Rembrandt's J'accuse

Description

There is a conspiracy depicted in Rembrandt's "The Night Watch". Greenaway's new documentary film explains it all – the event, the motive, the conspirators, the murderers, the numerous clues and the outcome. And all the evidence is in the painting "The Night Watch", Rembrandt's indictment. Most indictments are conveyed in carefully written texts like Zola's famous "J'accuse" in 1890. Here the indictment is in paint. This is a CSI with Rembrandt as detective, accuser, prosecutor, and judge. Greenaway examines the 50 clues that lay inside the painting and unveils the murder that has flummoxed art historians since Rembrandt painted it in 1641. Greenaway also reveals why the fashionable, wealthy parvenu Rembrandt came to lose his fame and fortune in 15 short years and end up a lonely, discredited near-pauper. Rembrandt would surely have been gratified to see that his great group portrait has been recognised in this Greenaway documentary as the "J'accuse" indictment it was always intended to be.

Runtime

105 minutes

Subjects

Contributor

Genre

Database

Alexander Street

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