The brush, like a magical feather, soars over the canvas of the soaring ... This review, this text I dedicate to two events at once: the annual date of my stay on the wonderful site "Kinopoisk", thanks to which I simply owe my cultural, spiritual and moral ascent and broader erudition in the field of film history, and watching a wonderful, deep, philosophical and psychologically subtle film - "By the mouth of the artist".
There are works of art, including cinema, that cannot be interpreted or described. No critic, no movie connoisseur, with rare exceptions, will ever be able to say anything intelligibly precise, concrete, detailed about them, because there is nothing to talk about. This film should only be seen without words with your own eyes, experience emotions, feelings and experiences yourself, because it is very unusual, ambiguous and requires an individual approach.
The tape is a general, incredibly talented approach, brilliant imagination and the result of a brilliant creative tandem directed by Ronald Niem and the great British actor, Sir Alec Guinness.
Each of them made an unshakable, non-transferable contribution not only to this film, but also to the cinema in general, but it is in this tape that they will converge to create this truly magnificent film work about fate and the eternal search for inspiration from a creative person.
The theme of creative “search”, creative wandering and devotion to their muses, ideas has been raised in the cinema many times, especially for composers and artists, but for some reason it seems to me that the idea of introducing this petty theme into the environment of tragicomedy belongs to this film, maybe I am mistaken, but I have never seen such a refined play on the audience’s feelings, such psychological subtlety, such brilliant implantability in the image, certainly a pioneer in the genre of tragicomedy.
Of course, I could tell you a lot about the high performance, semantic and psychological level of this film. This work is funny and touching, sad and smart, deep and original. I was so imbued with the depth, philosophy of this picture that as if I saw it, saw it and watched its creation with my own eyes, and I realize that it is laid out literally by small mosaic semantic rectangles consisting of an image built by Alec Guinness, in principle, it is his role that is the most key in the center of the picture, other actors who played side by side with him, despite their skill, simply stood behind the highest role, the brilliant charisma of this brilliant tragedy.
The innovation of the film consists in the fact that it used a technique, the analogues of which until then simply was not - it is art in art, the central problem of art and the person representing it, directly in the work of art, it is not surprising why the film was nominated in 1959 for an Oscar in the category "Best Adapted Screenplay", and later, in 1960, it almost won two awards "British Academy".
And although Ronald Nim was at the head of the director's desk, it was Guinness who was the main one at the helm, he was the generator, conveyor and executor of all ideas, ideas, and he himself, in addition to the fact that he played the main role, wrote the script for the film, for the third time I find for myself the brilliant play of this most talented actor, deep, insightful, emotional and incredibly subtle play of which I will probably remember for life.
In his brilliant way for which he was awarded the prize. The Volpi Cup in the same year, the image of an artist whose works were misunderstood, who brought himself almost to exhaustion to create a masterpiece, Guinness helps the viewer to see the picture, tells how to look at it in order to understand, penetrate the whole mystery of this fine art, correctly extract for all the meaning, emotions, depth, irony left by the author.
Alas and ah, but the character of Alec Guinness - poor artist Jilly Jimson misunderstood, the old church on the wall of which his fresco was painted, his main masterpiece on the creation of which he invested all his strength, emotions and soul destroyed, and his other works were shown at the exhibition to most ignorant and limited residents of the city, and the misunderstood he decided to leave it on his barge, in which he lived, worked, through bridges, through the dark and deep waters of the Thames he sailed far, beyond the limits of human understanding and memory, but Guinness himself simply left in the history forever.
10 out of 10