A Bigger Splash **** (1973, David Hockney, Peter Schlesinger, Celia Birtwell) – Classic Movie Review 9509

Director Jack Hazan’s 1974 A Bigger Splash is a fascinating and insightful, though chaotically assembled semi-fictionalized documentary drama biopic on the life of the British painter David Hockney and the story behind one of his most popular and famous paintings. It is important for its groundbreaking treatment of gay themes and its significant insights into the artist’s life and work.

When his lover Peter Schlesinger breaks up with him, Hockney is left an emotional wreck, unable to paint. But he finds inspiration in his Californian swimming pool, and he begins to paint it.

A Bigger Splash is fascinating as an imaginative fly-on-the-wall documentary, intercut with fictionalised and fantasy elements, and it comes alive mainly through the sheer force of personality of some of the exotic characters involved, including Celia Birtwell (designer), Mo McDermott (Friend), Henry Geldzahler (museum curator/ Collector), John Kasmin (gallery owner/ Dealer), Ossie Clark (Dress Designer) and Patrick Procktor (artist), all as themselves.

An explicit gay love scene (not involving Hockney) seemed inoffensive, but Channel 4 had to cut it on the film’s 1990 TV screening.

It is named after Hockney’s pop art painting A Bigger Splash, his best known Californian swimming pool picture. Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is a large acrylic-on-canvas pop art painting completed in May 1972. It depicts one figure swimming underwater and one clothed male looking down at the swimmer. In November 2018, it sold for $90.3 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for a work by a living artist.

Hockney is said to have been disturbed by the film’s intimacy but he later changed his mind.

A Bigger Splash is directed Jack Hazan, runs 105 minutes, is made by Buzzy Enterprises and Circle Associates, is released by New Line Cinema (1974) (US), is written by Jack Hazan and David Mingay, is shot by Jack Hazan, is produced by Jack Hazan and Mike Kaplan, and is scored by Patrick Gowers.

It is released by BFI Video (2012) (UK) (DVD).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9509

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