Monsieur René Magritte
A Film by Adrian Maben

You may think you know Magritte because his works are reproduced a lot, but you really can’t know enough to take in his range, and the beauty and fantastic enigmas of the Belgian Surrealist, whose mind expanding paintings are now on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through January 12th in, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926–1938.

Our December offering at the Blue door Cinema is an exceptional docu-fictionary, made in 1978 by the director Adrian Maben, an Englishman living in Paris. Maben’s films on art and artists break the mold in the field of art on film. His Bosch, Helmut Newton and Pink Floyd films are classics. The film on Magritte combines novel uses of images of the paintings (better than Ken Burns) with interview footage of Magritte; filming at notable locations in Belgium is mixed with Magritte and his wife Georgette performing in home-made Surreal films; themselves as characters come to life from the dreamscape of his paintings.

Our HD projection is not to be missed and discussions after the screnings are always lively. Seeing our projection of, Monsieur René Magritte, we hope will send you a firm poke to go to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where you will be impressed by the resilient, living force the conceptual-poetic paintings still generate in the 21st Century.

L. Brandon Krall, Curator