The Living Museum (1998)
Documentary
Overview
At the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, New York, Dr. Janos Martin helps treat patients with severe mental illness by encouraging them to express themselves through art, whether in paint, sculpture, or collage. In vivid imagery, brilliant close-ups, and delicate conversations, director Jessica Yu presents the intricate, often visionary, work of these nontraditional artists, allowing the patients to describe their approaches and processes in their own, sometimes tangled, words. With patience and calm resilience, Dr. Martin offers feedback and ideas for best methods to the individual artists, who sometimes scream or are in tears, as he helps them displace their frustrations, and demons, onto canvas. Seen as a collective, these works illustrate the fine line between creativity and distress and illuminate the healing power of expression.
Similar Movies
- A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China or: Surface Is Illusion But So Is Depth
- Magicians of the Earth: Kings of the Water
- Art City 1 Making It in Manhattan
- Art City 2 Simplicity
- Art City 3 A Ruling Passion
- Laerte-se
- 1/57: Experiment with Synthetic Sound (Test)
- Of a Different Order
- Pollock & Pollock
- Chihuly Short Cuts III
- Semi Colin
- The Renaissance of Mata Ortiz