Absolute Wilson

ABSOLUTE WILSON is the first documentary to celebrate the life and career of one of the most groundbreaking visual artists in the world, Robert Wilson. Filmmaker Katharina Otto-Bernstein followed the restless creator for five years around the world and creates a unique portrait that freely moves between past and present. The film opens in New York on October 27 and in Los Angeles early January 2007.


More than a biography, ABSOLUTE WILSON is the moving and revealing tale of a child, the son of the mayor of Waco, who grew up as a troubled outsider in a segregated, fundamentalist Texas during the 40s and 50s. Plagued by a speech impediment and learning disabilities, and longing for the love of a disapproving father, Wilson learned to embrace his differences and discovered profound liberation in the New York arts world of the 1960s.


Inter-cutting candid interviews of the artist himself with rare, never before seen archival footage of his work, ABSOLUTE WILSON is a tour de force into the mind of an unbending spirit. Providing further insight into Wilsons life and art is lively commentary from a range of collaborators, lovers, admirers, family members -- and even detractors -- including musician David Byrne, writer Susan Sontag (in one of the last interviews before her recent death), composer Philip Glass, opera star Jessye Norman, critics John Rockwell and John Simon.


Wilson has long been considered one of contemporary cultures most insoluble mysteries. The creator of revolutionary works of theatre, opera, dance, performance and fine art, Wilson continues to change the landscape of 21st century expression with groundbreaking international theatre productions such as "Deafman Glance," "Einstein on the Beach" and "The Black Rider." Wilson's work pushes the limits of time and space, forging images of astonishing beauty, nightmarish psychological complexity, stark wit and haunting emotion. Many have lauded him as a mesmerizing visual genius. Others damn his productions as indulgent and costly. Incendiary, influential, contradictory, puzzling, other-worldly, mischievous, unclassifiableWilson is absolutely all of these.