Entertainment
Camille Claudel's hand, not her trauma, is at the center of a magnificent Getty Museum show
A notable similarity marks a subcategory of once woefully under-recognized female artists of the past. Their resolute endurance of trauma is proposed as a primary reason to reassess their work today.
At age 18, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653) survived the abusive manipulations of rape by the painter Agostino Tassi, a colleague in her studio. Public humiliation followed the private ordeal when she courageously took his assault to trial.
Frida Kahlo (1907-54) endured decades of grueling pain after a bus she was riding in — also at age 18 — smashed into a trolley and forced a long metal rod to rip through her midsection. The vehicular wreck caused internal injuries that would plague her throughout her life.
Then there is Camille Claudel (1864-1943). Her trauma came later, when mental and emotional deterioration led to her confinement in a psychiatric institution, far from the Paris studio of Auguste Rodin, in which her own brilliant work as a sculptor had blossomed. The cause for the internment was said to be paranoid psychosis. She was 48 and remained hospitalized for 30 years, the remainder of her life.
“Camille Claudel,” a fascinating exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, unwinds the traumatic tale, and in the process refocuses the story in important ways. In the popular telling, Claudel is to France what Gentileschi was to Italy and Kahlo to Mexico: the overlooked artist as victim — a casualty not just once, but twice. The active personal trauma experienced in life was joined by passive negligence after death from the culture at large.
Camille Claudel, “Crouching Woman,” about 1884-85, patinated plaster
(J. Paul Getty Museum)
The welcome revival of interest in the paintings and sculptures of Gentileschi, Kahlo and Claudel since the 1970s and ’80s was led by second-wave feminists, and it represented an effort to transform victimhood into survivorship in the cultural sphere. Which sounds good, but has a catch. The narrative focus tends to linger on the artist, not the art.
Biography, framed by dramatic events, often overwhelms the paintings and sculptures, which are admired for the reductive ways in which they illuminate the artist’s tumultuous life. It can lead to travesty, such as a current Gentileschi exhibition at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, Italy, reported to feature what some critics have witheringly described as a “rape room” — a darkened chamber with a bloodied bed in the center, surrounded by projections of Gentileschi’s often gory paintings.
It’s no accident that multiple movies and plays have been produced about Gentileschi, Kahlo and Claudel, with various incidents vividly sensationalized to court pop culture success. A lead actress Oscar nomination, for example, deservedly went to Isabelle Adjani for the 1989 film “Camille Claudel,” and then to Salma Hayek for the 2002 movie “Frida.” The talented actors were given lots of cinematic scenery on which to chew.
In the case of Claudel, a subtle but opportune correction of the narrative arrives in the new museum show.
Curators Anne-Lise Desmas at the Getty and Emerson Bowyer at the Art Institute of Chicago, where the show was seen last fall, make no bones about articulating the sculptor’s very real travails. Outlined in the superb and detailed catalog are the artist’s sometimes difficult personal affair with Rodin, 24 years her senior and a commanding figure in the art life of late 19th century Paris; a rapidly industrializing society in flux, for artists as for others, that nonetheless saw exceptionally high fences erected around a woman’s potential for success as a sculptor; and internal family issues that left Claudel without much immediate personal support when she very much needed it.
“This biographical miasma,” the curators write in the catalog introduction, “has tended to obscure — or even excise — the sculptor’s art and agency.” Those subjects get put in appropriate context by an enlightening exhibition.
Camille Claudel, “The Age of Maturity,” 1890-99, bronze
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
Fifty-eight sculptures have been assembled, including works in clay, plaster, marble and bronze. They include the major 1890-99 ensemble “The Age of Maturity,” a large, three-figure allegory of aging that unfolds in multiple bronze sections, in which youth gives way to the inevitability of old age and death. There’s a stunning and compact portrait-bust of Rodin, in which the focused concentration of his life-size head seems to rise up out of a tumult below, represented by his lengthy, swirling, thickly tangled beard. And, for contrast, we get Rodin’s winsome portrait of Claudel, the lowered gaze of her intensely alert but ethereal head emerging from a hefty block of chiseled white marble.
