especially A Zed & Two Noughts with the subplot concerning the Vermeer forger van Meegeren. Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper) and the allegedly dead painter Derwatt (Nicholas Ray) in Der Amerikanische Freund (1977) by Wim Wenders.
There was also one director in the Alexandre's list that had crossed over from the linguist qua hero list: Raoul Ruiz. Way to go.
Posted by jim at October 26, 2003 09:07 AM | TrackBack