New York City sets the stage as now elderly Ushio and Noriko Shinohara reside in a dingy apartment. We are introduced to the more well-known Ushio Shinohara, who is creating an art piece in the hopes of selling it in an upcoming exhibition. His unique style of painting presents an exciting twist. Ushio puts on boxing gloves and punches paint onto the canvas from right to left. We learn that innovative styles such as action painting and his sculpture made Ushio among the best of the Japanese avant-garde. Since leaving Japan, he has found moderate success, having work shown in museums such as the MoMA and publications such as Art in America.

Energy and passion are very important to Ushio’s work. Instead of using a brush for calculated movement, he punches paint onto the canvas to fly freely where it will. He names an exhibition “ROAR!” because that is how he views his art. Loud and full of energy. He says “Art is a demon that drags you along. It’s not something that you can stop even if you should.” His desire to portray things as explosive and in-your-face makes his works much more riveting. However, having an unconventional style meant that often Ushio’s work went underappreciated. The Shinoharas experienced fame, but this did not translate to a lot of money.

The relationship between the two is very loving, but their poverty undeniably puts a strain on it. Even within the first few minutes, we see signs of unease between the two. They are constantly bickering, which seems to be consistent throughout their 40-year marriage. A fact that led to the creation of Cutie, a cartoon character created by Noriko. Cutie is representative of Noriko herself and is accompanied by her husband “Bullie” who represents Ushio. Noriko uses Cutie as a type of catharsis, a creative outlet to express frustration about her husband and her life in a new country.

Cutie reveals nearly everything about the couple’s past. From the first moment a 19-year-old Noriko met middle-aged Ushio, to the Ushio’s crippling alcoholism that nearly tore their family apart. The highs of being featured in galleries, and the lows of becoming poor and questioning pursuing art. Through all the good and bad though, the art demon drags the couple along and they continue to move forward.

Perhaps this documentary has two boxers to offer because even in her old age, Noriko has to fight to prove that she is an artist. Getting pregnant with her son forced Noriko to temporarily give up her art. This combined with the fact that she often forgoes her work to help assist Ushio, leads him to view his wife as an assistant and “the average one.” Throughout the documentary we see Noriko making creative efforts, completely independent of her husband. She even goes out of her way to provide her best work to an exhibitor interested in Ushio’s work. Noriko, though, comes out of this fight a winner as she is included in her husband’s art exhibit. Going so far as to alter the title according to her artistic vision. She is self-empowered and confident and uncompromising. You love to see it.

The final exhibition featuring both Ushio and Noriko perfectly shows two sides of the same coin. Ushio expresses passion in his work with the energy that he pours in, while Noriko does the same but with compassion and love. Throughout the documentary, we get to see how “love is a roar.”

Overall, I would highly recommend watching this documentary. Because of the themes and execution, Cutie and the Boxer would make an interesting watch even for those with no prior interest in art. It provides a very sincere look at the lives of these two artists, never shying away from the negative aspects of their lives. One of the most beautiful things about the documentary is that it shows how the Shinohara’s immigrant story was wrapped up in their art. As well as displaying how these artists were able to manifest the American dream for themselves through art.

Ushio and Noriko met when Noriko was visiting New York from Japan to study art. Ushio was 41 and Noriko was 19. Noriko stopped chasing her dreams of art to become Ushio’s assistant. She fell in love with him instantly and didn’t think about her future with him or her future with art. A couple months later Noriko becomes pregnant with Ushio’s child making them struggle even more. With Ushio in a big spiral of alcoholism and Noriko always worrying about money their son was raised poorly and became an alcoholic himself. However, Noriko and Ushio’s love were still unbreakable. When Ushio goes to Japan to sell his sculptures at lower prices Noriko is annoyed with him because she wants him to earn more. However, when he returns from Japan Noriko come running down the stairs showing she doesn’t hold a grudge and she will always love Ushio even though she’s not happy most of the time.

