Tony Hancock was an important English comedian in the 1950's. He was a insecure man and was an alcoholic. Socio-political subject. Although the film was probably not funny to some we needed to look at the context of the film. It would of been funny to people in 1962. Hancock committed suicide and George Sanders killed himself. Hancock could'nt cope with being famous and being a alcoholic. All the men at the start of the film are alike they wear the same clothes are in the same job and are going in the same direction in life. The actor is bored with his job in the film. He draws to make his job less boring. He thinks he has been working too hard and thats why he feels he needs to draw. The actor starts to crack up in front of his boss. Every day he goes to his job he can't wait to finish and leave.
Although the actor has a office job, he wants to be an artist. In his home he has a locked room full of artwork such as paintings on the wall and a giant sculpture. He puts his beret hat on when he creates his work. He calls his sculture the 'Aprodiati of the waterhole'. 'It's a nymth' Nude modelling. He sculpts women as he see's them from memory. The landlady doesn't appreciate art and especially in her home. 'Turning my house into a rubbish dump'. The artist is perticular for example he likes no froth on his coffee. He wants to go to Paris to get his art appreciated. Takes his art onto a train to Paris. He took 3 years to complete his sculpture and on transit it gets dropped by accident into the sea. 'Art should reflect life like a mirror.' 'You feel like what you are painting.' Hancock gives a entirely new exception to art. Hancock is an expressionist. Hancock has a new approach to art. He created a action painting in the film by laying a sheet of canvas onto the floor and throwing tins of paint over it aswell as stapping and riding a bike over it. His painting looked like one Jackson Pollock has made. His friend (flatmate) decides to leave Paris to go back to England because he feels his painting doesn't say anthing. Tony Hancock is a obsquer artist. 'Who painted that cow?' His friends work gets noticed butnot his work. His work gets mocked. Hancock takes the credit for his friends painting and gets £1000 for exhibiting his work. The curator of the exhibiton explains to Tony that 'they don't belong to you they belong to the world.' He confesses that he never painted the paintings, he painted 'the rubbish'.
At the start of this film i didn't find it very funny but as it got into it i found it more interesting as art was introduced and the actor became more funny when he became an artist. The film was about the myth of the artist and changes in society. The art is the film could refer to Surrealism and abstract expressionism. The film also links to how artists are pecieved then and still today.
I did not find the film particually helpful to my art but i did find watching the film to be funny.
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