Frederic Remington: The Truth of Other Days

Synopsis

This documentary of Frederic Remington reviews how the artist popularized the myths, legends, and images we now call the "Old West."

The film was filmed on location where Remington spent time, uses archival film and photographs, and has interviews with art scholars that create a framework to understand his artwork.

Interviews

Critical response

When the film was shown on PBS, Walter Goodman, television critic for The New York Times, liked the film, and wrote, "In these multi-cultural times, it may not come as unadulterated praise to credit someone with defining America's vision of the Old West, but Frederic Remington: The Truth of Other Days illuminates the artist's achievement without subjecting it to a test for political correctness. Setting Remington's paintings and sculptures against his own words, crisply delivered by Ned Beatty, the hourlong American Masters documentary, tonight at 9 on Channel 13, shows and tells how the Easterner helped create a Western myth that has not yet lost its power...Attention is drawn especially to the way the massed figures move on both canvas and screen, from upper right to lower left. Big men in a landscape of big nature was a steady theme of both the movie maker and the painter."

Awards

Wins