Emily
“Velvet Buzzsaw” is the latest film from Dan Gilroy, reuniting him with “Nightcrawler” stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo. Gilroy, known for his satirical storylines, centers Buzzsaw around the transactional nature of the fine art world and showcases how monetary value can hinder true artistic expression.
The film opens in Florida at an art convention. Here we meet all our key characters in their true, overly competitive, habitat. Gyllenhaal plays Morf Vandewalt, a top art critic, who can make or break an artist’s career and financial worth with a single review. He is joined by a cast of characters who are major contributors to the business of art; a cut-throat art dealer (Russo), her former employee turned competitor (Sturridge), a museum curator (Collette) and Josephina, an ambitious assistant (Ashton). Caught in their web are two artists: one who is rich but has lost his artistic voice in a sea of reprints and dollar signs (Malkovich) and the other a fresh face on the scene who can’t quite decide if leaving his artist collective for the fine art world is worth it (Diggs).
Looking for new artists to exploit is what this crew does best and when Ashton stumbles upon a trove of art created by her dead neighbor, Ventril Dease, she sees an opportunity and takes it. Sensing the paintings are valuable, she decides to sell them for a massive eight figure profit, blatantly ignoring their creator’s request to have the art destroyed immediately upon his death. Her friends also decide to join in on the action with Russo providing the backing to get paintings out to the crème de la crème of buyers and Gyllenhaal offering to write an exclusive book on the artist.
The group is so caught up in their profit making scheme that they fail to see the literal blood, sweat and tears that Dease put into his art. The pieces were never meant for mass consumption or financial gain, but instead were created by an individual working out his psychotic inner demons. This is where Gilroy decides to turn the fine art world into a gore and paint-filled death match, as the art decides to fight back and protect the sanctity of the artist.
The film tackles the true meaning behind art with Josephina delivering lines like, “What’s the purpose of art if no one sees it?” These are concepts that every creative type struggles with: to sell out or not to sell out? Selling out, often referred to as selling one’s soul to the devil, is the antithesis of true artist expression. As our characters quickly learn, the best art is never made with dollar signs in mind.
“Buzzsaw’s” real star is the theme. It is so expertly crafted that many viewers will find themselves thinking that the characters ended up taking a backseat, but they will probably be missing Gilroy’s point, the shallow financially-inclined world of fine art is, not surprisingly, full of shallow people. The audience isn’t meant to connect with these soulless purveyors on a deep level. Instead we are meant to feel their lack of artistic heart throughout the piece to learn the lesson: create art for no one but yourself.
