Artists of the 20th Century - Joan Miro Rating: Release Date: 16 March, 2004 Retail Price: $19.95 OUR Price: $17.96 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Joan Miro

Artists of the 20th Century - Joan Miro Reviews

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Simply Awful
Miro is one of my favorite artists. I couldn't wait to receive this DVD in the mail--I was hoping it was the film that features footage of Miro in his studio, which I had seen years ago. Although I'm an artist myself, I had yet to buy any DVD's, or even VHS tapes in the past, about artists. I don't know why I had ignored them, but I was excited to start collecting.

Unfortunately, this DVD has almost completely turned me off of that newfound enthusiasm. I don't know much about the studio that produced this "documentary", but from now on I'll be steering a wide path from any other products by "Kultur".

Here's what the DVD is in a nutshell: Some guy reads a fairly pedestrian, and often factually incorrect essay about Miro's life and works, while bad, quiet music plays in the background. The visuals consist solely of a "slideshow" of Miro paintings, everyone of them cropped so that the effect of the painting as a whole is ruined, and most of them with inaccurate color. On top of that, it looks like the visuals were low resolution jpegs. Occasionally, as when discussing Miro's 1921/22 painting, _The Farm_, we're "treated" to even more detailed views (every view on the DVD is really a detail, considering the cropping), and it is here that the low resolution jpeg problem is most apparent--the details have smudgy, blurred edges.

Other problems include the dialog occasionally not being in sync with the images--you'll hear one painting discussed while you're looking at a different painting, and very strange "cuts" in the dialog, such as when the narration reads "Robert Rauschenberg", but you hear "Robert Rauschen . . . . . . . . . . Berg".

Overall, this video will not please any serious Miro fans, it is far too boring to try to turn children, students or the general uninitiated onto Miro, and for someone not already familiar with Miro's works, it just might turn them off of further exploration--there aren't many greater evils than that in my view.

For the money, the recent Taschen edition of the Walter Erben book is much better--the reproductions are beautiful, the commentary on paintings by Hajo Duchting often insightful even if sometimes biased against particular pictures that are some of my favorites, and Erben's text is a fascinating account of living in Miro's world for a short period.

As for videos, I'm off to search for something I don't wish to ritually sacrifice.

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