Big Eyes Review (2014)
dir by Tim Burton
Tim Burton purportedly cited the artworks of Margaret Keane as being an inspiration for him as a young, rising artist. If one looks at a selection of his portraits, they can immediately see the influence: big eyes, waiflike body. In fact, the resemblance becomes more conspicuous, I would argue, the more familiar one becomes with Margaret Keane’s art. Big Eyes, a biographical drama film directed by Burton, provides a great introduction to her oeuvre, a body of work that makes quotidian melancholy feel almost like it could be friendly.
I selected this film to view because I am working on a novel project that is interested in exploring similar themes, specifically the demands marriage and art exact on the female artist, the complexities that underpin this kind of love triangle, the psychological constraints of these conflicting demands, a proposition on how the female artist might transcend them. I chose between Big Eyes and another film that could exist with both this one and my future project in some kind of designated collection; that film is Birds of Paradise (2021), a ballet drama that pits the demands of one’s art against those of a relationship. My novel project foregrounds ballet and utilizes it as a canvas upon which to explore the aforesaid themes.
Big Eyes is a historical fiction and so is based on a true story; the adaptation is quite faithful. In an interview with The Guardian that came out around the time of the film’s release, Margaret Keane told the interviewer, that “it’s very accurate.”[1] Amy Adams delivers a phenomenal performance (as always) of Margaret Keane. Her platinum blonde bob, pool water blue eyes, and recurring shade of light pink lipstick make her resemble one of the Marilyn Monroe portraits from a Warhol screenprint, Keane’s contemporary. Before getting any further, I ought to call out the major drama that is at stake in the picture, in the case that it is still concealed to some. This story - that actually happened - is about a husband who steals the credit for his wife’s paintings by posing as the artist, when in fact he did not paint them. An interesting facet of Walter’s act of forgery, that the film pays due diligence to, is that though Walter does not paint the paintings, he becomes an expert at selling them. Walter Keane, from history and the character in this film (played by Christoph Waltz), is not an artist but a salesman, a captivating element of the film as it calls into question the artistry not only of selling, but also of successfully forging art. Ultimately it was a tragic ending for Walter Keane, but his lie held together for about ten years.
The interview with Margaret Keane that The Guardian conducts upon the film release ends in a striking way. The interviewer, Jon Ronson, reveals to Margaret that her ex-husband, Walter, was diagnosed after their divorce with a rare mental condition called “delusional disorder.” Margaret explains that she previously didn’t know what the mental condition was, nor could she recall Walter being diagnosed with it. After this news, Margaret’s response to Ronson is as follows:
Margaret thinks. “For a long time, I felt very guilty about it,” she says.
“Why guilty?” I ask.
“If I hadn’t allowed him to take credit for the paintings, he wouldn’t have got as sick as he got.”[2]
This remark highlights the distinctive way that Margaret implicates herself into Walter’s extensive series of crimes, and struggles, even after the trial and the divorce, to eradicate her attachment to his personal decisions and fate. It is this aspect of their relationship and the circumstance that impels the psychological thriller component of the film, a substantial aspect of the film’s composition, that begins to surface early in the movie and that builds momentum until its intensity culminates towards its end in a pivotal event: Walter tries to light Margaret on fire, literally. The first scene that has a marked psychological charge involves Margaret going to confession at a Catholic church to confess her sin of lying to her child, because Walter had pressured her to do it. This scene is well done and, whether or not it was an event that occurred in the life of the real Margaret Keane I don’t know, but it serves as a poignant display of Margaret’s violently quiet anguish. In the same vein, the scenes that portray Margaret hiding her painting practice from her daughter feel subdued and yet, at the same time, like an act that is exceptionally dramatic. Burton strikes delicate chords in these two scenes.
The emergence of pop art is featured prominently in Big Eyes. There are several conversations in galleries or similar arty settings wherein guests remark on the new phenomenon of printing artworks and selling them at a mass level, and not only as it relates to Walter’s work. A scene that pays tribute to this period is a beautiful one in which we see Margaret in the supermarket walking by a large, pyramid display of Campbell’s soup cans, an allusion to Warhol’s prints. This happens to also be the scene wherein I caught Margaret looking the most like a Marilyn type figure. The color palette and other features of the set design, like the furniture and décor, pay tribute to the Pop Art movement.
The court trial scene towards the film’s finale, when Margaret sues Walter for defamation, is intriguing and epic; kudos to Burton, and also, to the actors. The way that Waltz and Adams capture the emotional rollercoaster of such a trial, including Margaret’s sensitivity to opening the lawsuit against her ex-husband to begin with, fascinates. I only wish Burton had pushed on wringing out her guilt complex further, but he did dare to have Waltz’s character retain his manipulative charm during his personal testimony, which Adams’ did not refrain from betraying amusement in.
The mother-daughter relationship in the film, though not a principal component, is nevertheless sweet and touching. It should not be lost on viewers that Big Eyes opens and closes with Margaret leaving two husbands, and in each car-on-the-highway scene, her daughter is cheering her on from the back seat.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/26/art-fraud-margaret-walter-keane-tim-burton-biopic
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/26/art-fraud-margaret-walter-keane-tim-burton-biopic
Star Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Links to Explore:
1. “The big-eyed children: the extraordinary story of an epic art fraud” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/26/art-fraud-margaret-walter-keane-tim-burton-biopic
2. “7 Works by Margaret Keane You Should Know” https://www.thecollector.com/works-margaret-keane-should-know/
3. Pop Art movement, mid 1950s – late 1970s, “Overview of the Pop Art movement”
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/pop-art/
4. “The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren”
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Made-Vermeers-Pa/dp/0547247842