Relatively early in David Hockney: The Colors Of Music, British painter David Hockney admits that due to hearing problems, he can no longer listen to music with the clarity, precision, or volume he used to as a young man. Since The Colors Of Music revolves around Hockney's love affair with opera, that moment should be freighted with melancholy and pathos, or even outright tragedy. But ever the proper English gentleman, Hockney instantly undermines the film's drama by insisting that his desire to hear music in such great detail has abated accordingly, making the loss much easier to deal with. It's hard to tell whether Hockney is joking, but the moment proves telling in a pleasant but fairly dull documentary that's long on affability and taste, but short on human drama and compelling conflict.
In an affectionate tribute to opera and a giant of the contemporary art scene, The Colors Of Music directors Maryte Kavaliauskas and Seth Schneidman dryly document Hockney's sideline as a set designer for operas, a gig that combines his love of music with his flair for striking visuals. The directors fill their film with sumptuous imagery, much of it taken from Hockney's work, but they never provide a convincing answer to the question underlying most documentaries: Why is this story worth telling? Their answer seems to have a lot to do with Hockney's importance as an artist, but his mild-mannered likeability actually ends up working against the film. From his manner and appearance alone, it'd be hard to ascertain that the twinkly-eyed Hockney—whose big round glasses make him look a little like a geriatric Harry Potter—is in fact a world-famous artist rather than, say, a retired bureaucrat. Late in the film, Hockney bemusedly contrasts his meek, polite, measured way of asking artists to do his bidding with the angry, demanding manner of a particularly mercurial collaborator. It would no doubt be easier to work with Hockney, but the actor-tormenting diva might prove a much more compelling documentary subject. The Colors Of Music ends up feeling like a high-art infomercial, or a slot-plugger on PBS. It's a movie in search of a pledge drive.