One of the best films about America's involvement in Vietnam is undoubtedly Emile De Antonio's "In The Year of The Pig." Similarly, "Millhouse: A White Comedy", is, I believe, the best film about the life of disgraced former U.S. President, Richard Nixon In 1974, Emile De Antonio turned his attention to the work of the "abstract expressionist" painters, who blossomed and flourished in New York, primarily between the years 1940 and 1970. The resulting film, "Painters Painting" has finally turned up on DVD. The film consists of interviews conducted by the filmmaker with such famous artists like William de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as famous gallery owner Leo Castelli, art critics Clement Greenberg and Thomas Hess, plus John Hightower, of the Museum of Modern Art, Henry Geldzahler of The Met, and collectors, Robert and Ethel Scull. Unfortunately, the film is let down by some very sloppy camera-work and the conversations, especially the ones recorded in the studios of the artists themselves, is very poorly recorded – this may be due in part to the acoustics of the studios, with their high ceilings and cavernous floor space. The film jumps from colour to black and white for no discernible reason. Many of the shots appear to be repeated. The names of some of the artists have been omitted entirely. In short, what could have been a dynamite film about some of the giants of 20th. Century modern art is, overall, a travesty, which is a crying shame when one realises that the majority of them have long since died.
