The Maze

The Maze (2011)

William Kurelek's The Maze is a documentary film about the life of celebrated Canadian artist William Kurelek, "dramatically told through his paintings and his on-camera revelations." The film documents the artist's struggles with attempted suicide and what he called a "spiritual crisis."

Data di uscita
2011-10-12
Durata
1 h 0 min
Generi
Documentario
Regista
Robert M. Young, David Grubin

Curiosità

William Kurelek's The Maze is a documentary film about the life of celebrated Canadian artist William Kurelek, "dramatically told through his paintings and his on-camera revelations." The film documents the artist's struggles with attempted suicide and what he called a "spiritual crisis." At the center of the film is Kurelek's work The Maze, which he describes in the film as "a painting of the inside of [his] skull which [he] painted while in England as a patient in Maudsley and Netherne psychiatric hospitals." This painting depicts a man's "unraveled head lying in a wheat field. A curled up laboratory rat, representing his spirit, is trapped inside a maze of unhappy thoughts and memories."

Production

In 1969, director Robert M. Young was asked to make a film about psychotic art by Cornell University professor James Maas. When Young saw Kurelek's painting The Maze in Maas' slide collection, he knew he had to make a film about the man who painted it. "What was so remarkable about this painting to me," says Young, "was that I felt I was looking into someone's mind.

Partnered with filmmaker David Grubin, Robert M. Young traveled to London to document the hospitals where Kurelek had stayed, and the doctors who treated him. Eventually he made his way to Canada, to interview Kurelek himself, and his family. A short version of the film, titled The Maze: The Story of William Kurelek, was finished in 1969 for educational classes, to help demonstrate the strong relationship between art and psychology.

A longer and more complex version of the film was worked on in the editing room but was never completed and became lost.

Over 40 years later, the longer version was recovered and brought to life by Robert M. Young's sons, Nick Young and Zack Young, through their company MachinEyes. They have expanded the film by editing in the lost footage (much of it following Kurelek's father, Dmytro), adding an original score, and using modern visual effects to animate the characters and figures of the painting.

Brothers Nick and Zack Young also comprise the Los Angeles-based rock band A.i. (once signed to DreamWorks and now independent – aimusic.com). Nick and Zack researched what music Kurelek listened to while painting to help develop an authentic score.

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