Waiting for Hockney

2008 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Delusional pencil artist/waiter Billy Pappas works for eight and a half years in his studio (located conveniently in his parents' home) on an insanely detailed sketch of Marilyn Monroe. He has high hopes that he's about to rock the art world and wants artist David Hockney to validate his hard work. Unfortunately, he's got an encouraging entourage.


First off, the picture itself, once the filmmaker finally decides to reveal it, is pretty incredible. I'm not sure about the decision to wait so long for that unveiling. There's so much of a build-up that pretty much anything is going to be underwhelming, but it's still a pretty magical moment once it's unveiled. The eventual meeting with David Hockney, also built-up and highly anticipated, is only shown in photographs and discussed by the eye witnesses. It sort of takes away some of story's spunk. Still, this can be stacked up with a couple fistfuls of other documentaries and fictions about artists and their art and the philosophical questions about what art even is.