Portrait of Mexican muralist skims surface
The great Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco was wounded in many ways, and bitter. His bitterness shaped his vision and fueled his art, which embraced tragic themes and searing social commentary. "Orozco: Man of Fire," a fairly straight-ahead biopic by Laurie Coyle and Rick Tejada-Flores that opens at the Museum of Fine Arts today (and was recently broadcast as part of the "American Masters" series on PBS), details the life and work of the man, but maintains an odd distance.
There's nothing distant about Orozco's epic murals, which the camera caresses in long, panning shots. Part of the problem is the filmmakers' penchant for whimsical graphics. After we learn that rheumatic fever damaged the artist's heart in his youth, we see a black-and-white photo of him with a big red heart plastered over his black jacket. To illustrate the complicated connection between Native Americans and alcohol, which Orozco considered while painting "The Epic of American Civilization" at Dartmouth College, Coyle and Tejada-Flores have photos of old bottles raining down on a photo of Native Americans. It's all a little too coy, given the artist's serious, brooding and heroic work.
Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros sparked the Mexican mural movement of the 1920s that ultimately captured the imaginations of Depression-era American artists. From his savaging of the upper class in "Banquet of The Rich," at the National Preparatory School, in Mexico City, to his epic "Man of Fire," in the Hospicio Cabañas, in Guadalajara, Orozco - who lived through the Mexican Revolution and both world wars - strove to convey humanity's struggle to get past its garish and humiliating limitations.
Anjelica Huston narrates the film fluidly. Much of the text is taken from Orozco's autobiography, which is perhaps another reason the documentary feels guarded. His sons and nephews narrate incidents from his life, but never address what the man was like as a father and uncle; he seems an object of family legend rather than a family member. Even so, there are wonderful details, like the story of how young Orozco lost his hand in an explosion while mixing gunpowder for fireworks. His brother dropped the amputated hand in a jar filled with alcohol and set a match to it.
Orozco married late, surprising his siblings, who thought he'd never marry, since he was so hermetic and difficult. He struggled for recognition, and resented Rivera, whose natural ebullience grabbed attention more easily than Orozco's reticence. Ultimately, New York dealer Alma Reed made a success of him.
Curiously, at 60 he fell for a 20-year-old Mexican ballerina; it was as if his stiff, injured heart had finally cracked open. It didn't last; she left him sleepless and bereft, and he slinked back to his wife. This is his most human moment in the film; prior to this, not even losing his left hand had fazed him. (He even describes that event as a relief: Now he can stop worrying about working in the real world, and devote himself to painting.)
Despite gorgeous visuals and able narration, "Orozco: Man of Fire" lauds the artist, but neglects the man.
