Big Eyes
I like art. I guess. I’ve studied it in high school (and college!). I’ve dabbled in it. I’ve been to some of the most renowned museums in the world. I’m not sure my tastes are worth anything, but I do have two SHAG prints, several fading Ragnar prints, and 3 or 5 more prints/paintings hanging on the walls of my house. I like what I see.
I sort of liked the art in Big Eyes, Tim Burton’s latest film about outsider artist, Margaret Keane. She painted big eyed waifs, but had her credit taken by her husband at the time. It is a very low brow style: slightly crude and not professional, but when you see them, you’ll be enraptured by their big eyes, too.
The movie as I mentioned is about the artist trying to find herself after clashing with her husband who has passed off her work as his. It is a lambasting of Walter Keane, the husband, who comes off as megalomaniacal. He’s played by everyone’s favorite dastard, Christoph Waltz, whose portrayal doesn’t seem far from his own character in your mind. He makes Keane somewhat sleazy and somewhat sympathetic because he thought he was an artist himself, but stole the art from his actual artist, his wife.
Sadly, this movie will slowly fade to obscurity as a curio only to be revived the next time we all go for outsider art. Watch it as biopic. Then get me one of her prints!
3 of 5 stars.
2 Replies to “Big Eyes”
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i wonder why Tim Burton was drawn to this story. not just for the art I imagine.
I read that he had a few of her paintings. Also, Keane was an outsider in the art world; Burton is drawn to that type of character: Ed Wood an outsider in Hollywood, PeeWee Herman an outsider from reality, Edward Scissorhands an outsider from humans. Burton just gravitates to that type.