At first, her portrait appears unfinished, but that’s a misperception. Rodin titled his sculpture “Thought.” Perhaps he recognized what emerges from encounters with Claudel’s art. Repeatedly, her figures stoop, crouch, look down or away, resulting in a concentrated bodily sense of intense interiority. Experiential subjectivity forms the essence of her human forms.
In a beautiful installation, many works are smartly shown on a pedestal positioned atop a circular base, which wordlessly leads a viewer all the way around — ideal for an art that needs to be seen in four dimensions of space and time. Revealing labels are sometimes nicely tucked away, as in one on the far side of “The Age of Maturity” informing that the baroque flourish of drapery billowing at the apex is actually a precise facsimile, the original bronze piece currently undergoing conservation back in Paris.
The number of works is relatively modest — understandably so, given the comparative brevity of her career (barely two decades, while Rodin’s was more than twice as long) and her need to devote years as a studio assistant. They range from a remarkably adept terracotta portrait bust of an elderly household member, “Old Helen,” made when Claudel was 21, to a complicated state commission for a mythological subject in bronze, “Wounded Niobid,” dated 1907, near the end of a tough career that had left her nearly destitute.
Claudel was born into a solidly middle-class family in 1864, daughter of a registrar of deeds in a small medieval town 60 miles from Paris. Her mother bore four children, one of whom — Paul — would go on to become a well-known poet and an influential diplomat posted to China, Brazil, the United States and elsewhere. With her father regularly being transferred to various provincial towns, Claudel and her siblings settled in Paris with their mother in 1881. There she began her serious study of sculpture, met Rodin during student critiques and within three years was employed in his studio.
Auguste Rodin gave the title “Thought” to his 1895-1901 marble portrait of Camille Claudel
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
Rodin relied on his assistant’s formal skills, especially Claudel’s talents with the difficult task of successfully rendering expressive hands and feet. She’s credited with work on major commissions, including the monumental bronze sculptural group “The Gates of Hell” — the one with the “Thinker” poised on the doorway’s head jamb like an inquisitive crow, puzzling over humanity’s infernal chaos on its way to eternal doom — and, most important, “The Burghers of Calais.” (Check out the animated hands of those sacrificial citizens!) Perhaps the show’s most riveting small work is a little bronze study of a hand, just 10 inches wide, no doubt informed by Claudel’s careful scrutiny of her own. A curved index finger rises up from the rest like a speaker separating from a crowd and preparing to expound.
The exhibition was inspired by Getty and Art Institute of Chicago acquisitions in recent years. (Only 10 Claudel sculptures are in American museums, according to press materials.) Chicago’s is a plaster portrait bust of Camille’s brother Paul, made when he was a teenager and layered in thin glazes of paint to create an illusion of the patina on an ancient Roman bronze head. The Getty’s is one of the show’s knockouts.
A sculpture as fresh and contemporary as anything you’ll find in a gallery crawl today, the dark bronze “Torso of a Crouching Woman,” about three feet tall, is a headless, armless figure surely inspired by a famous Greek example of Aphrodite emerging from the bath, which the artist would have known from prowls in the Louvre Museum. Feet squarely planted, center of gravity low, Claudel’s version rests firmly on the ground while twisting in space. The movement pulls skin taut over the ribs, spine and musculature of her back, enlivening the subject’s tactile sensuality.
With one notable exception, the sliced off body parts allude to the fragmentary quality of the ancient original, which has lost its head and arms from time’s vicissitudes. The exception is the missing left knee. Gone is most of the leg.
Camille Claudel, “Torso of a Crouching Woman,” modeled circa 1884-85, bronze cast about 1913
(The J. Paul Getty Museum)
Cut off just above the ankle all the way to mid-thigh, the omission isn’t found in the classical Greek original or its many Roman copies, where the leg is a prominent protrusion. The vivid erasure also seems different from just being overkill in a nod to history by a young sculptor earnestly figuring things out. (Claudel is thought to have made the sculpture when she was about 20.) Instead, the radical cut reads as a determined compositional move. You imagine the jutting knee was there in her clay model, thought better of, then given a chop.
