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'In The Realms Of The Unreal: The Mystery Of Henry Darger'

S

StoryofE

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Anybody seen this one yet?
Henry Darger, an elderly recluse, spent his childhood in Illinois's asylum for feeble-minded children and his adulthood working as a janitor. He lived a quiet, nearly solitary existence, but his imaginary life was exciting, colorful and sexually provocative. When he died in Chicago in 1973, his landlady discovered in his room 300 paintings, some over 10 feet long, and a 15,000-page illustrated novel (The Realms of the Unreal), which told the epic story of the virtuous Vivian Girls leading a child slave revolt against the evil Glandelinians. Featuring Dakota Fanning (Hide and Seek) and Larry Pine (The Royal Tenenbaums) as narrators and imaginative animation of Darger's work, Oscar® winner Jessica Yu (Breathing Lessons) brings to life one of the twentieth century's greatest self-taught artists.
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IMDB entry:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390123/
 
Great, strange film. The fact that this little man, disregarded and dismissed by most of his peers, created and inhabited an elaborate fantasy world of his own design ( he even makes appearances, as himself, in his own stories ), is amazing.

Poignant that his genius wasn't discovered until after his death, and unfortunate that some of the same individuals who'd treated him as little more than an insignificant nutter during his life, are now profiting from exhibitions of his art and, yes, by making appearances in this film.


Highly recommended.
 
An interesting review here suggests darkly that this sadistic outsider-artist may have been a child-killer.

"Elsie Paroubek, age 5, who disappeared in Chicago in April 1911, when Darger, at 19, had recently returned to the city from the mental asylum in which he spent most of his youth. Paroubek was later found strangled in a drainage ditch. Apparently, her photo and a notebook of early writings were stolen from Darger's belongings at a time when he lived dormitory-style with other hospital workers." :?
 
Yithian said:
Just tagging this thread and thought this link most worthy of everyone's time.
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Well there's a coincidence - I was just reading about the remarkable Henry Darger on today's Quora!
The documentary can give us some idea of his remarkable fantasy creation, but I don't believe that "In the Realms of the Unreal" has ever been published in its (15,000 or so page) entirety.
 
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