program note
The Woodmans, winner of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, features a score by David Lang, performed by So Percussion. The soundtrack is comprised of all new works specifically for the film, and much like the soundtrack for (Untitled), was edited and produced with former So Percussion member, Lawson White.
Directed by C. Scott Willis, the documentary tells the story of one family’s fall and redemption as they come to terms with their daughter’s tragic suicide and their own deep scars that emerge as they reconcile this loss as a family of artists.
After considerable personal angst and bouts of depression, their daughter, Francesca Woodman — a 22 year old visual arts prodigy, whose often nude, often obscured, and often disturbing self—photographs had won her international praise — committed suicide in January 1981. Her phenomenal career, which had begun when she was only 13 years old, had been aided by her father — a professional painter and professor of Art in Denver, her mother — a ceramicist whose own work had been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and her brother — a video artist and professor of Art in Cleveland.
Through candid interviews with the family and a host of friends, the film explains how significant the importance of art—making has been to this family, and how the loss of Francesca changed their lives forever. Through the creative use of Francesca’s journal entries, experimental videos, and dynamic photographs, director C. Scott Willis delves into the life of this young artist in a very intimate, visceral, and personal way. His debut feature documentary is an original and extraordinary work that plumbs the depths of what it truly means to be an artist.
