{"id":2507,"date":"2010-10-06T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T04:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/1morefilmblog\/?p=2507"},"modified":"2015-01-16T20:24:41","modified_gmt":"2015-01-17T01:24:41","slug":"marwencol-malmberg-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/1morefilmblog\/marwencol-malmberg-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Marwencol (Malmberg, 2010)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Documentaries about visual art (or artists) are hard to do well. They require an artist\u2019s eye to capture the art itself and a director\u2019s sensibility to fashion the material into a film rather than just a flickering catalog of the work. This may be one reason why some of the most memorable ones\u2013My Kid Could Paint That<\/a><\/em>, Herb and Dorothy<\/a><\/em>\u2013are as much about the people as they are about the art.<\/p>\n

Marwencol<\/em>, though, is a little bit different. The artist\u2019s work is<\/em> his life.Oh, I don\u2019t mean that in a performance art, Borat<\/em> kind of way, nor in a generic post-Freudian \u201call art is autobiographical\u201d sort of way. Marwencol is Mark Hogankamp\u2019s alternate reality. A place in which he places himself and members of circle of acquaintances, in doll form, so that he can reenact and reform many of the traumatic episodes of his life.<\/p>\n

The central episode, the trauma that has dominated and shaped Mark\u2019s subsequent life, is when he was attacked outside a bar in Kingston, New York. The assault left Hogankamp in a coma for nine days; his beating was so severe that his own mother did not recognize him. It also left him with brain damage and physical injuries.<\/p>\n

Are artists born or made? When relating why he began his project, Mark says he knew he had to find a way to preserve and recapture his \u201cimagination.\u201d How many of us, faced with the physical, emotional, and financial problems that Hogankamp had staring him in the face would instinctively feel that the most important thing for our recovery was protecting, nurturing, and reclaiming the imagination?<\/p>\n

Marwencol<\/em> is a fascinating blend of two different genres, the artist documentary and the therapy film, with Mark acting as his own therapist\u2013probing and prodding and\u2013this is key for me\u2013moving towards an end. So much of contemporary art is simply about \u201cexpressing oneself,\u201d but that expression is treated as an end in itself. The art is never just that for Mark, and because we see that and understand it, we have a greater investment in his response to a potential New York show than simply whether or not he will be a professional success.<\/p>\n

The art as therapy enhances the interest, but it wouldn\u2019t be enough to carry the film if the art itself wasn\u2019t compelling.I very much concur with the opinion offered in the film that there is so little contemporary art, particularly dealing with miniatures, that isn\u2019t suffused in postmodern, cynical irony. (The lack of irony as a key selling point is also a big thematic point in My Kid Could Paint That<\/em> for explaining the popularity of Marla\u2019s art.)<\/p>\n

Above all, though, Marwencol<\/em> is a reminder of the potential for greatness from places we would least expect it. How the people we pass walking the side of the road, that we look through or look away from often have within them the power to teach, move, and inspire us.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marwencol is a fascinating blend of two different genres, the artist documentary and the therapy film, with Mark acting as his own therapist–probing and prodding and–this is key for me–moving towards an end. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1555,"featured_media":12546,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,16],"tags":[466,467,468],"class_list":["post-2507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disclosure-dvds-2","category-reviews","tag-disclosure-dvds","tag-jeff-malmberg","tag-mark-hogancamp"],"yoast_head":"\nMarwencol (Malmberg, 2010)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Marwencol is a fascinating blend of two different genres, the artist documentary and the therapy film, with Mark acting as his own therapist--probing and prodding and--this is key for me--moving towards an end.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/1morefilmblog\/marwencol-malmberg-2010\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marwencol (Malmberg, 2010)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Marwencol is a fascinating blend of two different genres, the artist documentary and the therapy film, with Mark acting as his own therapist--probing and prodding and--this is key for me--moving towards an end.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/1morefilmblog\/marwencol-malmberg-2010\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"1More Film Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-06T04:01:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-01-17T01:24:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/440\/2010\/10\/Marwencol.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"550\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"373\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kenneth R. 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