True Artists

 A little bit ago, I wrote a post that contrasted the films The Imitation Game and Mr. Turner because I was interested in the genius behind their subjects.  Once again, I am compelled to do so, although this time the films are in documentary form.   I recently saw Seymour: an Introduction, an Ethan Hawke film about Seymour Bernstein, a piano teacher who abandoned his ascending playing career to teach piano.  I also saw Finding Vivian Maier (now on rental) about a photographer whose brilliant work was not discovered until after her death.

I was compelled to contrast these two individuals, and both gave me much to contemplate.  These artists had much to say about work, art, and life.  In Bernstein's case, we get to know him first hand through Hawke's interviews and filming of him.  Since Ms. Maier is gone, we get to know her (to the extent we can) through interviews with some of the people that touched her life, mostly the families for whom she worked as a nanny.

Maier was a complete eccentric and I couldn't help but wonder if she suffered from some neurosis that bordered on mental illness.  She apparently never married, did not appear to have any intimate relationships with any man or woman, and lived her life from job to job as a nanny.  She was intensely private, bordering on reclusive and was a hoarder (which got her fired at least once).  And there were hints she was sometimes abusive to her charges.  But she had this gift.   With her Rolleiflex camera, she took street photos, and had this marvelous ability to capture the essence of people.  Holding it at chest high, she captured ordinary individuals close up without the Hawthorne Effect (the phenomenon that subjects change their behavior when they know that they are being observed).   She never exhibited her work and she died alone and largely in obscurity.  While her work is deemed brilliant by many, she appeared to be a very lonely and tortured soul and never quite fitting in.  She seemed to have a passion for this art...and only this art, and worked only to support herself in this endeavor.

Bernstein, a man equally dedicated to his art, presents quite a different picture.  He is a man that seems at peace with himself and his life decisions to eschew performing to teach piano and live a simple life alone in a small apartment in Manhattan.  Seymour: an Introduction is an intimate portrayal of this man dedicated to his craft.  Hawke's film permits us to spend an afternoon with this wonderful human being.  He is easy and gentle and relates well to his students, who clearly revere him.  He is good humored and gentle with his students and at one point jokes with a student that it is against the rules to play better than him.  This film is about mentoring as much as it is the art.  and the message that accomplishment takes talent and enormous amounts of painstaking practice.  

The core of his philosophy was captured in a single, poignant quote: "When I was around the age of 15, I remember that I became aware that when my practicing went well, everything else in life seemed to be harmonized by that. When my practicing didn't go well, I was out of sorts with people, with my parents.  So I concluded that the real essence of who we are resides in our talent, in whatever talent that there is."

The difference between the two subjects is stark.  Spending an afternoon with Bernstein would be a joy, a dinner with Ms. Maier would likely to be awkward and difficult.  Bernstein forsake his career to help young people find their talent.  Maier used caretaking of children to focus on her own art, and indeed, was sometimes abusive to them.

But the two shared a striking similarity in one key respect---the need for solitude.  Vivian Maier's was more of a misanthropic, almost reclusive type.  Bernstein's came more naturally, I think.  But Hawke's film does not delve into Bernstein's relationships at all, so we don't know whether Bernstein was ever married or lived with anyone.  We just know (and he says this explicitly) that solitude was important to him.

Bernstein himself says that "monsters" are capable of having extraordinary talent and ability.   There nasty and incorrigible people that are unbelievably talented and creative.  (See, e.g. Mr. Turner) Clearly, Maier had a dark side.  But Bernstein evidences no such darkness.

But that leaves me with the question of whether true artists need to be solitary, of whether the art takes over so much of their soul that it leaves little room for someone else.   Or whether that time alone is needed for creativity or to synthesize and process the hours of practice and devotion.

In any event, these are both fabulous documentaries with interesting subjects and best seen back-to-back.