10 movies for art lovers (including classics) to watch on RaiPlay during lockdown

After the success of the article in which we recommended ten films about true events to watch on Netflix, and since the lockdown for so many will now last until late January, we decided to offer you today ten films for art enthusiasts to watch on the RaiPlay platform, i.e., Rai’s on-demand content portal, where films can be seen for free. Enjoy your viewing!

1. Big Eyes, by Tim Burton, with Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston, Jason Schwartzman, Krysten Ritter, Terence Stamp (USA, 2014, running time 106 minutes)

The true story of painter Margaret Keane (played by Amy Adams), who in 1950s San Francisco painted little girls with big eyes (hence the name of the films), which were a huge hit with local audiences. However, soon her husband Walter (Christoph Waltz) tried to appropriate his wife’s talent by pretending that he was the author of the paintings. The film earned Amy Adams a Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy (nominated for the same role, male, by Christoph Waltz). Link to see it on RaiPlay

2. The Perfect Exhibition, by Andi Niessner, with Kathrin Kühnel, Sebastian Ströbel, Marie Rönnebeck, Lisa Kreuzer, Philipp Baltus, Dietrich Hollinderbäumer, Andreas Schmidt, Mathias Herrmann (Germany, 2009, running time 80 minutes)

Frances works as a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and will soon present an exhibition on Native Americans that she has been working on for years with her husband, a colleague who died prematurely. For not everything goes according to plan, and instead of collaborating with Professor Carter, a great expert in the field, she finds herself working with his son Adam, a strange and very cheeky art enthusiast. And their adventure, from professional, will result in something else. Link to see it on RaiPlay

3. Ligabue, by Salvatore Nocita, with Flavio Bucci, Pamela Villoresi, Giuseppe Pambieri, Alessandro Haber, Andréa Ferréol (Italy, 1977, three-part miniseries, total running time 200 minutes)

The very famous 1977 RAI drama starring a very great Flavio Bucci who plays the role of painter Antonio Ligabue. The three-part miniseries follows the career of the “matt” from his arrival in Gualtieri, after his expulsion from Switzerland, to his final days. Link to see it on RaiPlay

4. Caravaggio, by Silverio Blasi, with Gian Maria Volonté, Carla Gravina, Renzo Palmer, Glauco Onorato, Carlo Hintermann, Manlio Guardabassi (Italy, 1967, miniseries in three episodes, total running time 207 minutes)

Another great classic, this three-part scripted drama chronicles the entire life of Caravaggio, with one of the greatest Italian actors ever, Gian Maria Volontè, in the role of the Lombard painter. It is the first television reduction of Caravaggio’s life (though not the first produced on film: the first film, in fact, is Caravaggio, the Accursed Painter of 1941). Link to see it on RaiPlay

5. Beauty, by Nicola Abbatangelo, with Sylvester McCoy, Simone Paisley Day, Richard Henders, Hugh Sacks, James Clyde (Italy, 2018, 26 minutes)

Musical short film set in a late 19th-century fantasy London: protagonist Henry creates colors and manages to trap them inside small glass spheres to give them to his ailing wife, but is unable to save her. Since that day, he has been producing colored orbs nonstop, involving his four sons but refusing to share that incredible magic with the rest of the world and fighting over it with his youngest son, Stick. Twenty years later, Stick returns home because his father is dying. His only hope seems to lie in a very expensive medical device, but only by freeing color from the captivity of the glass balls will Stick and Henry be able to reconcile and fill everyone’s lives with beauty. Link to see it on RaiPlay

6. Francophonie, by Aleksandr Sokurov, with Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Benjamin Utzerath, Vincent Nemeth, Johanna Korthals Altes (France, Germany, Netherlands, 2015, running time 90 minutes)

A work by Russian film master Aleksandr Sokurov, this is a film set during World War II, and tells the story of the rescue of the Louvre’s artworks by museum director Jacques Audiard, who collaborates with German lecturer Franz Wolff-Metternich to protect the Louvre Museum’s treasure. Sokurov tells their story, exploring the relationship between art and power at the height of one of the most devastating conflicts the world has ever witnessed. Link to see it on RaiPlay

7. Ötzi and the Mystery of Time, by Gabriele Pignotta, with Michael Smiley, Diego Delpiano, Alessandra Mastronardi, Amelia Bradley, Judah Cousin, Vinicio Marchioni, Hannes Perkmann, Katja Lechtaler, Deirdre Mullins (Italy, 2018, running time 90 minutes)

A small digression for our large archaeology-loving audience, because here we are not talking about art, but, indeed, archaeology, and the protagonist of this fantastic film is none other than Ötzi, the Similaun mummy preserved at the Archaeological Museum of Bolzano. In the film, set in the forests of South Tyrol, the mummy comes back to life after a child, Kip, visits the museum in Bolzano before leaving town and thus bidding Ötzi a final farewell. Link to see it on RaiPlay

8. Non c’è campo, by Federico Moccia, with Vanessa Incontrada, Gianmarco Tognazzi, Claudia Potenza, Corrado Fortuna, Neva Leoni (Italy, 2017, running time 90 minutes)

Professor Laura Basile (Vanessa Incontrada) takes her class on a field trip to a village in Puglia: the high schoolers will meet an internationally renowned artist here, Gualtiero Martelli (Corrado Fortuna). Soon, however, they will find that their cell phones do not get reception, so they will be forced to resort to other means of socializing. And for everyone it will be a time of education and personal growth, against the backdrop of the beauty of Puglia. Link to see it on RaiPlay

9. Brother of Our God, by Krzysztof Zanussi, with Scott Wilson, Christoph Waltz, Wojciech Pszoniak, Riccardo Cucciolla, Grazyna Szapolowska (Poland, 1997, running time 123 minutes)

The film tells the true (and singular) story of Adam Chmielowski (played by Scott Wilson), a young soldier who, after losing a leg in the war against Russia in 1863, decides to attend the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and becomes a successful artist, one of the most highly regarded in Poland at the time. However, a visit to a hospice confronts him with the miseries of life and causes him to find an unexpected relationship with God, which will lead him to change his life again and become a priest. The film is based on the play of the same name written by a young Karol Wojtyla, later to become John Paul II. Link to see it on RaiPlay

10. Totò, Eva and the Forbidden Paintbrush, by Steno, with Totò, Abbe Lane, Mario Carotenuto, Louis de Funès, Giacomo Furès, Pilar Gómez Ferrer (Italy, 1959, running time 104 minutes)

We end up laughing with Totò, in this film in which the “prince of laughter” plays an artist who is co-opted by two con men, Eva (Abbe Lane) and José (Mario Carotenuto), who want to foist a fraud on an American billionaire, making her believe they are willing to sell her a variation of Goya’s Maja desnuda. The two hire Totò with the goal of painting a verisimilar Goya canvas, a Maja in a shirt to be presented as an incredible unedited Goya painting. The hoax will be all laughs. Link to see it on RaiPlay

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10 movies for art lovers (including classics) to watch on RaiPlay during lockdown

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