The Mind of Francisco Ricardo: Recent Episodes
Francisco J. Ricardo
Francisco Ricardo's profession -- and mind -- are in art, media, film, and music. Author of "The Engagement Aesthetic," composer of numerous EDM albums, and director of documentaries like "F for Franco", he works to delay judgment, in order to replace it with subjective Engagement, a more reflective and productive orientation to the world, to art, and to ourselves. Enjoy this new podcast format as Francisco reflects personally and closely with you.
Francisco enters the mind of Carl Jung to analyze how society today does not encourage the integration of the different parts of the self but rather keeps us unaware of our potential by encouraging the isolated and fractured self that results in a kind of quiet desperation.
In this podcast, Francisco explains why some people find investing in cryptocurrency to be worth the risk. By comparing cryptocurrency to more traditional investment methods like bank savings accounts and real estate, Francisco provides an in-depth comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of traditional investing versus investing in cryptocurrency. He concludes with insights into how cryptocurrency might be worth the investment risk.
In this podcast, Francisco reflects on the shifts in film criticism that have almost entirely eliminated the role of the critic as the one who analyzes the aesthetic and intellectual value of a film. The role of the critic has changed into one that primarily discusses the financial viability of a film over a film's aesthetic and social value in society. This shift conflates the art of film with the craft of making the film and leaves the deeper and more important questions of a film's aesthetic and intellectual value entirely untouched.
Francisco reflects on how the constant push towards success perhaps does not satisfy us because success only reaches often fleeting, superficial societal goals while ignoring the more important elements of wisdom and creativity that define true success and personal achievement.
Francisco ruminates on the film "Made You Look," a documentary about fakes, fraud, and art crime, which came out on Netflix in 2020. Exploring the intersection of value and meaning, he questions what makes an artwork original and valuable when it is so easily reproducible.
In this insightful podcast, Francisco analyzes the development of culture in the social media age, reflecting on the concept of subtlety in an age when immediate gratification and paid promotions grab attention away from the more nuanced works that may be passed by unnoticed.
Francisco reflects on the allure of performances of great actors such as Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle in the film Taxi Driver or Humphrey Bogart as Dixon Steele In a Lonely Place. While most of us cannot relate to the experience of vigilante violence or the challenges of an antisocial personality disorder, we are drawn to the entertainment value of these films where we may also gain an insight into dark and violent psychological experiences from the safety of a movie theater or in our own living rooms.
Today, amid various editing sessions, Francisco sat and made an electronic dance music mix - stay safe out there and enjoy the music.
Francisco ruminates on the meaning of knowledge as a catalyst for change and how the connection between knowledge and lived experience must be realized in an active life. Spanning disciplines from health to philosophy to electronic dance music, Francisco reflects on the ways theoretical knowledge can change our lives if we let what we know shape the way we live.
Francisco explores the Russian potential for spycraft that often accompanies their desire for power and points to news stories about former KGB agent, Kalugin, who has suggested that Trump’s ability to work with ease in Russia indicates an unusual and perhaps secret relationship between Putin and Trump.
What Does "Inclusion" in Art Mean Today? Francisco examines the inclusion of diverse voices in art and the abundance of perspectives represented in art museums and galleries. Although traditional museums remain repositories of classical artworks, Francisco contends contemporary and diverse artists have abundant representation in other popular venues.
Francisco reflects on the complexities of character development in the film Parasite that in spite of wonderful editing and cinematography never delved into the nuances of authentic character but rather focused on the obsequious false character involved in duping people of wealth and privilege while ignoring the greater insight into character seen in films like Taxi Driver, Dial M for Murder, or Joker.
Francisco discusses the contradictory world of public funding whether it is the Smithsonian firing a longtime fundraiser for perceived peccadillos or paradoxically limiting the distribution of a film that relies on government funds. Such government funded films often get lost in a labyrinth of rules, scrutiny, and ownership that leaves many documentaries lost from public view after their initial year of screening.
Francisco reflects on the intersection of money and time and how our modern lives are a constant struggle to stay on schedule. As part of this rumination, he examines the paradox of giving our time for the sake of money and how this trade-off inevitably interferes with the artist's time for creative work.
The skill visually evident in a work of art was once the main reason for appreciating it. Later, the signature of the artist became the main factor in its value. The artist's name, however, is a myth not captured in the artwork, and is often not based on real life. What is real in art appreciation, then?
For his first podcast of 2020, Francisco examines our contemporary obsession with acceptance and rejection and encourages fearlessness and unconditional devotion for the sake of creativity that arrives through inspiration and selfless generosity.
Francisco closes out 2019 with cautionary skepticism toward documentary films depicting human drama but which lack explanation, leaving us in worlds of fragmented suffering. Political documentaries should explain how global interests operate, and be realistic about whether individuals living in democracies can influence events in international crises.
Francisco discusses the challenges of making documentary films, and his next project on what a friendship with the world's most notorious art forger, the genius painter Elmyr de Hory, says about art.
Francisco reviews the Tom Hanks character study of Fred Rogers, whose work in Public Television transformed children's learning about life, and defines what "great" means as a descriptive term for film.
