Art is one of the ways people communicate with one another. Every work of art brings the viewer to into a special kind of relationship, both with whoever has created or is creating the art and also with everyone else who—together with him, or before or afterwards—is subject to that
artistic impression.
—Leo Tolstoy
It would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power
to an inborn talent.
In art, the genius creator is not just a gifted being, but a person who has succeeded in arranging for their appointed end, a complex of activities, of which the work is the outcome, requiring an effort.
—Henri Matisse
Art is so varied that to reduce it to any single purpose, be it even the salvation of mankind, is an abomination before the Lord.
—Nikolai Gumilev
Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work,
is what makes all the difference in art.
—Dante Gabriel Rosetti
Art is art.
Everything else is everything else.
—Ad Reinhardt
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance…
and I know of no substitute whatever
for the force and beauty of its process.
—Henry James
It's not what you look at that matters,
it's what you see.
—Henry David Thoreau
Diverging Perspectives
Verbal Art Made Moving Image
Diverging Perspectives is an ongoing experiment in cinema and literature. Taking on the classics of a selected great literary tradition, DP pits film directors native to that culture against their fellow directors from other cultures the world over. The radically various cinematic interpretations of literary artworks reveal the profound challenges of turning words into moving images.
Diverging Perspectives series feature cinematic premieres, hard-to-find or little known curiosities, beloved stars in unexpected roles, films by important directors, and top-flight cinema.
Every Diverging Perspectives film screening is personally introduced by a filmmaker, writer, or other expert. After every DP screening stay on for a memorable guided open discussion for the whole audience.
Contrasting filmings of one single literary work generate a uniquely fascinating theater experience. Diverging Perspectives provokes the audience to consider crucial questions about the very nature of these art forms:
- how an audiovisual art form (cinema) works differently than a purely verbal art form (literature)
- where to find how they function similarly behind the scenes—that is, what makes them both art forms
- given the difference in media, what various things can adaptation mean?
Discussions are under way to take Diverging Perspectives beyond New York—to Philadelphia, PA, Washington, D.C., Boston, MA, Chicago, IL, and Toronto, Ontario.
