2002 Great Lakes Independent Film Festival

Arisman Facing the Audience

Category: Documentary Feature 1hr 23min
Director: Tony Silver

MARSHALL ARISMAN paints auras. 87 Sacred Monkey paintings by this celebrated painter, illustrator and teacher were recently exhibited at the impressive Guangdong Museum of Art in China. In startling contrast to Arisman's luminous angels, humans and sacred/scary animals are his depictions of the world's terror and violence for the covers and pages of Time, Newsweek, The NY Times, Rolling Stone, L.A. Weekly, Graphis, and more - images of gut-wrenching power and wicked humor. The author Paul Theroux describes Marshall Arisman as ''a shaman, an enchanter.' A collector says 'there's the serial killer syndrome down there somewhere.' A colleague is 'convinced that Marshall knows what the afterlife is, he just won't tell us, he's so f**king perverse.' The spiritual and artistic journeys, from Manhattan to Guangzhou, of a fearless and visionary artist are vividly traced by Tony Silver. Arisman, the artist and laid-back teacher, has inspired generations of painters, illustrators, filmmakers and photographers. He regales students with uproarious true tales of growing up in rural New York State, with guns and pornography, with a mother ''who hated my art work', with psychics and spirit mediums and the spirit of Black Elk - all encountered in the film. Most of all, we are in Arisman's studio as he 'pulls light out of darkness' - as close as the movie camera can bring us to how a major world artist actually works.

Principal Cast:
MARSHALL ARISMAN, CHARLES RAMSBURG, BRUCE ARISMAN, PAUL THEROUX, STEVEN HELLER, VINCENT POLICANO  

Director: Tony Silver
TONY SILVER is a native of New York City, where he attended Columbia University and briefly pursued an acting career, before becoming the leading independent maker of movie trailers on the east coast. He began making films in 1970, while continuing to create award winning trailers, main titles, special effects, and commercials. He relocated to in Los Angeles in 1991.Silver directed and produced the classic Style Wars, Grand Prize Winner at the Sundance Film Festival—the epic feature documentary about New York subway graffiti artists and the rise of hip hop from the streets of the Bronx and Harlem. Among Silver’s classic trailers and audio-visual campaigns are Alien, Platoon, Colors, Miller’s Crossing, The Truman Show and Primal Fear.