Throughout the movie Noriko is faced with the challenge of helping Ushio with his work and not working on her own. She also goes through the conflict of having to take care of their baby almost by herself and cook dinner and clean while Ushio works on his artwork that doesn’t sell. Their whole time together they live paycheck to paycheck struggling on rent and utilities while trying to sell pieces to get by month by month. The unstoppable struggle of the art industry drags them down all until Ushio turns 80. After Ushio’s 80^th birthday things start going right for them. Ushio gets more exposure while his wife has a coming of age and realizes who she realizes she is after creating Cutie and Bully, a cartoonish story type painting that is about Noriko and Ushio and how Ushio is mean to her and isn’t responsible for his actions. As Noriko is coming to these realizations, she becomes more straightforward and starts getting more exposure for herself.

Ushio meets an art dealer that wants to show his work in his gallery. Ushio sets up all of his work and Noriko ends up getting her work shown in another room in the same gallery. When Ushio is looking at Noriko’s work, he admits he’s jealous and asks about Cutie and Bullie and finds out its about him and Noriko. After that Noriko tells Ushio that she works better when he is not around, and he gets offended and leaves in a storm yelling “Goodbye!”. Ushio works on a big piece in his studio called the octopus and puts a lot of effort into it. Noriko comes around and he asks Noriko what she thinks about it. She straightforwardly said it is not good and walks away. Ushio becomes determined to make this piece better coming to the realization that his wife is going to achieve his dream before he gets to. He eventually makes the piece better to show his wife he is not a bad artist and he can do works by himself. This scene especially is very inspirational because he just wants to make his wife happy and doesn’t want her to look at him like a low life lazy artist, so he tries to prove himself to her with the thought that she is better than him in the back of his head.

Getting closer to the end of the movie there are cinematic shots of Noriko and Ushio painting and working on pieces with them talking about their experience in the art industry saying how the art industry is a struggle and there is always a lingering struggle in the art industry. The Cutie and Bullie paintings in the gallery are shown with hearts drawn around the section showing how Cutie has finally learned to tame the bull meaning Noriko has finally learned how to tame Ushio. The ending really surprised me because I didn’t expect for Noriko to be unhappy the whole relationship. I also didn’t expect to be such an emotional ending, it went from Noriko and Ushio struggling with money to having their work shown in a gallery with conflicts between the couple.

The movie portrays the realistic life of the two struggling artists, with both of them living in a smaller apartment and Ushio having a drinking problem. Noriko had to give up her dreams of being an artist temporarily after getting pregnant and having to raise their young son Alex. Noriko would portray her emotions through her art at this time. She would paint dreary scenes of her life, her anger with her path and how Ushio would put drinking before his family and self-care. During this time Noriko’s works showed Ushio leaving their family behind to go out with friends and drink all through a comic strip format style of painting. She would use real-life events and depict herself and her husband in a cartoon style to tell her story and the emotions that came along with it. These become the works that Noriko gets discovered for. While showing her works to her friend, Noriko is encouraged to show her works in an exhibit. Noriko does an exhibit with her husband Ushio, where Noriko puts her private life on show for everyone. This put Noriko’s name into the artist spotlight, and she becomes well known in art circles for her work. Instead of Noriko being known as the wife to a famous artist she was able to be known as an artist herself. This is reminiscent of other artist couples such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with a young woman marrying an already established artist and eventually becoming a known artist on their own.

Another connection that can be drawn between the relationships of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and Noriko and Ushio Shinohara are that the females’ works depicted emotional context, while the men portrayed little emotional context in the works. Ushio’s works had techniques that were considered revolutionary in an abstract sense. Ushio would set up a large blank canvas, put on a pair of boxing gloves, dip them in paint, and begin forcefully punching the canvas to create his works. 

Even though the film is about the relationship between Noriko and Ushio, the movie takes place mostly through the perspective of Noriko. This allows us to know the perspective of Noriko and her feelings while driving the plot forward. The movie uses her artworks as a way to move the story along and provide some emotional contexts to the scenes. This allowed those watching the movie to interpret the emotional context more easily without having to make the characters cartoonish in their exaggerations of emotion. The film does a good job of portraying the struggles that occur in the lives of artists. But also, the struggles that occur in the life of an everyday person. Despite these artists being well known, and their emotional struggles were well documented through their art, the story can still be related to many people today. Those struggling in their relationships, and those struggling to make a career out of something they love can look up to stories like these. Despite the couple having issues with alcoholism and living in poverty, the couple was able to look past their problems and work on them together, creating a strong relationship and working through all their issues. Noriko was able to learn to deal with Ushio’s drinking and eventually Ushio had to stop altogether (Which was a blessing to Noriko) The film also shows the struggles of doing what one loves despite the hardships that occur. Noriko always dreamed of being an artist and despite poverty and having to put her career on hold, Noriko was able to make it as an artist and became famous for what she does. This movie overall is a great movie with many life lessons to teach while also telling the life story of artists not known to the general population. I would recommend this movie to all people who are willing to experience something new and have an interest in art. I believe that the director did a great job directing the movie and telling the story accurately of Cutie and the Boxer while adding a flair that would inspire even Noriko Shinohara.

