Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali was one of the legendary self-promoters. In fact, he turned self-promotion into an art form.
Whether he would be speaking to one person or a group of people, Dali famously referred to himself in the third person. Not only were his paintings popular among collectors, but his own international popularity was stratospheric.
His talents were superb. His works of art were noted for their design sense, the precise skill set with which he painted, and their strange and wondrous imagery.
Dali also worked in movies, including with the Spanish-Mexican filmmaker Luis Bunuel. Together they wrote “Un Chien Andalou,” one of cinema’s greatest short films and a 1929 silent masterpiece that still manages to shock. Bunuel directed it. The duo also co-wrote “L’Age d’Or,” with Bunuel also directing that feature.
In 1945, Dali created the 20-minute dream sequence that is seen in Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller “Spellbound.”
The new movie about the artist, which is playing in theaters, is titled “Daliland,” and it throbs with the energy of the swooning, heady world that swirls around Dali in 1974 in Manhattan as he prepares for an exhibit of his paintings. He’s been a superstar for 40 years. The problem is that there are no fully completed paintings. He needs to get to work and get to work fast. He may have signed his name to hundreds of blank pieces of paper as a surrealist game, which created a serious scandal, but he needs to put brush to canvas.
The film opens with the real-life Dali appearing as a guest on the literate CBS TV game show, “What’s My Line?” The program was catnip for Americans who were fascinated by celebrities and the New York City social scene. One segment each week involved the show’s panel of sophisticated Manhattanites, who worked in the arts or journalism, needing to ferret out the identity of the “Mystery Guest.” His appearance was quintessential Dali. He joked, he lied, he wanted to play games with the panel, and he did. He was part clever clown and part merry prankster. Host John Charles Daly, a radio and early television reporter, had his hands full.
Writer-director Mary Harron quickly takes the audience into Dali’s world, and the story we are meant to follow begins. Harron, who also directed “I Shot Andy Warhol” and “American Psycho,” is clearly eager to certify that Dali was, indeed, a great and important artist.
To do this she examines how Dali thinks and why he often purposely sowed confusion — an act that caused him to be accused of corruption. His willingness to dance around the edges of what collectors believed when they bought one of his lithographs was not only the result of the power of his own fame, but also his self-aware take on the art world and its ceaseless menu of gallery openings, social pressures, and gaggle of poseurs and hangers-on.
If Dali signs the paper to be used for a lithograph, but someone else creates the actual art seen on that paper, is the work still a Dali? Is assembly-line art truly individualized art? Is he the boss of his own art factory? Should collectors accept that Dali is not only a brilliant surrealist — basically a man releasing the creative energy of his unconscious mind — but also a businessman?
As Harron highlights the preparations for the show, Dali’s world is revealed to be a madcap adventure with a self-proclaimed genius as guide. We’re at the St. Regis Hotel and the comings and goings of scores of people, all wanting to bask in the glow of Dali’s fame, is immediately dizzying, and at times dazzling.
Dali’s personality and fame have clearly eclipsed the value of his art. Ben Kingsley is superb as Dali, a man who treasures his own brilliant wit and unbridled success. He delights in — no pun intended — the surreal nature of his own life.
Someone has to be in charge, and the woman who calls the shots is his wife, Gala, who is wonderfully acted by Barbara Sukowa. She rules the hotel suite with a firm hand. A tough taskmaster, she demands that her husband start painting. “Money, money” is her mantra.
Into the mix arrives a young and handsome art gallery assistant named James. His appeal to most of the women flowing in and out of the suite is immediate. In this circus, sexual harassment has found a home in one of its three rings. James is willing and eager to learn. This is an education many could only dream about. A bemused Dali is also willing to teach. An eager Christopher Briney, making his motion picture acting debut, acquits himself well.
Harron superbly uses flashbacks to showcase the youthful Dali, who is played by Ezra Miller. The younger Gala is acted by Avital Lvova. Both are excellent as characters who deliver perspectives in essential ways.
“Daliland” looks terrific. In a movie about the glow of art, Marcel Zyskind’s cinematography blooms suitably. Alex Mackie’s dynamic editing helps make the pacing a co-star. Harron understands completely the world to which Dali belonged and the world over which he presided. A film about him and his art needed to be entertaining, and this one is.