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Difficult Pleasure: A Portrait of Brett Whiteley - Taxi drawing
Title:
Difficult Pleasure: A Portrait of Brett Whiteley - Taxi drawing
NFSA ID
307000
Year
1989
Australian artist Brett Whiteley is drawing in the back of a London taxi, explaining that this is his image of London. He draws his view from the back seat, including the legs of his companion Janice Spencer, seated in the cab next to him. As it is a sunny day, he has arranged for a hose to provide the effect of rain on the windscreen to help produce London’s ‘zen melancholia’. Summary by Damien Parer.
An engaging documentary that keeps you wondering what Brett Whiteley is going to say next. He is frankly revealing one moment, satirises himself the next, and gets angry when asked to explain the Van Gogh series on camera.
Producer-director Don Featherstone has made films about many artists. His credits include Australia Revealed, The One Percenters and The Beach. The original music by Graham Tardif is particularly effective.
Difficult Pleasure synopsis
A biographical documentary that follows Australian artist Brett Whiteley as he travels from his studio in Sydney to London. Whiteley started painting in the 1960s in London and Paris before returning to Sydney. He has painted landscapes, portraits, tributes to other painters like Francis Bacon and Vincent van Gogh and later in life created sculptures. He responds frankly to filmmaker Don Featherstone’s prompting, offering observations on how to get started as a painter, and reflecting on his drug addiction, his self-doubt, and the political content of his paintings.
Notes by Damien Parer
Production company
Featherstone Productions
Producer
Don Featherstone
Director
Don Featherstone
Research and script
Joanna Penglase
Original music
Graham Tardif
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.