The result further exposes the torso in its most vulnerable feminine places, while accelerating the figure’s spatial turn. Claudel’s visceral cut invigorates the form — a seeming contradiction for a removal to accomplish, but one that is as modern as will be found in any contemporaneous bather painted in oil or drawn in pastel by Edgar Degas.
It’s also hard to imagine Rodin doing something like that. Claudel surely benefited from her artistic relationship with the revered sculptor. But he benefited from it as well, modeling some of his work on her inventive forms, plus using all those eloquent hands and feet. A good bit of the scholarship around Claudel in the last few decades has been directed at correcting attributions to him for sculptures she made but did not sign.
A modern cliché has it that an artist must suffer to achieve true success in their art, and Claudel, like Gentileschi and Kahlo, surely did. But for female artists throughout history, the marvelous Getty exhibition handily demonstrates that there’s much more to it than only surviving trauma. Everyone needs to labor to get through the day. A powerful artist needs to do more, and Claudel does.
‘Camille Claudel’
Where: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood
When: Through July 21; closed Mondays
Info: (310) 440-7300, www.getty.edu
Movie Reviews
People Shared Their Thoughts About Movies They Watched And These 67 Reviews Are Comedy Gold – AOL
If you love movies, chances are you’ve read a review or two before deciding what to watch. Most people keep things pretty simple—they talk about the acting, the storyline, or whether the film is worth your time. But then there’s Letterboxd, a popular social platform where movie lovers log, rate, and review the films they watch. While plenty of reviews are thoughtful and insightful, others take a… much more chaotic approach.
That’s exactly what the Letterboxd Reviews With Threatening Auras account celebrates. It rounds up the platform’s funniest, most unhinged, and wonderfully cursed reviews—the kind that make you stop mid-scroll and wonder what was going through the reviewer’s mind. These definitely aren’t your standard “Loved it, 4 stars” takes. They radiate such a bizarrely threatening energy that it’s almost impossible not to keep scrolling to see what wild review comes next.
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We’ve all been there—sitting through a film, hoping it gets better, only for the credits to roll and leave you wondering what on earth you just watched. But if there’s one silver lining, it’s the internet’s reaction afterward. Sometimes the reviews are so funny, dramatic, or brutally honest that they’re more entertaining than the movie itself.
Whether it’s an accidental masterpiece of comedy or a hilariously savage one-liner, people have a remarkable talent for putting their thoughts into words. The truth is, movie reviews come in all shapes and sizes. They vary depending on who’s writing them, where they’re published, and what they’re hope to achieve. Some are designed to help you decide what to watch on a Friday night, while others dig deep into themes, symbolism, and filmmaking techniques.
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One of the most familiar formats is the capsule review. These are the short reviews you’ll often spot in newspapers, magazines, streaming platforms, or entertainment websites. Usually just one or two paragraphs long, they quickly summarize the story, highlight a few strengths and weaknesses, and end with a clear recommendation or star rating. They’re ideal for people who don’t want spoilers or lengthy analysis—they simply want to know whether a movie is worth their time. Writing one isn’t always as easy as it looks, though. Condensing an entire film into just a few sentences while still being informative takes real skill. That’s why some of the best capsule reviews manage to say more in 100 words than others do in 1,000.
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Professional critics often take a different approach. Publications such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and major newspapers publish what are commonly known as trade reviews. These aren’t just personal opinions; they also consider a film’s broader impact, commercial appeal, performances, direction, cinematography, and where it fits within the industry. Their reviews are often read by moviegoers, filmmakers, studios, and even award voters. While audiences don’t always agree with the critics, these reviews provide a structured, informed perspective that goes beyond simply saying whether a movie was enjoyable. They aim to explain why a film succeeds—or why it falls flat.
