As if the Stanley Kubrick exhibit wasn’t enough of a reason to spend the day at LACMA, there was also another exhibit titled Masterworks of Expressionist Cinema: Caligari and Metropolis. The influence of filmmakers Robert Wiene and Fritz Lang through their revolutionary and iconic films, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Metropolis (1927) respectively, is still felt today not only in film, but in graphic novels and fine art.
Fritz Lang was one of many German artists who fled to America. Lang’s stylized sets and extreme lighting were precursors to what Orson Welles and even Alfred Hitchcock would use to create intense emotion. More recently you can see the similarity between Lang’s Metropolis and Blade Runner by Ridley Scott. Tim Burton’s work feels at times as though it’s paying homage to Wiene’s Dr. Caligari. Every aspiring filmmaker should seek out and study the work of these two great filmmakers.
The other exhibit I was looking forward to was not film related at all, but rather Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy. While Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) may not be a name everyone knows, his art rivals both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. His use of light was extraordinary and he was also known for the passionate raw emotion and brutality he injected in his work. Scores of other artists were influenced by Caravaggio and some examples of their paintings are hanging in the gallery also. Unfortunately, the museum doesn’t allow photography of any kind in this exhibit, so you’ll have to go to LACMA yourself to see his paintings.
And, I saved the BEST for last. As I walked through the contemporary and modern art galleries I unexpectedly came across two JACKSON POLLOCK paintings! Pollock is my FAVORITE artist and LACMA has Number 15 (1950) and Number 20 (1951) which I photographed, along with a close-up of his signature on Number 15. Other artists represented in the galleries were Lee Krasner, Hans Hofmann, Roy Lichtenstein, Franz Kline, and so many more.
It was a day filled with so many forms of incredible artistic expression – film, painting, sculpture, etc.
