Gerhard Richter Painting: Press Commentaries

“It’s a fun documentary… GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING is so revealing because the film presents the process of creation with all its insecurities and meandering. Even Richter cannot explain what happens exactly. Because to him, words and painting don’t go together. Skepticism is a working principle to Richter, he appears to be involved in a permanent, critical dispute with the canvas: attentive, open, and in doubt. (…) Richter’s emotional last sentence puts the qualities of GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING in a nutshell: “This is great fun!” For 15 years Richter had declined to participate in any film projects. Fortunately, he’s changed his mind.” BR KINO KINO

“Surprising to see how the intensely private painter Gerhard Richter opens his studio for director Corinna Belz, hereby betraying his credo “painting is a secret business, anyhow”. The striking result of this fortunate event is the movie GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING.” General-Anzeiger, Bonn

“Outstanding camera and editing… Corinna Belz takes the liberty to locate the conceptual and aesthetic core of her film exactly at the point where books and photographic reproduction reach their limit: in the process, in permanent change. She is interested in the work invested in the paintings, in the layering and stripping of paint, the pitfalls and obstacles the material poses, the decisions that can be right or false, the moment’s pause and the new beginning – exactly all the things that Gerhard Richter describes as a “secret business”: Painting.” PLAYER, LEIPZIG

“The fascinating portrait of a sceptic during his constant controversy with colour, structure, form and last but not least with himself. One can’t help but be grateful to the filmmaker that she just leaves the artist to it and hardly intervenes. The tangible physical and emotional dispute Richter holds with canvass, paint and the ever more complex composition gives a sense of humbleness and sheer joy over a moment shared.” BIOGRAPH DÜSSELDORF

“It is the restrained form that turns GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING into such an exciting movie. The creation of abstract paintings turns into a drama all by itself.” MONOPOL

„A fascinating and intimate documentary that explores the secrets of the artistic process layer by layer, without betraying their magic ... GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING: Those three words express soul and essence of the film. It is about the artist painting, no more, no less. The broad brush leaves the first strong lines, how the colours mesh on the canvas, how suddenly a new painting evolves. Of course it is not only the surface aspects of painting that make this film so unique. There are the glimpses into the core of the work, too. Doubt, scepticism, thoughtfulness, meandering, new beginnings. The audience is permitted to participate in a process, which the painter by nature keeps essentially secret.” Kinozeit.de

“Unique insights … Corinna Belz manages to get exceptionally close to the artist Gerhard Richter.”
Filmstarts.de