The documentary follows Basquiat’s history and development with his art and also touches on some important events and artists for the entire history of art. For example, the documentary starts off with the beginning of Basquiat’s journey, where he would spray paint around New York City with another artist as a duo called SAMO. While other spray paint artists would simply tag their names, SAMO would spray paint their name with a different message each time to express their thoughts and feelings about things such as culture and politics in the world. Even in the early stages of Basquiat’s career, it is obvious that he was searching for things that went against the grain of the current art culture. Basquiat, unlike all of the other spray paint artists, wanted to send a message to the people viewing his work, rather than just tag his name to claim that he was there. It is because of this that Basquiat and SAMO became well known locally and beyond. Basquiat, with no money, came up in the art world using whichever materials he could scavenge from the streets of New York City. This is yet another way that Basquiat made himself stand out. By using random objects and materials that he found on the streets, he was able to express himself even more. This also showed his true passion for the art of creation and imagination, rather than simply applying paint to canvas.

A decent portion of the documentary was dedicated to showing the influence that other earlier famous artists had on Basquiat’s work. The documentary shows Basquiat’s paintings next to paintings of earlier artists, such as Picasso, and they talk about how Basquiat drew from these earlier paintings for inspiration. Basquiat was inspired by these paintings, and would only use them as a reference, then let the idea flow through his mind, where he would then modify it and make it his own version of the painting by recreating it. Some early artists that were mentioned in the documentary that influenced Basquiat’s work include Pollock and Picasso. Both very famous household names and inspirational early artists for modern art.

Basquiat was also very inspired by his own life and surroundings. Once, as a young boy, Basquiat was involved in a car accident. His mother gave him an anatomy book to fill his time and pique his curiosity. This anatomy book, and the car accident itself, were evidently influential to Basquiat. Some paintings show cars crashing and some paintings, including his most famous works of art, include abstract paintings of skulls, faces, and heads that resemble the diagrams in the anatomy book that his mother gave him. Basquiat’s history also includes comic books and cartoon drawings. As a young kid in New York City, Basquiat was drawn to the world of cartoons and wanted to be a cartoonist when he grew up. This influence is extremely evident in his artwork. At first glance, the first thing many people think of when they see Basquiat’s artwork is that it is in fact cartoon-like, with scribbles and abstract figures that would not be considered realistic looking in any way. This child-like appeal is what I think Basquiat was going for though. While other artists focus on making realistic paintings of the world, Basquiat had a plan to stick with simplicity and let his mind wander as he creates each piece of artwork. He often writes letters, randomly placed and spaced out, which may or may not have a real meaning. Only Basquiat himself would know what he was trying to convey.

The documentary conveyed a similar feeling that Basquiat’s work does, with the jazz and early hip-hop vibes and music to accompany visuals and the filming and editing style that suits a Basquiat documentary perfectly. The documentary does a great job of taking the viewer through a journey of Basquiat’s life from start to finish and covering all of the key details that make Basquiat who he is.

Tamra Davis, the director, was very close to Basquiat and filmed him in his different studios during the peak of his career. These bits of footage offer the most honest view of Jean-Michel throughout the whole film. An honest, hardworking, driven artist who strived to push the boundaries of his work. The one-on-one interviews give you this glimpse into the mind of the genius. These interviews more than anything felt honest and comfortable and help the viewer start to understand the struggles and frustration of the artist. They feel very personal and helps you understand that despite being this incredible artist, he was flawed as well. Jean-Michel struggled with depression and addiction. This is evident in the interviews later in the movie where he is clearly in pain.

