Introduction
High Art is a 1998 American independent drama film written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko. The film is a multi-layered and atmospheric examination of ambition, love, addiction, and identity. It was Cholodenko’s directorial debut. With Ally Sheedy and Radha Mitchell in lead roles, the film vividly portrays the worlds of commercial photography, underground art, and personal awakening set in New York’s bohemian culture of the late 1990s.
Cholodenko won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for High Art’s screenplay at the Sundance Film Festival. It was a bold and defining moment for her in the queer cinema landscape. She became the face of a new wave of women filmmakers, who were telling intricate and compelling LGBTQ+ stories. The film has been remembered and admired for its candid and multifaceted portrayal of female desire and creative ambition.Plot Summary
The film High Art focuses on Syd (Radha Mitchell), 24 years old, an assistant editor at the prestigious but oppressive magazine, Frame, a photography magazine. Syd’s life is orderly, and a bit dull, as she is living with her boyfriend and advancing in her career. There is a marked monotony to her life, ambition, youthful energy, and a routine, but a very conservative workplace.
Syd’s life is turned upside down when a water leak leads her to meet a photographer who went off the grid years ago, Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy). Lucy resides in the apartment directly above Syd’s, and she is a reclusive, iconic photographer who has a cult-like following of artists and drug addicts, including her German actress girlfriend, Greta (Patricia Clarkson), a former Fassbinder heroin addict.
Because of her mystique and impressive photography, Lucy’s work captures Syd’s interest, and soon she is spending more time with Lucy to encourage her to work on a new portfolio with hopes of publishing it in Frame. With every new project they work on together, their emotional and physical intimacy deepens. The lines between professional admiration, artistic collaboration, and romantic affection blend seamlessly.
Syd and Lucy: Summary and Cast of Ally Sheedy’s Career-Defining Performance
While Lucy is older and more experienced, she is tired of the world. Considerably more complex, she draws inspiration from the youthful clarity and ambition of Syd. Lucy’s charms, deep artistry, and troubled vulnerability enchant Syd. What starts off as mentorship and a professional opportunity gradually kindles a passionate whirlwind romance.
Greta’s emotional volatility, the power struggle of the creative collaboration, and Lucy’s heroin addiction all seem to work as a creative force. For Syd, the more she becomes a part of Lucy’s world, the more she starts questioning her own ideals, life choices, and the world she aspires to inhabit.
In the emotionally charged climax of the film, the poetically tragic intertwining consequences of love, addiction, artistry, and selflessness surfaces, revealing a transformed Syd and sealing Lucy’s fate in a beauty mark of a surrender.
Ally Sheedy as Lucy Berliner
Ally Sheedy delivers a career-defining performance as Lucy. Sheedy’s reinvention in the film as a complex, sensual, and deeply tormented artist is a sharp contrast from her prior work in ’80s teen classics like The Breakfast Club. As for her performance, Lucy is commanding and heartbreaking. Sheedy walks the delicate line and encapsulates the overwhelming pull of fame and the weight of decisions made, intertwined with the intoxicating force of artistic love.
As Radha Mitchell plays Syd, she depicts a primary role with a subtle depth that illustrates the intricacies of sexual awakening coupled with ethical dilemmas in a professional context. Her characterization of a husband-and-wife career woman, a blending workaholic with a woman emotionally, intellectually, and artistically transformed, was magic captured onscreen.
As Lucy’s partner, Clarkson delivers a frail but evocative performance as Greta. Her performance possesses a certain haunting quality that, as the viewer, offers a sorrowful picture of addiction and the dimming light of what was once a brilliant, vibrant life full of creativity.
The evolution of their relationship is powerful and authentic because of the palpable and deeply affecting chemistry between Sheedy and Mitchell.
High Art is thoroughly the first film by Lisa Cholodenko, and the director has a distinctive and elegant style. She balances portrayal of emotions, events, and character develoment while moving the narrative in a slow but compelling manner. Lucy’s artist stratum is full of structured commercialism molding with chaotic emotionalism while the deliberate pacing brings a sense of calm.
The cinematography of Tami Reiker complements the film’s dreamlike and claustrophobic feel. Lucy’s apartment and the love and addiction blur motifs are best captured with low muted colors. Scenes are captioned with dim lights and soft focus to witnes sthe serene and hazy charm of Lucy’s apartment. Many scenes are captured and close framed and defy a wide shot reinforcing the intimacy and the psychologically intensity of the story.
Themes and Analysis
- The Junction Between Business and Creative Work
At its most fundamental level paradigms within High Art focuses more on the genuine artistry and its vaporous relationship with the business side of things. Lucy as a photographer was highly regarded until the industry spiraled into a shallow circus. For as long as the editorial assistant Syd was still existent in the industry with the hope of expanding his horizons. Their partnership poses a fundamental issue on what is the acceptable level of sacrifice for appreciation.
- Relationship Power Dynamics
The frame that Lucy and Syd share contains level of age, the cycle of life and profession, level of life experience and the psychological dependence. With this in mind, both parties are willing to covet attraction, however, the reach of life experience and emotional chaos dampens the appeal. This film illustrates distinctly what within artistic, sexual, and emotional influence exists within a definite control system and how it flows.
- Addiction and Despair
The film scrutinizes addiction through Lucy and Greta and how it can simultaneously dull one’s creativity while offering a temporary respite. The film’s portrayal of Greta and Lucy’s bohemian lifestyle, albeit romanticized at first, reveals a more sinister side: the thin line between freedom and self-destruction.
- Queer Identity and Desire
High Art is remarkable in its unapologetic portrayal of queer relationships. Syd’s sexual awakening is treated with a profound and multifaceted lens, rather than through stereotypes. The film examines the paradox of intimacy that is both liberating and perilous, especially in the context of mentorship and admiration.
- Feminine Creativity and Control
The film is a welcomed addition to the discourse surrounding women in the creative sphere, addressing female artists, lovers, and the relationships between them. It insinuares that the more genuine a work of art is, the more likely it is to be rooted in the reality of one’s trauma, scars, and experiences of life.
Reception and Legacy
High Art is regarded as one of the most groundbreaking films of its time for its bold subject matter and strong performances. It won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for multiple Independent Spirit Awards.
Ally Sheedy earned accolades for High Art. The film won Sheedy Best Actress from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Cheu Ma was also recognized for the intelligent depiction of queer relationships in the film, and for not moralizing addiction, desire, or ambition.
Ally Sheedy portrayed her character with nuances, and even her simplest actions spoke volumes. Today, High Art is regarded as a landmark queer film, American independent film and is credited to the rise of lesbian cinema in the late 1990s.
Final Thoughts
The film evokes a spectrum of feelings and highlights the multifaceted relationships between love, ambition, creation, and addiction. High Art’s emotional and visual impact make it compelling and hard to forget.
Cholodenko’s first film remains insightful. She provides us with deep character analysis and leaves us with emotional and intellectual puzzles to solve. Her work is a must watch for those interested in intense queer emotions, identity, the artistic struggle, and independent cinema.
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