Art for Everybody review – the dark side of Thomas Kinkade, ‘painter of light’

The extraordinarily popular painter of kitsch American scenes struggled with addiction and depression, as this documentary with access to his previously unseen works shows You won’t find the works of Thomas Kinkade lining the walls of the Museum of Modern Art, yet the painter, who died in 2012, is one of the best-selling artists in history and his paintings hang in tens of millions of American households. Kinkade’s typical subjects – rustic landscapes, sleepy cottages, quaint gazebos – bask in an idyllic calm, a luminous callback to a fabled simpler past. Turning to his unpublished archive, Miranda Yousef’s engrossing documentary portrait unveils the dark shadows that lurked within the self-titled “painter of light”. Through interviews with family members, close collaborators and critics, as well as Kinkade’s own words, the film traces his meteoric success in the 1980s and 90s. Shunned by the art world, he marketed his works through home-shopping television channels and a network of...

‘He’s not a monster’: Juliette Binoche talks Gérard Depardieu as verdict dominates start of Cannes

Depardieu’s sexual assault verdict overshadowed first day of the film festival which once championed the actor, with jury president Binoche commenting on the ‘interesting timing’

Gérard Depardieu was the ghost in the wings at the opening of the Cannes film festival, after a court found the French star guilty of sexual assault. The Oscar-winning actor Juliette Binoche had barely begun her duties as Cannes jury president when she was asked to pass judgment on Depardieu and the wider culture of misogyny and sexual violence within the French film industry. “Interesting timing,” she said of the verdict.

Depardieu denied allegations that he had sexually assaulted two women – a 54-year-old set dresser known only as Amélie and an unnamed 34-year-old assistant director – during production of the 2021 French drama The Green Shutters. But the judge ruled that the actor’s explanation of events was “unconvincing” before sentencing him to an 18-month suspended jail term. Depardieu’s legal team said it would appeal the verdict.

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