Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Master of Light’ on HBO Max, a Stunningly Intimate Documentary About Artist George Anthony Morton

Master of Light (now on HBO Max) is about one of the people who “got out.” Director Rosa Ruth Boesten’s documentary profiles George Anthony Morton, whose life is the stuff of inspirational stories: His early life of drugs and crime landed him in prison, where he taught himself to paint; when he got out, he became a highly acclaimed fine artist. Now, he finds himself torn between his past and his present, a conflict this film captures profoundly.

MASTER OF LIGHT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: George Anthony Morton paints his mother. Paints his brother. Paints his sister, partner, nephew. Paints himself. We’re by his side as he paints. He studies faces, smudges his finger on the canvas, adds layer upon layer to his portraits. “I’ve been through a lot, but I’m still here,” he says. He goes to Kansas City to bail his mother, Tela, out of jail – it’s a familiar situation. He grew up there. He tells his story to his therapist in their first session: Tela had him when she was 15. He grew up in poverty with his four siblings, in the “drug house” on the block. She was an addict. He chats with his brother, and they recall how George was 20 when he was arrested after robbing a guy for 13 8-balls. When he was taken to jail, Tela was right there next to him in the cell. He was sentenced to 135 months for possessing two ounces of crack.

George spent a decade in prison, where he studied painting, specifically Rembrandt, eventually trading stately portraits for transfers to lighter-security areas. He’s 35 now, living in Atlanta with a five-year-old daughter named Nuri and a supportive partner, Ashley. He studied at the prestigious Florence Academy of Art in New York. He calls Tela to tell her to watch the news – there’s a profile on him, filmed at a museum where he’s seen stunningly recreating a Rembrandt portrait. “I’ve been on the news for the exact opposite,” he says. Is he lucky? Or just talented? Both – art helped him break the systemic trap so many Black Americans find themselves in. Tela is 50 and still in and out of jail, stuck in the cycle. George and his mother are warm and cordial when they’re in the same room; she poses, he paints her. But there are scenes in which he’s on the phone and angry, shouting, hanging up on her. He seems to be struggling to forgive her for things she did and said years ago, and what she’s doing and saying now.

But this movie isn’t wholly about his personal struggles. He talks about how his formal art studies were about “the worship of all things white” – because to study the work of Black people would give them “a dignified place” in this world. His work takes him to Rembrandt’s home of Amsterdam, and to Egypt, where people with dark skin were depicted with dignity. He tells his 11-year-old nephew Treshon that the Egyptians understood naturalism centuries before Rembrandt; conversation leads to Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and Trayvon Martin; George paints the boy. George’s sister talks about how bounty hunters broke her door down. Ashley, who apparently had a more privileged upbringing, struggles to understand why Tela can’t extract herself from her rut. George’s brother shows a series of freshly sutured wounds on his body. George feels like he’s “living between two worlds.” He tells his therapist, “I feel as if darkness is my friend.” But George, like Rembrandt, is a master of light.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Master of Light brings to mind classic verite documentaries such as High School and Grey Gardens, and the fly-on-the-wall observations and crucial social implications of Hoop Dreams.

Performance Worth Watching: George’s willingness to share himself so intimately with a documentary crew is astonishing – and brave.

Memorable Dialogue: “There’s so much more I could do at this stage, but the light’s leaving.” – George’s first words in this film

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Master of Light is a lean, engrossing and highly immersive biographical documentary, simple in concept and execution, and all the stronger for it. Boesten adheres tightly to George’s point-of-view, foregoing standard doc techniques for strict and uncompromising over-the-shoulder observation. There are moments when you wish she’d pull the camera back a little and allow a greater sense of context so we can better understand the space in which George lives and works, his day-to-day life, his place in the world of modern art.

But once this dense, 83-minute profile concludes, you realize that such perspectives would dilute its impact. A key scene shows George examining a Rembrandt painting with a magnifying glass and an intensely focused light. Boesten’s intent is to look at him in a similarly penetrating manner; her and editor Ephraim Kirkwood’s technique is like a surgical scalpel, and the film has no non-vital scenes. George’s classical painting style entails layering shades and colors, and Boesten aims to observe such complexities in her own subject, by following him as he visits with his siblings, shares wisdom with his nephew, works in his studio and walks the streets during Black Lives Matter protests. His portrait of Tela is revelatory, not just because we can observe his technique progressively – when she says it makes her look old, he reminds her he’s not even close to being finished yet – but because he captures in her face a blend of weary melancholy and a sense of poise and dignity she likely doesn’t convey consciously.

For certain, Master of Light’s potency wouldn’t be possible without George’s full cooperation – how often have you seen documentary cameras allowed into a psychotherapy session? Although Boesten stresses intimacy, she also isn’t afraid to follow the logic of George’s story into larger topical areas; the film becomes a pointed criticism of systemic racism in America, because it has to. The film is too raw and unflinching to look away from such generational pain. Few documentaries are so alive; this one is a triumph.

Our Call: Master of Light is one of the best documentaries of the year. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.