Portrait of a Mexican muralist only scratches the surface/only goes skin deep – José Clemente Orozco – Boston

“The great Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco was wounded in many ways, and bitter. His bitterness shaped his vision and fueled his art, which embraced tragic themes and searing social commentary. “Orozco: Man of Fire,” a fairly straight-ahead biopic by Laurie Coyle and Rick Tejada-Flores that opens at the Museum of Fine Arts today (and was recently broadcast as part of the “American Masters” series on PBS), details the life and work of the man, but maintains an odd distance.

There’s nothing distant about Orozco’s epic murals, which the camera caresses in long, panning shots. Part of the problem is the filmmakers’ penchant for whimsical graphics. After we learn that rheumatic fever damaged the artist’s heart in his youth, we see a black-and-white photo of him with a big red heart plastered over his black jacket. To illustrate the complicated connection between Native Americans and alcohol, which Orozco considered while painting “The Epic of American Civilization” at Dartmouth College, Coyle and Tejada-Flores have photos of old bottles raining down on a photo of Native Americans. It’s all a little too coy, given the artist’s serious, brooding and heroic work”*

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