Mary Cassatt: A Brush With Independence (2003)
Film:
DVD:

Written by Norman Allen
Directed by Jackson Frost
Narrated by Anne Archer

Released by Home Vision
Rating: NR
Region: 1
Anamorphic: No.

My Advice: Art lovers should rent it.

Mary Cassatt, a Pennsylvanian born in 1844, wanted more than anything to go to Europe and become a painter. Then more than anything she wanted to become successful and get into the Salon showings in Paris. A member of the Impressionist movement, and a successful artist despite the fact of being a woman in that era, she is largely responsible for helping to further the Impressionists in America--despite having little love for her native country and preferring to live in France for the majority of her life.

Allen and Frost's documentary is a fairly straightforward hour-long piece on the artist. What it does--and does decently--is provide an overview of Cassatt's life and progression of work. It conveys well her zeal to get the hell out of the United States and also her struggle to stay in Europe, with only wars driving her from her chosen land. What it doesn't do is break any new ground from a docu standpoint--which in this case is truly a nit, since expectations weren't necessarily leaning in that direction. There's discussion of the art, the obligatory parade of talking heads discussing the artist, her influences and those she influenced--and that's about it.

There are no special features on the disc, although the obvious one would be a gallery of her paintings. Ideally, you could have a gallery with audio bits from the talking heads discussing the painting, why it is significant, its composition, and so forth. Still--there are probably rights issues involved with that, so we can't fault somebody for something that puts them overbudget. But still, extended interviews with talking heads are always nice: the interviews are spliced in throughout a docu, so you know there's stuff left over. Or a brief interview with director Frost on the docu itself. All of this would have been some good disc gravy, but alas.

For someone not familiar with Cassatt, this would be a good introduction. It would also serve as a good choice for an art class in high school or so, to put in perspective women and their place in the art world of the time. However, since this is a primer, those already in the know about Cassatt's life and work won't find any shocking revelations on this disc. Worth a rental for those needing to be in the know.