Image Credit: ‘A Bigger Splash,’ Metrograph Pictures

Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, as summer winds down, we’re taking one last dip in the pool with the 1973 David Hockney documentary A Bigger Splash.

What goes into the making of a piece of art? When we’re reading a novel, or looking at a painting, or watching a movie, are we also looking at an extension of the person or people who created them? And is the artistic process part of the finished product, or is that meant to stand alone on its own, regardless of the context in which it was made?

Although most of these questions probably need their own pages-long dissertation—and even then a concrete answer may never be reached—they are helpful in extending our understanding of the relationship between art and artist. This week, we’re diving into the 1973 biographical documentary A Bigger Splash, which follows landmark pop artist David Hockney’s slow burning breakup with his partner over a three-year period, and the effect it had on his artistic method. 

The Set-Up

The film does not intend to serve as a comprehensive account of Hockney’s life, but it is a rather removed and naturalistic fly-on-the-wall record of some of his most emotionally turbulent years, and the ways in which he used his art both as a distraction and an outlet.

As one of the first documentaries to openly and honestly depict the gay lifestyle and social circles in big urban cities like London, New York City and San Francisco, it also serves as a unique time capsule that shows just how tight the links between friendship, romance, art and gay identity were back then.

A Bigger Splash, directed by Jack Kazan, follows David Hockney from 1970 to 1973, in the years during and immediately following the separation from his longtime muse and romantic partner, author and model Peter Schlesinger.

Masterpiece Theater

Image Credit: ‘A Bigger Splash,’ Metrograph Pictures

For those unfamiliar with his work, Hockney was one of the most prominent figures in the pop art movement of the 1960s and 70s, with contemporaries like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Keith Haring. He prominently painted landscapes and architecture, and some of his most well-known pictures (1967’s A Bigger Splash, where the title of the documentary comes from, and 1972’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), which the film tracks the creation of) depict Californian swimming pools.

After Hockney’s rather unexpected breakup with Schlesinger, he hops back and forth from the UK to the United States (particularly California and New York) for the following few years. The two remain socially and professionally connected, as they share a circle of friends, including artists and socialites of the time like designer Celia Birtwell, painter Patrick Procktor, and art curator Henry Geldzahler. But more so, Peter still serves as Hockney’s main artistic inspiration.

In the three years that the documentary covers, Hockney mourns the loss of the relationship, pines for its return, and tries to overcome it, while at the same time immortalizing his lover in the painting, which would eventually sell for over 90 million dollars in 2018—the highest price ever paid for the work of a living artist at the time.

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Portrait Of An Art Scene

Image Credit: ‘A Bigger Splash,’ Metrograph Pictures

A Bigger Splash never directly approaches or interviews Hockney (or any of the people in his life, for that matter), always staying distant as an observer. No one ever addresses the camera, and we get to know the subject mainly through interactions with his friends and moments alone. The movie makes for a compelling (even if at times a bit repetitive, and not necessarily narratively engaging) portrait of how an artist so deeply seeped into his emotions is able to process and translate them into a concrete object.

But the most engaging and illuminating parts are less about Hockney himself, and more about the environment in which he lived in. The documentary is an open portal to a time where some of the most influential creative minds were all gathered together in the same cities, creating in the same spaces, and sleeping with the same people.

Particularly, the film really zeroes in on the thriving community of urban gay artists collaborating at the time, and shows how their social, romantic, and sexual lives were intrinsically connected to their artistic output. There was no separation between art and artist, public persona and personal life, business and pleasure. They met at fashion shows, and gathered at endless parties that blurred with one another, have furtive romances and passionate affairs with each other, and that would inspire their next great work. 

Sink Or Swim?

Image Credit: ‘A Bigger Splash,’ Metrograph Pictures

The film also incorporates elements of fiction and fantasy meant to illustrate the emotional state and inner thoughts of Hockney. Using the imagery of gorgeous boys lounging by the swimming pool, it effectively conveys how Hockney might have felt haunted at all times by the presence of his former lover, how his environment (namely the many swimming pools of California he chose to escape to) affected his artistic vision, and how it all came together into a single piece of art. These add a layer of emotional depth and meaning that is unfortunately not present enough throughout to elevate the otherwise rather traditional approach to a documentary film.

Although A Bigger Splash was at the time meant to portray David Hockney’s life in a detached and grounded way, more than fifty years later the effect of watching the film is rather hypnotic. Its biggest strengths don’t hinge on offering huge insights into an artist’s life, but rather in showing a period of time that today seems unattainable, almost impossible. A time where enclaves of queer artists existed solely to create together, before a devastating crisis would alter the community forever just a decade later, and the economic turns of the world would push artists to the edges of the cities. 

A Bigger Splash was most likely not made to romanticize its period and its people, but it feels fitting that it succeeds most strongly on that—just like someone looking at a swimming pool and wondering how they ever ended up there.

A Bigger Splash is available to stream via Metrograph, and available for digital rental/purchase via Apple TV.

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