Legendary film director Martin Scorsese's recent N.Y. Times Op-Ed essay explains why he said that Marvel Movies aren’t cinema. Francisco clarifies the definition by illustrating two criteria that only cinema possesses.
Of all the qualities that audiences enjoy from film, character transformation is rarely considered, even though it is what marks all great films. Francisco discusses how the destruction of vulnerability is the chief feature of a great film character's arc.
Francisco provides a rare follow-up to his last podcast about success and fulfillment. In this podcast, he examines the cross-disciplinary definition of success beyond mere financial attainment. The socio-historical content of success in the end is not as important as the potential to reach the public and connect with them in a way that resonates and provides value. Whether it is Kim Kardashian, Walter Benjamin, or Galileo, the resonance of the work has serve as a kind of Cassandra, even if the tragedy of success is that it might be for posterity and not for the present day.
Francisco compares two very different persons on how they visualized success and the contrasting degree to which accomplished it.
One burden of being a genius is apparently turbocharging the brain. Francisco recalls his connection to Rosalind Krauss, genius of art history, Quincy Jones, genius of musical production, and Glenn Gould, genius of piano performance, and how all three touched him, while they suffered from brain aneurysms or strokes.
A personal analysis of how a cultish German filmmaker learned his craft directing the most difficult actor in German history.
Stanley Kubrick built a legacy of impeccably produced films, most of which were realized because of his assistant, Leon Vitali, whose story of servitude and devotion is captured in the documentary, "Filmworker," explored here by Francisco, who finds that the more he likes Vitali, the less he cares for Kubrick.
Francisco takes in a new film about an old assassination conspiracy that leads down an endless rabbit hole to a host of other international conspiracies.
Beginning with the clumsy term "Renaissance", Francisco provides a tour of how the search for certainty in the methodologies of science-like fields produces narrowness, unlike the journey of creative production.
Photography is always judged along formalist lines - depth, color, luminance - but the true landscape of women photographers has from the historical beginning been primarily emotional, implicit, and often very private. Francisco argues that a new kind of critique is needed here.
Wooing today's loss of discourse and argument, where civil mutuality has been replaced by aggression and abuse, Francisco reviews some rhetorical strategies used by Socrates, the greatest thinker of Classical Greece, in creating an argument and bringing a sweeping span of consideration to the art of discussion.
Francisco favorably discusses Jim Jarmusch's black comedy horror film "The Dead Don't Die" through its references to George Romero's 1968 classic "Night of the Living Dead" and assorted Americana clichés.
In the past few weeks, Francisco traveled the Grand European Tour of the 18th and 19th century, sailing from Budapest and recalling the intellectual culture that sprung up along the Danube from Prague to Vienna on this leg of his journey. He describes the historical and cultural traditions from Mozart to Freud and reflects on the artistic inspiration drawn from Vienna's cultural and architectural legacy.
Francisco contrasts the 20th century's most provocative media critic with its most profound thinker on technology, and finds agreement between them.
Asked for advice about the filmic profession, and performative arts in general, Francisco imagined a response like Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" -- that is, honing the existential compass before plotting the journey across the adult lifespan. Enjoy.
The rise of digital film, replacing celluloid film, has been seen as a threat to the art of movies. Theorist and filmmaker Francisco Ricardo considers whether this tension makes sense for film at all.
Francisco remembers Richard Burton, one of the greatest actors of the last century, able to recite Shakespeare backward, who rose from grinding poverty in Wales to the heights of fame both on the London stage and the Hollywood screen, and who died at age 58, full of talent, but also of lusts for fame and for alcohol.
Driving to the Academy for the Oscar nominated documentary selections for this year, Francisco learns that Karl Lagerfeld, of whose life and work he was a scholar, passed away. Here is Francisco's impromptu appreciation of the person and his unique impact on others. Karl was more than an icon, he was the last modernist in fashion.
Francisco's ringside analysis of the circus as a metaphor for film, discussing Federico Fellini's quasi-documentary, "The Clowns" alongside Wim Wenders's "Wings of Desire" and other works. Nostalgia fills the fate of this world, "All the circuses have become stages," claims a retired clown, characters, like so many others by an empty sadness. Has cultural film followed this fate?
Looking at a summary of current scientific thinking on creativity, Francisco finds important flaws in methods and approaches that narrowly study the mystery of what it means to create.
Francisco discusses the short, virtuosic life of Swedish DJ Avicii, and "Avicii: True Stories", a revealing documentary shot over five years and across more than forty countries.
Film's great age has passed, but it has been preserved in VHS, DVD's, Blu-Ray, and lately streaming platforms. But like VHS and DVDs, streaming can die -- and much more suddenly. Francisco reveals that the solution to cultural preservation of the moving image has been with us all along.
An instrumental composition for Adrienne Chamberlin, co-founder of Conceptualist Films, kind friend, wise producer, and patient Guide in creative production and in life. Adrienne ascended to spirit on October 12, 2018.
As Francisco drives to visit a powerful medium, knowing Adrienne has little time to live, he shares his thoughts about her, about music, and more. On his way there, he receives an important call.
