Creative Types On The Silver Screen: A look at the varied ways the creative industries have been portrayed on film

The obsession began with Mad Men. In many ways it is the ultimate period drama, bringing the 1960s to life not just through the clothes, the furniture and the spaces the characters inhabit, but also thanks to the faithful study (and reproduction) of the social, sexual and cultural mores of the era. Mad Men also set a benchmark for the depiction of a creative industry on screen. But what of other attempts at showcasing the creative world, particularly in the cinema? I was keen to track down instances where designers, illustrators, photographers and architects were portrayed in the movies, but wasn’t concerned with films which were about the creative industries directly – rather I wanted to see how they were shown when the focus was elsewhere. The more obscure the better. What, if anything, could we learn holding up Hollywood’s mirror? Populating my list became something of an addiction. A tremendously fun afternoon on Twitter brought in more suggestions than I knew what to do with – plus some wonderfully esoteric showdowns (“no the guy in Shopgirl WANTS to design a typeface but he’s not a type designer…”). At dinner parties, show openings and family get-togethers I tried to steer the conversation in a relevant direction. Once the shortlist was completed, it was all about the observation and analysis. In the film Knocked Up, Seth Rogen and his friends sit around all day watching films back-to-back and noting down the exact time viewers could enjoy anything slightly titillating, from a flash of side-boob to a full-on romp. I was the same, just with art and design. And so I present not an exhaustive study but a flavour of eight films where the creative industries play some part in proceedings, however bafflingly random… Beginners (2010) The obvious place to start – Beginners was written and directed by one-time designer Mike Mills and is an autobiographical tale of his father coming out aged 75. The lead character (played by Ewan McGregor) seems to flit between design, illustration and some art direction; we see him sketching out a T-Shirt at one stage and some portraits of his ex-girlfriends. Occasionally his creative process reflects the wider story – so when he finds out his dad is dying he produces several macabre doodles. After his dad dies, his boss has to stop him using work as a refuge: “The pens are not your friends, the paper is not your friend…” The movie chops between past, present and future; clues to his artistic sensibility lie in a lovely graphic print of a pear in his childhood bedroom, and a kooky mother who gets them thrown out of private views by “interacting” with the sculptures. Throughout the film, he’s working on an album cover for a band called The Sads. Initially he’s asked to do some portraits and muses: “You do something once and that is all people ever want.” But he goes on to suggest much more interesting treatments including an illustrated history of sadness he sees folding out as a concertina inlay for the album. The band is mystified; eventually the unimpressed manager cancels the commission. — First creative nod: 09:04 – Ewan McGregor’s character sketches out a T-Shirt design which reads “My personality was created by someone else and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.” Realism: Pretty good, as you’d expect from a former designer. Major lesson: Bands are never as open-minded as you’d hope. Catwoman (2004) At the start of Catwoman, Halle Berry’s character Patience Phillips is a graphic designer in the advertising department for Hedare Beauty. She describes it as: “A job that was the practical version of my passion. I was supposed to be an artist by now, instead I was designing ads for beauty cream.” In fact this is important; the whole thing about her later felinification is that she wants a life of freedom and choice. This isn’t the only film where inherent creativity limited in a big commercial context is used as a metaphor for a character’s dissatisfaction. Anyway Patience is given a big job doing the ads for Hedare’s gamechanging new product but we see her initial efforts thrown back in her face by the head of the company: “This is not even close to what I wanted. Look at this red, it’s all wrong. I wanted it darker.” There’s a timelapse of her working late into the night fixing the designs but the failure of a courier to come and collect her work becomes a major plot point. She ends up taking it to the company’s R&D base herself, overhears that the miracle cream is in fact very dangerous, gets killed, is brought back to life by magic cats and the rest is, well, nonsense. Sadly we don’t get to see her do any more design, although we are told by the mystic cat lady that as a Catwoman, every colour would be heightened, presumably making a Pantone sampler a real headache. — First creative nod: 04:02 – The voiceover complaint about giving up her artistic dreams for designing ads. Realism: Average. Apparently Berry studied cats in preparation for the role – there’s no evidence she