The Paolozzi Story

Just as collage is central to Eduardo Paolozzi's art, so this fascinating documentary about the rebellious, versatile Italo-Scot interprets his life and work through a collage of disparate but carefully juxtaposed references. Figures invoked in illuminating his style and ideas include (to name but a few) Léger, Disney, Wittgenstein, Icarus and St Sebastian; while his mixed cultural inheritance, his love of nature and distaste for industrialised society, are lucidly demonstrated as we view his creations and are led through his varied history. If Paolozzi's verbal abilities are rarely as eloquent as the enormous range of his vividly intelligent castings, graphics and totems to mechanised man, the film nevertheless successfully presents his work in a socio-political as well as an aesthetic context. And it's good, too, to see in detail the physical processes of artistic work, rather than simply its finished products.