Since documentaries are featured as extras on many DVDs, there's a growing appetite for this cinematic art form. Criterion is feeding that craving with a series of fascinating glimpses into extraordinary real lives. Two artists that dabbled on the edge of the acceptable are featured in simultaneous releases.
The artistically apposite worlds of Jackson Pollock, and Robert Crumb are revealed in "JACKSON POLLOCK: LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND" and "THE CONFESSIONS OF ROBERT CRUMB".
"The Confessions of Robert crumb" was actually written by Crumb himself. This pioneer of bawdy, irreverent, underground comics illustrates his own life from childhood, where he began creating comics with his brothers, to his choice to uproot himself and join the counterculture at the infamous intersections of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco during the 60s, to his disillusionment and expatriation to France.
It's a hilarious, wild ride with the most "socially acerbic and recognized artists of the American underground comics landscape."
Don't miss this if you like "Fritz the Cat" and the "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers." Crumb is disturbing and funny.
Is the compulsion to be an artist a kind of sanity? Maybe. They sure go hand in hand if you look at Pollock and Crumb (and many others, for that matter).
