Everybody Knows…Elizabeth Murray

Kristi Zea's documentary profile of Elizabeth Murray takes its title from the artist's final painting, which was completed shortly before her death from lung cancer in 2007. But it also alludes to Murray's openness about her illness, which included sitting for filmed interviews in a clearly fragile state and attending gallery exhibitions in a wheelchair. In swift, incisive strokes—accompanied by excerpts from Murray's diaries read by Meryl Streep, and comments from fellow artists—Zea covers Murray's difficult childhood (marked by instances of homelessness), the prescience of a supportive teacher who actually paid for her tuition at the Chicago Institute of Arts, the challenge of eking out a living as a single mother in 1970s New York City (her children recall the long hours she spent in her studio during their youth), and the important support that she received from gallery owner Paula Cooper. The film also offers ample opportunity to savor her work, which is generally characterized as post-minimalist, although her rich, colorful, and often very large canvases defy easy pigeonholing. The title also carries an ironic note since Everybody Knows… emphasizes how hard Murray had to work in order to win recognition from her male contemporaries—making it especially gratifying that the film culminates with the career retrospective that she was accorded at the Museum of Modern Art the year before her death. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)