…Gustav Klimt movie, Klimt, finally came out on DVD this week (it stars John Malkovich as Klimt). I rented it immediately and watched it the same afternoon–hoping to see a portrayal of the relationship between Klimt and Schiele. I liked how much the guy playing Schiele really looked like him, but I found his character portrayal was too much of a pose; by that I mean that he imitates the self-portraits drawn by Schiele in his mannerisms, and while certainly recognizable, didn’t give me a sense of the person, only a sense of the representation of the person, if that makes sense. While I was a little disappointed with the biographical information, I liked the allegorical and symbolic manner in which the film unfolded the events of Klimt’s life. Snippets of events were shown through a dream/flashback sequence, but that style also lent the film a disjointed though surreal quality. I plan to watch it again tonight, hoping to glean other tidbits of Austrian, and Klimt’s life that I missed the first time, or at least to better understand the symbolism in the movie. Maybe it’s not just the movie I should be looking at again. Maybe everything about our lives is symbolic, and so often we forget to read the signs.