Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Homevision
• VHS Release Date: June 13, 2000
• Run Time: 35 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6304188552
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #261,729 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In 1933, the Rockefeller family of New York commissioned Mexican master Diego Rivera to add a fresco to the entry hall of Rockefeller Center. They approved his sketches, and he began to paint, becoming a tourist attraction as he worked. Fresco painting is one of the most difficult media in which a painter can work because it involves painting with fresh plaster; in the end, the fresco becomes a part of the wall itself. Rivera had been hard at work a few months when he was summoned to speak with the Rockefellers, who asked him to remove a certain figure from the fresco. The face had been unclear in the sketch they had approved but now--vivid in Rivera's Michelangelo-like colors--the objectionable face was far too prominent to be kept. Rivera refused. The Rockefellers paid him in full for the whole project but sent him promptly home. Later on, much to Rivera's irritation, they destroyed the fresco. The objectionable face: Lenin's.

As a young man, Rivera spent seven years in France and Spain studying classical European techniques as a part of the École de Paris. But the Mexico of the '20s was just beginning to accept, and be proud of, its Aztec and Maya heritage, and it was in this environment of an artistic and spiritual transformation in Mexico that Rivera developed his frame of art: His central question was how to make art useful. He came to reject what he considered frivolousness in cubism and avant-garde art and turned instead to a goal of glorifying the culture and life of the Mexican people--not its aristocracy, but its lower classes: Indians, campesinos, miners, workers. "Art has a social function like any craft," Rivera once wrote. "An artist must be the conscience of his age."

Michael Camerini's 1986 documentary carefully juxtaposes the life, the politics, and the art of Diego Rivera, with stunning, close-up photography of his most significant works--the viewer enjoys details sometimes too remote on frescoed ceilings to perceive otherwise. This admixture of Rivera's social philosophy with such beautiful photography of his work is riveting. Rivera was controversial, and Camerini's problematization of his art results in a beautiful, intelligent, and informative 35-minute study of one of the Western Hemisphere's most important 20th-century artists. --Erik Macki

Product Description

Actor Michael Moriarity (Bang the Drum Slowly, The Last Detail), narrates this stirring portrait of the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. This flamboyant and controversial painter was the leader of the Mexican mural renaissance of the 1920's and 30's. Vividly exploring Rivera's evolution as an artist, his spectacular series of murals, and his explosive political beliefs, this stunning documentary reveals one of the true geniuses of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "an artist must be the conscience of his age", December 25, 2000

By 

Alejandra Vernon "artist & illustrator" (Long Beach, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Frescoes of Diego Rivera [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Starting in 1921 with the return to his homeland after many years in Europe, this marvelous film gives those of us who haven't had the opportunity to view these amazing masterpieces in person, a glimpse as to the size and scope of these frescoes.

I was fascinated to learn, and see by examples, the influence that Italian Renaissance painting had on his work. In the use of perspective, and the way certain figures are posed, one can see the relationship between Rivera and the Italian Masters, but he transformed it into an art that is 100 % Mexican.

Written by Michael Camerini (who also directed) and Stanton L. Catlin, it's well narrated by Michael Moriarty, with his calm and lovely voice. This terrific video (it feels way too short at 35 minutes in length) will inspire and give you a lot to think about if you're an artist, and will be a treat for those that appreciate the genius of Diego Rivera.