The Cold Eye (My Darling be Careful)
‘The Cold Eye’ is a “narrative” portrait of a certain New York art scene as seen subjectively by Cathy, a young aspiring painter recently out of art school. In a series of encounters she meets up with friends (a writer, a sculptor, a comforting older painter and a former classmate) and alternately listens to what they can tell her of life and art or demands their attention and encouragement. Yet we never see her – the “cold eye” of the title is the recording camera which has become Cathy's own eye, continually observing, questioning and judging, visually and intellectually.
The film is about a certain stage in the development of a young artist while she confronts the real world in terms of her own idealistic notions of what art is supposed to do.
– Babette Mangolte
The two outstanding features of this film are its compositional rigour (strengthened by carefully textured black-and-white) and the levels of irony which simultaneously celebrate the New York art scene and condemn its unbearably "cultured" anality.
– Don Ranvaud, Monthly Film Bulletin
The film would be more stimulating and its satire of the New York arts scene more enjoyable if it were possible to like the self-indulgent Cathy with whom we're forced to identify.
– Helen MacKintosh, City Limits
Description source: Circles Catalogue (circa 1983). Compiled by Helen MacKintosh and Margaret Gillan. Edited by Felicity Sparrow.