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Then there are academic film reviews, which take things to an entirely different level. These aren’t written for casual viewers but for students, researchers, and people who study cinema professionally. Rather than focusing on entertainment value, they examine symbolism, storytelling techniques, historical context, editing, cinematography, and cultural influence. It’s less about asking, “Was this movie good?” and more about exploring what the film is trying to communicate and how it fits into the history of cinema. They can be dense, detailed, and surprisingly fascinating, often revealing layers that the average viewer might never notice. Even a blockbuster superhero movie can become the subject of serious academic discussion.
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Of course, not every review is carefully researched. Some of the most popular today are instant reaction reviews—the videos, podcasts, TikToks, or tweets people post immediately after leaving the theater. They’re fast, emotional, and completely unfiltered. You can usually tell within seconds whether someone loved the movie or absolutely hated it. Because there’s no time to overthink anything, these reactions often feel refreshingly genuine. Sure, opinions may change after a second viewing, but that’s part of the fun. They capture that immediate emotional response we all have after watching something memorable, whether it’s excitement, disappointment, confusion, or complete disbelief.
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And then there’s arguably the internet’s favorite category: user reviews. Platforms like Letterboxd, IMDb, and Rotten Tomatoes have given everyday movie lovers a place to share whatever is on their minds. Some people write thoughtful essays that rival professional critics, while others somehow manage to steal the spotlight with a single sentence. One review might offer a heartfelt personal story about how a film changed someone’s life, while the next simply says something so absurd that thousands of people can’t stop laughing. Because anyone can contribute, there’s an endless variety of voices, personalities, and senses of humor. That’s exactly what makes scrolling through user reviews so addictive.
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In recent years, these reviews have taken on a life of their own. Thanks to social media, the funniest ones are regularly shared far beyond the platforms where they were originally posted. Sometimes the review becomes more famous than the movie itself. A perfectly timed joke, an oddly specific observation, or an outrageously dramatic reaction can spread across the internet within hours. It’s a reminder that people aren’t just reviewing movies anymore—they’re entertaining each other in the process. For many film fans, reading the reviews afterward has become almost as enjoyable as watching the movie itself.
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And that’s exactly where today’s collection comes in. Instead of looking at traditional movie criticism, we’re diving into the wonderfully chaotic world of Letterboxd, where movie lovers often express themselves in the most unpredictable ways imaginable. They aren’t polished critiques or carefully balanced opinions; they’re pure internet gold. Keep scrolling, Pandas, and see which review made you laugh the hardest—or left you wondering what on earth the reviewer had just watched.
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Jennifer Finch, bassist for the influential Los Angeles rock band L7, has died. She was 59.
Finch died of “an aggressive form of brain cancer,” according to a statement from the band.
“We are shattered by the loss of our beloved bandmate, sister and friend Jennifer Finch, whose fierce spirit, humor and boundless creativity helped shape L7 and changed all of our lives forever,” the group said in its statement. “Jennifer was a true original who lived entirely on her own terms, and the impact she made on music, art and everyone lucky enough to know her cannot be measured. We love her beyond words and will carry her with us always. Rest in power our dear friend.”
Finch was receiving ongoing treatment for brain cancer, and just last week backed out of the band’s planned final tour. The group said those dates were “planned along with Jennifer when all four of us were in good health and spirits,” and Finch had asked the band to continue the shows while she sought treatment.
Finch, raised in Los Angeles, was an outspoken and ambitious fixture of ‘90s rock. She briefly performed in a band with Courtney Love pre-Hole and Babes In Toyland’s Kat Bjelland, and once dated Dave Grohl. But she came to prominence in L7, a foundational act in the alt-rock scene of the ‘90s.
Formed in 1985 by guitarists and singers Suzi Gardner and Donita Sparks, drummer Dee Plakas and Finch, they made a fast impact on L.A.’s punk scene, which was growing out of the hyper-masculine hardcore era of the ‘80s. Alongside Hole and Sleater-Kinney, L7 helped usher in the riot grrl wave of confrontational, female-led rock acts onto charts and festival bills.
