The Responsive Eye

Brian De Palma
1965-12-31


5.4
26 min

Before Brian De Palma became a narrative film maker he made documentaries. Among them is The Responsive Eye, which chronicles the Museum of Modern Art’s 1965 exhibition of op-art. Curated by William Seitz, this was the first significant exhibit of optical art synchronous with and in some cases arising out of the early days of psychedelic culture. It’s amusing to watch the stuffed shirts within the art world attempt to describe what they are looking at in conventional terms or resorting to psychological mumbo jumbo without ever mentioning mescaline or LSD.

Cast

Name Character Team
William Seitz Self Unowned
Rudolf Arnheim Self Unowned
Irving H. Leopold Self Unowned
David Hockney Self Unowned
Jeffrey Steele Self Unowned
Mon Levinson Self Unowned
Al Lesley Self Unowned
Josef Albers Self Unowned
Richard Anuszkiewicz Self Unowned
Huntington Hartford Self Unowned
Philip Johnson Self Unowned
Larry Aldrich Self Unowned
Pamela Tiffin Self Unowned
Marisol Self Unowned