Another thing the film does incredibly well is pacing. The movie essentially profiles primarily his life between ages 20-27 before his death. With each introduction of a new part of his life, the filmmakers show work of his from around the same time. At the beginning you see his work is sparse and done on found materials. Once he gets money and space, he is able to paint at leisure in a real studio. The film does a great job of flashing in between showing snapshots of Jean-Michel’s life and showing the work he was producing around that time. These moments, though short, give the viewer the greatest understanding of what Basquiat was going through. The narration partnered with the images of his work helps you understand his rise to fame and how he struggled with that fame. This becomes even more important towards the end of his life. His depression and struggles with creating show in his last exhibitions. His techniques got more and more abstract and withdrawn the older he got. A really great perspective that the movie offers is the opinions and testimonies of famous art dealers and collectors. For viewers who do not understand Jean-Michel’s work from the start, these interviews help aid the viewer in understanding why Basquiat’s work is groundbreaking.  The art dealers explain in detail how Basquiat was more so than anything, emulating and paying homage to his favorite artists. He used techniques longstanding in contemporary art, focusing on pushing the boundaries of abstraction. He uses words to create messages by repeating them or crossing them out. It forces the viewer of the painting to almost find the story in the painting. Basquiat drew most of his inspirations from books, poems, and multimedia he viewed at the time.

One thing about the film I did not particularly care for was how they actually portrayed most of the art. Most of the paintings shown only appear for a few seconds at a time. Now I understand that it is a movie and there is the necessity to keep things moving, but I would have appreciated a few more in depth looks at his greatest works. Often times in the movie, the narrator would mention an extremely famous painting, the film would show it for a second and then move on. I just would have appreciated a little more focus on the paintings themselves. Despite being a biography and not an adaption like Frida, Radiant Child hits the same pitfalls. I felt the focus could have been centered closer to his artworks.

Nevertheless, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Radiant Child is an excellent film. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Tamra Davis, being a close personal friend of Basquiat’s, pays perfect homage to one of our era’s greatest painters. The film does a great job of juxtaposing his art and the way he is feeling at the time. The personal interviews and conversation with Jean-Michel really make the movie. He was a complex person but did not come off that way. Basquiat was extremely young and yet so mature. He was thrust into this worldwide fame at such a young age, and struggled with the ups and downs of this recognition. The only thing that could have really improved the movie would have been greater focus on the paintings. The film glosses over them too fast and makes them feel less significant than they really are. Radiant Child is an awesome documentary for anyone who wants to be introduced to modern art.

The movie begins with a calming montage of Georgia O’Keeffe painting with several of her own artworks fading in and out to calming music, with the overlay of her voice explaining the meaning behind her paintings. By including this opening scene, the movie provides the viewer with an understanding of Georgia O’Keeffe’s philosophical values as a painter and provides a foundational knowledge of the effect her lover, Alfred Stieglitz, will have on her artworks and confidence. In the movie, Georgia O’Keeffe requests that her works be taken down from an exhibition, as she is clearly not happy with any of her paintings. However, Alfred Stieglitz declines, defending her work, as he believes she is the definition of pure “raw intuitive talent.” In this scene especially, the movie does a powerful job of depicting Georgia O’Keeffe as a typical twentieth-century woman artist; having the talent, but lacking the confidence to go anywhere with it, as men dominated this time in history. This theme is very powerful, especially in today’s world as it makes it easy for viewers and young female artists to relate to O’Keeffe’s situation and lack of confidence and her works.

As Stieglitz and O’Keeffe begin to live their life, O’Keeffe’s painting career benefits from Stieglitz’s confidence boost, and Stieglitz’s photography career continues to benefit from the new-found feminine inspiration O’Keeffe gives him. This mutual relationship gives off a consistent effect in respect to the theme of the film. By both parties benefiting from each other, it brings into focus the idea of love and emotion being the ultimate driving force and backbone of these artists. This is beneficial to the film, as the theme stays consistent with the dramatic actions of the characters. When O’Keeffe refuses to come back to Stieglitz after he was caught cheating, Stieglitz has a sobbing episode and a mere heart attack on the steps of his house. Although this part also seems to be a little elongated and overdramatized, I believe it was also still a powerful decision of the moviemakers in order to further emphasize the overall message of the ups and downs of love being the prime motivation behind these two artists’ works. 

