Dec. 7, 2008
The Multitalented Mr. Schnabel
Morley Safer Profiles Julian Schnabel, A Titan Of The Film And Art World
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Play CBS Video Video Kinkade Thomas Kinkade is the world's most popular living artist and is a master at marketing his work, as Morley Safer found in 2001.
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Video Renaissance Man His painting took the art world by storm in the 1980s and then Julian Schnabel reinvented himself as a film director to more kudos. Morley Safer profiles this titan of art and film.
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Julian Schnabel (CBS)
When he was 10 or so, his mother took him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he saw the first painting that knocked him out, and it was not some Avant-garde abstraction. "The painting by Rembrandt of Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer," he remembers. "It was a big deal to me. There was like, a glow coming out of that picture."
And the movies thrilled him too, one film in particular directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the king of pop spectacle. "Well, I liked when the Red Sea split open in 'The Ten Commandments.' That was a spectacular moment," Schnabel says.
DeMille’s over-the-top biblical epic taught the kid in the cheap seats the paramount rule of show business, and maybe life: first you get their attention. "I mean, if there’s no conflict in a movie, you don’t have a movie," Schnabel says.
When Julian was 15, his father moved the family about as far away as you could get from New York, at least in cultural terms: Brownsville, Texas.
"When you think, 'What exactly made me?' Do you think more of Brooklyn or Brownsville?" Safer asks.
"Definitely Brownsville," Schnabel admits.
At 15, the kid from Brooklyn got a crash course in life as it is lived on the banks of the Rio Grande. He learned to surf - something he still does - off the reefs of the Gulf of Mexico. And he engaged in some reefer madness as well.
"We were living in the marijuana hub of the United States," Schnabel remembers.
Asked if he was a "doper" himself, Schnabel says, "A doper? You mean did I smoke marijuana or take LSD? Yes, I did. Was I in the drug trade? No."
After a lackluster college career in Texas, he worked his way back to New York, doing - in the late 70s and early 80s - what all struggling young artists did: he says he drove a cab and was a cook.
"I think you sold sunglasses or something like that," Safer remarks.
"Yeah," Schnabel says. "I think I stopped working as a cook when I got $6,000 for a painting."
The art scene, ever in the hunt for something new, and Julian, ever happy to oblige, was a marriage made, if not in heaven, then in downtown New York. In 1983, at 31 years old, he was the talk of the town. His plate paintings took the art world by storm.
"They hadn’t seen anything that looked like that before. And there was a feeding frenzy around that," he explains.
Plate painting is exactly what it sounds like: heaps of broken crockery glued to giant canvasses. For his materials he sought salvation at The Salvation Army thrift shop.
"They hired people that have disabilities sometimes. So there was a midget there. And he had the plates. And he couldn't, the box was so big, he couldn’t get his arms into it. So I said, 'Just drop them. I'm gonna break them anyway.' So he did," Schnabel remembers.
Produced by David Browning
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See all 27 CommentsBy the way, I love Andy Rooney, infact, that''s the only part of 60 minutes I like, but that''s not enough to keep me watching.
Morley Safer''s mention of Hughes'' negative criticism was a journalistic low-point considering that Schnabel has such an impressive track record by now.
How would Mr. Safer react if when himself interviewed, he is being asked to answer to scathing criticism by a reviewer who understands no English? That would be laughable. And what if it is not happening in the relatively straight-forward world of journalism, but in a field where visionaries often have to endure years of abuse by those who are practically blind to their work? Mr. Schnabel has a cause to be upset.
Unless Mr. Safer was specifically assigned to this article as a rep of the artistically-defensive population, 60 Minutes should really do better job matching in the future.
How does he as an artist get to that level of fame?
If you want to see REAL art... photo realistic..done by hand..not airbrushed..or dumped/splashed on a wall or canvas.. take a look at www.melendezmurals.com
Here is a true and unknown artist with real talent, who struggles to get his work seen and known.
Pass the word on gang...let''s give REAL talent worthy of the title... ''Artist''.
Thanks!
Your interview with Julian was very fair, but going into the Robert Hughes hook was a little tacky. It made for great television but I bet you knew it would send him over the edge. I enjoyed this segment but it didn''t do Mr. Schnabel any good coming off as such an A*#&hole. The ending about ego was terrific. You go Morley!
Mr. Schnabel has no talent, but apparently there are enough people who don''t want to be told that they just don''t get it, so they buy his garbage and hang it proudly, telling their guests, "You just don''t GET it! It cost me a fortune!". Schnabel = Schlock
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