KEN PAUL ROSENTHAL

Ken Paul Rosenthal works with photography and film. His early body of experimental films explores an organic style, and direct manipulation techniques. Rosenthal’s recent projects look at personal and political narratives portrayed in a poetic way with visuals of landscape.



A project that he is working on at the moment which comes out in the summer of 2010 is called 'Crooked Beauty'. On the website www.crookedbeauty.com the homepage tells you what it is all about, and the intended message.

'Crooked Beauty is a poetic documentary that explores positive and compassionate models for transforming the experience of madness in our culture. Artist Ashley M. recounts her journey from the psych ward to the innovative mental health activism.
Flickering light and shadow, and fragmented montages of urban and natural landscapes visually evoke the fluctuations of mania and depression as a backdrop to her testimony. Crooked Beauty redefines the stigmas surrounding mental health by presenting a new healing culture and political model for living with madness as a tool of creativity, inspiration, and hope.'

It also has a trailer for the short documentary, which i became very inspired by, the type of imagery that he has used playing with shadow and light are similar ideas to how i was thinking of representing depression in my final major project.
At the start of the trailer, there is a statement which says 'Birds with perfectly symmetrical feathers cannot fly'. The intended message here being that no one is perfect - I like this message.
I have sent Ken Paul Rosenthal an email, asking how he decided to use the type of visuals he did to represent depression, and whether he has any advice for me to take on board when dealing with the subject of depression.
Crooked Beauty : Style of film visuals -