Although Stieglitz builds O’Keeffe’s confidence, as she becomes more famous Stieglitz becomes more controlling with the relationship and O’Keeffe’s progress as a painter, and the two quickly become turbulent as Stieglitz exhibits the nude pictures he took of O’Keeffe to his viewers in New York. Spotlights and heavy music make this confrontation scene slightly overdramatic, as the narrator explains how after her nude photographs are seen by New York, she becomes famous and people start to buy her work for her name, not her talent. With this scene comes many questions concerning if that is how O’Keeffe really wants her own artwork to be seen and appreciated. This scene makes the viewer aware of O’Keeffe’s contradictory attitude towards her fame coming from Stieglitz’s pictures, adding to the dramatic feeling of the movie and staying consistent with the film’s message of tough love and emotion as artistical motivation. This is an important aspect of the film, as it not only portrays the development of O’Keeffe’s character and career but explains how people began to appreciate the femininity seen within her works, as the film’s narrator states “the essence of every woman is within every stroke she makes, every color she chooses.” As her flower paintings fade in and out of this scene, the narrators continue to highlight the power of her artistic femininity seen on the canvas, bringing to focus her clear, smooth brush strokes and soft but complementary color choices. This is one of the few points in the movie where her actual work is seen, however, the timing of it was powerful and appropriate in order to explain to the viewer these feminine aspects that caught the eye of Stieglitz and the rest of New York.

As an interpretation of the real happenings between the artists O’Keeffe and Stieglitz, the film portrayed their relationship from a great point of view in the sense that it shows both the emotions of O’Keeffe and Stieglitz as their relation turns turbulent. In conclusion, the entire storyline of the film itself was slightly distracting from the physical made art of O’Keeffe, however the overdramatizing of her relationship through the plot, and film making decisions of including spotlights and heavy music, proved to be totally necessary as it provides insight to the troubled love and emotion behind her works.

Unlike most documentaries, we as an audience actually get to see their entire daily life, which even includes Ushio stripping down to his underwear. Most of the audience going into the film expects to see how artwork is created and how other people perceive it. However, in this documentary we get to see the true problems of both Ushio and Noriko. During an art showing at his studio, it is brought up by Noriko that Ushio used to be an alcoholic. He used to drink every day and waste tons of money on his addiction, not only did it have an effect on him but also his young son, who later becomes an alcoholic just like his father. Noriko has felt regret from her decisions, she had to deal with most of Ushio’s problems and is not looked at as a true artist in Ushio’s eyes. From Ushio’s point of view Noriko is nothing more than his assistant who uses art as a hobby. However Noriko’s own works show all of her struggles with Ushio and with not being the free profound artist that she wishes. However, at the end of the film it is shown that Noriko truly does love Ushio for the man he is and that the complications that he has brought to her have made her the person she is today and the artist that she had become, which is something that she would do again and again.

During the film, Ushio is asked to go to different art showings and has potential buyers come and look at his work. It would seem that with all of this craze people have with his technique of art that he would be making tons of money, but this is not the case. The couple and their son live in a small apartment and are usually behind on rent. Although Ushio’s art is seen as cool and different, it is not exactly what typical American buyers want to purchase because it so different from the conventional ideas about art. However, the couple’s luck does change towards the second half of the movie. More people become interested in their art which allows them to present their work at a studio. Ushio is asked to display his art at first but Noriko persuades the man giving Ushio this opportunity to also take a second and look at her work. The man is very impressed and also invites Noriko to be a part of the art show. The people at the show loved both Ushio and Noriko’s work.

Towards the end, it is not shown whether or not their artwork is bought by people or not. I believe that the directors did this on purpose and have an overall moral to their story. No matter if they make tons of money or if they don’t make a penny, the directors want the audience to know that art is art. Artists create and show their work for the love of it. It shows their passions, morals, emotions, and many other aspects. Art is an expression of one’s self and how they view their idea of the world. This moral is shown at the last scene of the film when Ushio and Noriko are punching each other with paint but with full enjoyment and love towards one another.

This movie, in my opinion, is as good of an art movie as it is a cinematic drama to please the masses. I really enjoyed how they showed the trials and tribulations of Jackson Pollock’s career. The movie really brings you into the craziness of Pollock and the actor Ed Harris was a great choice to play this character as he was really able to embody his slightly neurotic behaviors.

