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PAUL CADMUS: Enfant Terrible at 80
A David Sutherland Film 1984

Looking up, the artist abruptly lifts his pencil from the paper. "The wrist's in the wrong position," he says, lifting himself from his seat on the floor. He approaches the nude model and makes an imperceptible change in the alignment of the man's fingers. Satisfied, he returns to his seat. "Generally, men are much better models," he says as he resumes sketching. "They work harder on their posing, perhaps because they're so much vainer than women." His voice hesitates but his pencil keeps moving. "Or maybe women think they're so lovely they don't have to pose well. I don't know."

The artist is Paul Cadmus, a vital 80 years old ("There are those who think I'm not alive today, but that is their perrogative.") The scene is from "Paul Cadmus: Enfant Terrible at 80," David Sutherland's intimate film portrait of an unusual American master.

Cadmus now works quietly in his Connecticut studio, but he was once the subject of scandal and controversy. On camera he recalls his days as a WPA artist in the 1930's taking obvious pleasure in the bizarre story of how he was rudely catapulted into national prominence.

In 1934, while on the government dole, Cadmus painted a satiric view of rowdy sailors on shore leave in a New York park. The painting was chosen for a special exhibit of works by New Deal painters, and it was hung at Washington's Corcoran Gallery. Before the opening, a VIP group viewed the exhibit. The group included a strait-laced admiral who was outraged at what he considered an affront to America's sailors, and ordered the painting summarily removed. The affair became something of a national cause celebre, the center of an often amusing debate about government censorship and the morals of American military men. The confiscated painting, "The Fleet's In" was lost, and only recently rediscovered. It was at the ALIBI Club at 1803 I St. NW. Sutherland's film records Cadmus' reaction at seeing the painting for the first time after more than 45 years, at a retrospective of his work in Oxford, Ohio.

Cadmus speaks of his past and present with a candor that has surprised some of the artist's closest friends. Sutherland's success at penetrating the natural reserve of a private and somewhat reticent man is a result of an unusual collaboration between the producer-director and his subject.

Sutherland's goal was to make a different kind of artist's profile. "I wanted to make a film about an artist and his work, without using narrators and interviewers who would come between the viewers and the subject. The goal was to get the artist to act as host in a film about himself."

To achieve his goal, Sutherland began by sketching a portrait of the artist, using super 8 mm film, rather than a pencil. In the relaxed atmosphere of the artists home, Sutherland acquainted himself with Cadmus as he acquainted the artist with the experience of being before the camera. He filmed Cadmus at leisure, playing the piano, walking the grounds of his home, thumbing old scrapbooks.

Transcription Notes:
Alibi Club in Wash D.C. - Wikipedia says address is 1806 I St.NW but 1803 is clearly what is written in document