“Rock ‘n’ roll was invented and became popular because of its rebellious nature,” Finch told the Times in 1993. “But the world has seen every form of rebellion–from throwing TVs out the windows to heroin abuse to just the guy in the leather jacket with greased-back hair–and the rebel image is becoming tired and burnt out. So (the press) is finding new interest in women who (rebel), creating a whole new aspect.”
“The unfortunate thing is that journalists are trying to create a genre out of gender, which trivializes it,” she added. “That’s extremely ignorant, because it bypasses the uniqueness between the groups.”
Bolstered by Finch’s ferocious basslines, hit single “Pretend We’re Dead” received significant airplay on alternative rock stations and became the group’s signature song, along with the biting anti-war anthem “Wargasm.” Finch wrote several songs across the group’s catalog, including the scabrous single “Everglade.” L7 went on hiatus in 2001, but reunited in 2014.
Finch was a talented photographer, whose intimate shots of SoCal bands lent an air of tragic grit to an ascendant punk and rock scene. “The irony is not lost on me when I’m driving from my house just blocks from where I grew up, and I’m heading to the L.A. Weekly to publish pictures of us as kids hanging out and shooting up, 20 years ago,” she told L.A. Weekly in 2006.” It feels weird but strangely hopeful. That was a totally unique time and it defined who we are, so then maybe it’s not a bad thing to be nostalgic about.”
Beyond L7, her song with OtherStarpeople, “Then There’s None,” appeared on the beloved “Office Space” soundtrack, and founded the punk band The Shocker in 2002. She acted in John Waters’ dark comedy “Serial Mom” as a member of the fictional band Camel Lips.
L7’s last album, “Scatter the Rats,” was released in 2019, and its final tour, “The Last Hurrah,” is booked to kick off in San Diego on Oct. 6.
L7 and Finch’s family opened a GoFundMe to support her medical care, saying “We love her, and we want her to feel the full strength of the community that has loved and supported her for so many years.” Information on surviving family was not immediately available.
Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s July 18, 1986, and we’re off to see Aliens and Vamp.
Aliens
Really, what can you say about a classic?
Set 57 years after the events of Alien, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) finds herself heading back to LV-426 when a colony on the planet stops communicating with Earth. Teamed up with Colonial Marines, she is still unprepared for the new horrors she will find at the claws of the xenomorphs.
I’m going to do something I normally don’t do and talk about a deleted scene. Aliens, as it stands is a heck of a follow-up to the original film, but for the life of me I will never figure out why James Cameron cut the scene about Ripley’s daughter dying. For those unfamiliar with it, there is a scene after Ripley returns to Earth where she learns her daughter passed away at the age of 66, two years before Ripley made it home. She cries over the fact she had promised her daughter she would be home in time for eleventh birthday.
This scene does so much to frame some of Ripley’s decisions throughout the rest of the movie. This scene, when included, improves the film far beyond the theatrical cut and adds immense weight to several other scenes.
The theatrical version is great, the extended cut is even better.
Where to watch: Available to stream.
Vamp
The 1980s seem to have already been fed up with vampire films with far more of them tackling the tropes instead of being straight-faced about the bloodsuckers.
Keith (Chris Makepeace) and AJ (Robert Rusler) are rushing a fraternity when when the latter promises the frat a stripper for their party to help their chances of getting in. They head downtown and wander into a strip club that features a dancer named Katrina (Grace Jones) that they are mesmerized by and decide she is the one they need. Little do they know she is actually an ancient vampire.
Considering this wasn’t long after Fright Night, it seems everyone was tired of the same old vampire stories. If they only knew what was coming several years later.
It’s a fine movie, and I mean that in the sense of “it’s fine.” It doesn’t do anything that new per se, but it has some fun visuals and sight gags.
Where to watch: Available to stream.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on July 25, 2026, with
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