The way this movie showed how he painted was very interesting to watch, from the original style he painted to then showing how he came upon the style of drip painting that he was most famous for producing. I thought that the painting scenes were well put together in that you could very easily see the style of his painting and still not be caught up in a movie where the artist does nothing but paint. The way they showed his style of drip painting for example, it was very interesting to see the technique of dipping the paint and the way that the movie is filmed shows him going through the different paint layers and colors on the canvas. The movie portrayed Pollock’s paintings in a complex but also simple way with him choosing where to drip the paint carefully but also having it be out of his control how it hits the canvas so that there are no mistakes to him. There were many examples of Pollock’s paintings in the movie and they were always lying around the house or hung up on walls so the importance of painting in his life was made apparent in this movie.

The overall plot of the movie was very interesting, mainly due to Pollock’s crazy life which was filled with radical high and lows. All of the actors in the movie performed very well and the movie is hard to stop watching once you begin. I also think that the time periods that the movie went through were all portrayed very well. The first scenes of the movie to me were very interesting with Pollock living with his brother in New York City. I thought that the pre-war or just entering the war stage was shown well here with such things as the train station which had war bonds being sold along with train tickets, or the general solemn tone of the movie in the first few scenes.

As the movie went one thing that I noticed was that at times you could find yourself lost trying to figure out where they are in the movie. Since the movie jumps around in time just missing five minutes of the movie could cause you to miss a crucial scene to the plot or just not know where the scene is taking place and wondering who the new, unfamiliar characters are. This is hard to avoid in a movie where so many of the scenes occur in different places and at different intervals of time, but it can cause headaches for the viewer.

I did like how they portrayed Lee Krasner (played by Marcia Gay Harden) the wife of Pollock who stood with him through thick and thin and controlled his estate after his death. I think her role of support for Pollock was played so well by her that you end up hoping they come out on top together. Even when Pollock had mistresses she still stayed with him to keep him focused on art so that he could be successful, the role is played well showing how deeply connected she felt to Pollock to the point where she would stay with him although he was an alcoholic, adulterer, and showed little care for her at times. It is clear through this movie how much of an integral part of Pollock’s painting career Lee Krasner was and I felt that the movie and Marcia Gay Harden did a great job of showing her too. 

The relationship between Pollock and Krasner in the movie was not defined very well in my opinion. They were husband and wife but frequently throughout the movie Pollock would have various other women with him obviously for pleasure but they are not introduced well and their relationship to Pollock is not described greatly which can be a confusing part of the movie. I feel like a better explanation or any explanation could have been given to how he met the other girls he was with or just how close they were. Because of this you begin to sympathize more with Krasner as the movie goes along and see that Pollock had many flaws as well as talents. I think this was done on purpose to give you a glimpse into the real everyday life of him.

I would recommend this movie. It has its confusing draw-backs that can make it hard to understand at times but those are brief and few and far between in the movie. I thought it showed an excellent realistic portrayal of Jackson Pollock and the emotional and challenging life of an artist that he lived. The art in the movie was shown very well from the process/technique that was used to make it to the art shows with all of the finished products being shown off. Jackson Pollock lived a tumultuous life that I think was portrayed very well with this movie and I thought it was great that despite all the drama around his life and name they still showed the painting mind and side of Pollock.

The couple’s complex relationship unfolds through the artwork of Noriko in her art series titled “Cutie & Bullie”. Her work is based on her relationship with her husband who is almost 20 years older than her. They first met in New York City, she was an aspiring artist and he was an established artist in the city. For a large portion of the film, she describes herself as inferior to her husband, as if she is just his student. Ushio has a role in making her feel this way as well, describing her as his assistant and calling himself the genius. The dynamic between the couple keeps the audience guessing throughout the film. It is clear that Noriko loves Ushio but, she also clearly feels stuck and unhappy. She described the relationship as two flowers trying to bloom in the same pot.  

