Though the facts of Emily Carr's life have been written down, her story continues to inspire creative interpretations. While I can't abide "docudramas," several cunning approaches to her work have won me over.
Susan Crean's excellent book The Laughing One occasionally ventures into "creative non-fiction."
Michael Ostroff's definitive film Winds of Heaven brought Carr to life through brilliant set designs.
Now, Jill Sharpe has created a poetic half-hour film, Bone Wind Fire, which lets us look at the world through the eyes of Emily Carr, Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo.
Produced by the National Film Board, the film won Best Canadian Film at the International Festival of Films on Art, received an Artistic Innovation Award from Vancouver Women in Film and Television and won Best Short Documentary at the Sonoma International Film Festival. Since the film's première at the Victoria International Film Festival last year, it has been seen at the National Gallery in Washington, the Musée national des beauxarts in Quebec and Montreal and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Sharpe's film is now showing daily at Emily Carr's birthplace (207 Government St., 250-383-5843) in conjunction with an exhibit of Sharpe's oil paintings, which are derived from stills from the film. To a degree, it is Sharpe's point of view as a painter that allows this audacious film project to succeed, for it's about the artist's eye. Truly, it was her goal to make a film that is not biographical but presents the inner con-cerns and inspirations of a painter.
Sharyn Udall's groundbreaking exhibition (and book) Carr, O'Keeffe & Kahlo: Places of Their Own, first brought these three iconic women artists together and toured Canada, Mexico and the United States. Sharpe, who was in the midst of a career as a director of documentary films, took on board Udall's idea seven years ago and slowly set about interesting the NFB. Subsequently, she had to convince the guardians of the estates of Carr, Kahlo and O'Keeffe to let her work with their images.
The film has a novel approach, involving moments of magic realism. In the opening sequence, O'Keeffe holds a bone to the sky. The bone transforms into one of her paintings and next is reflected in her eye - the hole in the bone becomes the eye's pupil.
Later, a number of Carr's late forest paintings transform, one into another, through digital animation.
Coconuts floating in a fountain in Kahlo's Mexican courtyard are seen to rise up in the air and dance, before they smash on the cobblestones below.
Sharpe filmed in O'Keeffe's New Mexico studio, Kahlo's home and deep in Carr's forest. As well as the landscapes, she employed actors to focus our attention. They are seen only from behind, their hair, costumes and physiques carefully matching those of the original artists. The beautifully spoken voiceovers have been culled from more than 6,000 pages of the artists' diaries to take us deep into the creative process. Every word spoken is theirs. "Making the unknown known is the important thing," O'Keeffe ruminates. "My view of life is to make love, take a bath - and make love again," Kahlo laughs.
The film is visual poetry, written in a filmmaker's language. The light of dawn slowly peels back the night shadows from the red rocks of Santa Fe. Huge firs circle overhead as Carr looks up.
The ultramarine walls of Kahlo's famous Blue House ring out against the red blossoms and greenery of her garden in an unforget-table harmony. Sharpe brings us images germane to our understanding of the paintings that would have been impossible to translate onto canvas.
Since finishing the film, Sharpe has sequestered herself in her painting studio. She told me that painting is a solo pursuit, unlike the collective and consultative work of making a film. In the peace and quiet, standing at her easel, she returned to the meditative state of mind in which she first conceived the film.
Working with transparent layers of oil paint on canvas, she slowly revisited some of the most telling images from the film to create her paintings. As a painter she brings a unique perspective to the project of making a film about her favourite painters.
The painting series will travel with the film to the Santa Fe International Film Festival and will also be seen at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum's Education Annex on the occasion of O'Keeffe's 125th birthday. The painting series can be viewed at Carr House and at www.jillsharpe.ca.
