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COLIN MCCAHON: I AM
Given the way Colin McCahon is celebrated now, it’s odd to think that there was a time when he wasn’t widely seen as New Zealand’s greatest painter. There’s certainly no New Zealander painter as widely known, or whose works are seen as so central to who we became as a nation during the last century. Colin McCahon: I Am grew out of a major retrospective on McCahon’s work, which traced his efforts to make unique artistic and spiritual statements throughout his career. Producer Robin Scholes saw the potential to build the story into a documentary, and this was the result – a 2005 Qantas Media Awards winner. That’s right, this is a re-release, but hold the judgment and let’s inspect the results. Is this a well-aged vintage just in time for McCahon’s ninetieth birth year, or a curiosity best inflicted upon school-age arts students? Thankfully, this doco has stood the test of time well, despite some unique challenges. Famously absorbed in his work and wary of public attention, McCahon didn’t leave much for documentary makers to work with – there’s precisely one audio recording of McCahon, and no footage of him at all. Some of the artist’s letters are read by Sam Neill, but largely the gap has been filled here by a wide range of interviews with New Zealand artists and art experts, and with his own family members, who provide some of the most revealing moments of the documentary. Apart from that, the paintings are left to do the talking, with a little help from the aforementioned experts. It traces a thematic path through McCahon’s career: from stylized religious figures in New Zealand settings, through to monumental and sometimes abstract landscapes, and through to the high-contrast, word-rich paintings for which McCahon is best known. The documentary doesn’t shy away from the changing fortunes McCahon had at the hands of critics – notably a roasting from the local press when Victory over Death II (with its monumental I AM) was gifted to Australia by the Muldoon government – or from the hardships his work brought for him personally and for his family, who suffered as McCahon struggled to make ends meet in the early years and as his health finally unraveled in the 1980s. There’s an endearingly low-tech feel to this documentary. With direct cuts and a minimum of dissolves and other effects, it effectively parallels the deliberate roughness of some of McCahon’s own work. Some of the more significant paintings are examined by experts literally pointing out key aspects of the work hanging behind them, for a genuine you-are-in-a-gallery feel. Colin McCahon: I Am is divided into seven chapters, as designed to fit an hour of television. Since they’re based upon themes, they’re still sensible divisions on DVD, although we could have done without the pre-ad break title screens. A quasi-bluegrass ballad of McCahon’s life also comes along with the divisions – whether McCahon wished to be remembered by someone crooning about ‘cultural cringe’ we’ll never know, but the fast-forward button offers an easy solution to the conundrum. Feature-wise, this will please the minimalists. The presentation is straight off the tube, with standard 4:3 TV aspect ratio and Dolby stereo sound. Menu navigation is just those seven chapters, with no out-takes or extras, no sound options, and not even subtitles – basic English or Māori subtitles would have been smart additions. So it’s not feature-laden, nor brand-new, but for those who missed the first release, this is a solid, well-assembled introduction to McCahon’s life and work. It’s pitched just right for art newbies or students, but more established connoisseurs might well want to grab this as well, to complete a collection or pass on to develop a friend’s tastes. Definitely worth a look. 
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