The couple’s artwork is visually polar opposites with Ushio creating bright and vibrant paintings and Noriko painting in primarily black and white. Ushio’s work seems to be more abstract and stylized especially in his painting in which he uses boxing gloves to punch the canvas. Noriko’s style is subtle and soft, with swooping, delicate brushstrokes that paint her emotion into each character drawn. They have been living in poverty for most of their lives, struggling to pay rent, raise a child, and Ushio’s alcohol addiction. This pain and suffering are evident in both of their art; Ushio’s sculpture and painting and Noriko’s comic-style series. It is fascinating to watch how the couple takes their pain and creates art from it. 

The film intercuts clips of the couple from when they were younger living in New York City. These clips help write the narrative and bring to life what Noriko illustrated in “Cutie & Bullie”. Her series is an examination of their entire relationship, from the moment they first met to every major event after that. She inspects the changes in their relationship, and how it has altered from bright, new love into comfortable, stagnant love. The sections of their relationship in the past that are interlaced in the film show us the same change in the relationship that Noriko saw as well. We see how Ushio’s alcoholism affected their family and forced Noriko to raise their child herself while living in poverty. Noriko’s use of black and white in her artwork highlights the emptiness that she feels, was drained out of her life through the relationship with Ushio. 

The film ends on a positive note with the couple having a duel exhibition at an art gallery. Ushio is the main focus of the exhibition but, Noriko gets an entire room to herself to show off her prized series. The whole film leads us to believe that Noriko believes that she would have been better off on her own but, after the exhibition, it is clear the duo depends on each other to be able to create the beautiful artwork that they are showing. Without the struggle of her life with Ushio she would have never created her series and without the strength and guidance of Noriko, Ushio would not have the support he needed to continue to create his art. 

The film is a beautiful examination of a tragic love story that is exemplified through two unique forms of art. Ushio’s vibrant paintings and complex cardboard sculptures highlight the exciting and wild side of the relationship while Noriko’s delicate paintings show the pain and suffering that existed. The duality of their artwork is an amalgamation of their entire relationship which reveals to the audience that although the relationship is difficult, the two depend on each other for motivation to continue doing what they love most. At any point in their lives, either one of them could have given up on their craft but both persevered and through their combined tenacity found a stage for their art to be appreciated.    

As the documentary goes on, we are taken through the interesting circumstances that they are faced with. The movie shows the poverty that they have struggled with for years which is a reoccurring theme, but it does not shine a light on this as the focus. I think one of the main focuses that the director wanted the audience to pay attention to in this documentary was the struggles of Ushio’s wife Noriko. Not only poverty struggles but the struggle of her trying to break out from under her husband’s shadow as an artist. We are taken through her back story and we see that not only was she dropped in New York City, but she was only nineteen at the time. This makes the age difference glaring when you consider that Ushio was forty-one at the time that they met. One thing I love about documentaries is that they are unscripted and they capture the rawest emotion possible from their characters. As the movie flashes back in time, we can easily see how the stress, disagreements, and arguments occurred regularly throughout the earlier years of their marriage. The age difference created a barrier between the couple at times as they have different perspectives on things. The documentary shows that due to her husband already being a well-established artist for many years. Noriko found herself helping Ushio keep up the relevance of his art career rather than focusing on her own. 

The director of the documentary chose to display the flashbacks in an interesting way. From time to time Noriko goes to draw in her personal journal in the film. The images that she paints of people, places and things come alive in an animation type of style. The animations perform different actions giving us a cartoon story of what happened to the married couple in their earlier years. This was a good technique by the director to use light-hearted animation to express some serious topics when it comes to marriage and relationships. Other than the serious topics explored, this documentary displays some very interesting artworks. The piece that I think captured the audience’s attention the most was the boxing glove portrait. Watching Ushio punch a blank canvas repeatedly to create a piece of artwork was one of the best parts in the documentary. The scene really captured his creativity, as if the director wanted to make sure that he didn’t miss anything. We also see him create a huge sculpture of a motorcycle for his art show in NYC. He had been working on it for years dragging home cardboard boxes from the street. This was a good part of the documentary that shows his passion for art as well.

Overall, this documentary was a very different take on the struggling artist trying to make it in New York. With the director choosing to focus more on the relationship between Ushio and Noriko, it gave the movie more depth. This also made the movie relatable to many viewers whether they are from Japan or America. Anyone can enjoy this documentary and I recommend that you check it out.