In August, 2018, Francisco visited Deer Isle, Maine to see producer and friend Adrienne Chamberlin, whom he hasn't seen in six months. Seeing how Adrienne, who has been fighting a brain tumor, will not likely recover, he shares what she has meant to his life and work.
After years of quiet formation in Japan, young Yayoi Kusama moved to New York City and struggled to become an artist. But the American 1960's was not open to women artists, and eventually, she returned to Japan, but now is the among the most recognizable, prolific, and influential celebrated artists of the last forty years. Now a film, "Kusama - Infinity" captures her stormy personal voyage.
Francisco recounts how the brief history of this luminous medium was pioneered mainly by five masters, whose prolific reproduction, like modern Warhol silk screen prints, saturated the culture of their day.
Francisco reflects on "The Gospel According to Andre", a new documentary about the most sensitive and original avatar of the fashion industry.
The 20th century ushered in many innovations and changes, from industry and engineering to film. It also brought Europe and the world into two devastating wars. German cultural and literary critic Walter Benjamin lived and worked during this dangerous time, as media philosopher Francisco uncovers in this fascinating new episode. Dive into his mind!
While being driven to the 25th anniversary of the film "Groundhog Day" at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, Francisco recounts the life of pioneering humanist Roman Jakobson, who published over 600 articles and books, often while fleeing the Nazis. And like Wittgenstein, Jakobson founded two major intellectual movements in the 20th century. Incredible man and mind.
Art and architecture, as two parts of a society's culture, perform very different roles, influencing our lives in different programmed ways. Francisco delves into the purpose and problems of art and architecture in this new episode.
Francisco recalls a conversation with a psychologist in Los Angeles one night in this episode, “My Journey Across Psychology.”
So, the West and the Russians have built myth-worlds demonizing each other. But what moral choice is there when our actions are engineered by ideologies? This film's critics failed to understand that political narratives are about controlling choices, not images.
In this episode, Francisco provides us the context concerning persons involved in a new controversy at the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art over the sudden firing of Helen Molesworth, its chief curator. This development follows similar stormy difficulties at the museum since 2000.
Francisco walks you through his upcoming documentary "Arturo Sandoval: Heart and Music" featuring the story, music, and heroes in the life of jazz genius Arturo Sandoval, who escaped Cuba to become the greatest living jazz trumpeter of our time.
The dream of escaping oppression is no less real now than it was during WWII. “Casablanca,” one of our most beloved films, is still very real and relevant today, offering us a film that combined a modern romance with fighting the Nazi regime for a new start in the free world. Taking a look at his own personal history in Communist Cuba, and the stories of the aspiring actors “Americanizing” their immigrant names to further their careers post -wartime, Francisco takes us down a creative road (in Hollywood), as the process of creating films adapts and grows through the decades.
How often are we defeated by obstacles? In 35 incantatory minutes, Francisco makes a case for redefining challenges as much less than they seem, using as context the prodigiously difficult life of artist Max Ernst, who survived every major conflagration of 20th Century Europe, yet still pioneered two major movements in art history. Features instrumental tracks music from Francisco's upcoming album, "MMIX"
In a very personal and spiritual podcast on his birthday, Francisco speaks of his own life's struggles and the guru Paramahansa Yogananda as we journey through the metaphysical aspects of the spiritual.
At the end of the 1980's, Reaganism in the U.S. and Thatcherism in the U.K. left young people with a sense of unusual vulnerability and loss. Morrissey and The Smiths gave the world the most serious and honest reflection of that alienation.
Francisco shares his ritual of riding through abandoned and former Hollywood structures at night, recalling their changed geography since 1914, when Charlie Chaplin arrived and wrote cultural history using a new medium: film.
In this new podcast episode, Francisco muses on the what could be called the three circles of culture, how they integrate in the making of art, and the U.S.’ lack of government sponsorship of artists who create art and contribute to the country’s culture.
A few years before "The Disaster Artist" was made, Francisco directed "F For Franco" - a documentary film on James Franco's creative process, as demonstrated in numerous art projects that Franco had commissioned in various museums and galleries. A principal theme was Franco's use of multiple identities to play unusual artists. Sound familiar? This podcast explores the documentary.
Francisco recalls his first encounter as a child in Madrid with Goya's painting "Saturn Devouring his Son" -- his first aesthetic reaction to art -- and expands this memory to the fullest experience of the role of art, and our place within it.
"Francisco recalls his first encounter in Madrid, at the Meseo del Prado, with Goya's Saturn painting, as a first non-aesthetic reaction to art, and expands this memory to the fullest experience of the role of art, and our place within it."
On the first day of 2018, I stopped to write some chamber music for everybody, but after two movements, decided that this instrumental groove would be more indicative of the Potential that awaits us in the new year. I know about dreams, and I hope you realize yours.
A short overview of some art-related stories from 2017, specifically, those which fall into larger trends.
We're too busy running around today to stop and really consider what's around us. It's faster to glance at something, especially art, and pass a judgment - good, bad, etc. Where does that get us? In this episode, Francisco discusses how this tendency of ours, and how consideration first is better - it slows us down and allows us to take our time with an object, etc.