Porcelain Mania

Often considered one of the most acclaimed and intriguing writers of the 20th century, Bruce Chatwin was more than just a novelist. He was also a journalist, anthropologist, and world traveler who is best known for his debut novel In Patagonia (1977), which he wrote after leaving his prestigious position as an art expert at Sotheby’s. Three of his novels have been adapted to the screen, including Cobra Verde (1987), based on his novel The Viceroy of Ouidah and directed by Werner Herzog with Klaus Kinski in the lead, On the Black Hill (1988), which was filmed on location in Wales by Andrew Grieve, and Utz (1992), which Chatwin once described as a “Middle European fairy-story”. Of these three film adaptations, Utz is often considered the most personal and intricately detailed of the lot because it reflects the author’s own interest in antiquities and art objects. The movie also transforms a highly eccentric story into an accessible portrait of an obsessive personality, one who has amassed a priceless collection of pottery, much of it devoted to ceramic figurines from the Meissen factory (Europe’s oldest porcelain manufacturer).

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