ARTIST RENDERINGS '8 MILE,' 'FRIDA' AND 'ADAPTATION' JOIN ONSLAUGHT OF MOVIES THAT PUT CREATIVITY AT CENTER OF THEIR FOCUS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Even those who still consider Eminem a menace to society have probably conceded, by now, that the controversial Detroit rapper is the most talented artist working in the genre today.

If not, ``8 Mile,'' the erstwhile Marshall Mathers' movie-starring debut, should prove the point. Though not biographical, the film - in which Eminem plays a poor Motor City kid named Jimmy ``Rabbit'' Smith who finds his creative voice competing in the city's brutal, high-energy rap battle concerts - draws on many aspects of Mathers' life and art.

And it's one of many recent and upcoming movies that treat the traditionally hard-to-film subject of artistic creativity in fresh, compelling and cinematically effective ways.

``I had the huge advantage of being able to collaborate with an artist at the top of his game who does what he does better than anyone else,'' notes ``8 Mile'' director Curtis Hanson. ``And it was really an attractive thing to show these freestyle battles, where these people who just love words and have such incredible flexibility and dexterity with them, that they use the words instead of weapons to get out their hostility.''

That's only one of the new approaches being applied to a genre whose films, whether fictionalized or based on real painters, musicians or writers, tend to end up either pompous and turgid or are overwhelmed by a few standard stereotypes: the artist as tortured genius, self-destructive addict, monstrous egomaniac or childish fantasist - or combinations thereof. In general, the primarily internal process of creativity is blamed for stumping both screenwriter and camera lens, no matter how pretentious or flamboyant a given actor's take on the artist's role may be.

Already we've seen ``Frida'' turn the pain-wracked artist metaphor upside down: Salma Hayek's portrayal of the famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo shows her exulting in her work, erotic indulgence and getting snockered as a positive alternative to wallowing in the physical pain resulting from a horrible bus accident and the psychic trauma of loving an unfaithful husband. All the while, director Julie Taymor keeps the film a lively affair with visual and narrative references to the social and aesthetic movements of Kahlo's time.

For ``8 Mile,'' opening today, Hanson not only goes the extra, um, mile to persuasively capture the outer and inner forces that shape Rabbit's rhymes, he also employs strategies from inner-city and sports-film genres to build the kind of suspense that simply getting a record deal can't generate on screen.

The December release ``Adaptation,'' from the ``Being John Malkovich'' brain trust of writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze, goes even deeper into genre crunching to explore the surreal process of a doubt-ridden screenwriter, named Charlie Kaufman and played by Nicolas Cage, who is having a devil of a time adapting a book about flowers into a workable script.

And, at year's end, we'll be seeing what may be the most historically tragic story of a failed artist ever: ``Max,'' in which disillusioned World War I veteran and frustrated painter Adolf Hitler returns to a defeated Germany bristling with anger ... and with modern art movements the future Fuhrer doesn't understand.

To this list add autumn titles as diverse as ``Auto Focus,'' ``The Man From Elysian Fields,'' ``The Banger Sisters,'' ``Pipe Dream,'' the French productions ``Alias Betty'' and ``Children of the Century'' and the Italian psycho-confessional ``Scarlet Diva,'' then toss in yet-to-be-seen pieces such as the Virginia Woolf-centric triptych ``The Hours'' and Roman Polanski's Cannes Film Festival-winning, Holocaust-survival story ``The Pianist,'' and it's apparent that art is more cinematic than ever.

Honesty first

``I guess it's about trying to go at it in an honest, emotional way,'' says Hanson, the acclaimed director of ``L.A. Confidential'' and ``Wonder Boys.'' ``When it's been done badly, I guess it's felt stilted or pretentious or whatever. Here, it felt like just part of his being.

``He has all these emotions that he doesn't necessarily know what to do with that often lead to all kinds of anti-social and inappropriate behavior. This very much is about how he finds the ability to channel all of that into his art. Which is, in one way or another, what all artists do. But in this case, the emotions are so strong and very much on the surface, both in the way they act upon him and, also, the way they are evidenced in his music.''

Jonze notes that while the central activity in the reality-bending ``Adaptation'' is about trying to write the unwritable, a deeper theme quickly emerged during the real, off-screen Kaufman's scripting effort.

``Even though it's about the creative process, at a certain point Charlie and I realized that that was more the setting for the movie,'' Jonze says. ``We realized that it was as much about the writing process as it was about the thinking process, sort of hearing how your brain works and how your thoughts jump around from one thing to another. You can have a really positive thought quickly undercut by an anxiety.''

Whether or not this is thinking that noncreative viewers can relate to, it will certainly ring true to anyone who has ever tried to express himself artistically. Hanson and Jonze, two of the most admired filmmakers working today, confirm that they go through similar highs and lows every day on the set.

Sharing the experience

According to Philip Jayson Lasker, a veteran television writer whose script for ``Elysian Fields'' depicts a struggling novelist who prostitutes both his body and his writing talent to make ends meet, the trick is to keep these movies true to the artist's struggle while remaining accessible to the nonaesthete.

``It can't be about somebody sitting around, waiting for his muse,'' Lasker reckons. ``I don't think it's the writing process that's interesting in itself. It's what the person goes through internally that's interesting. I don't think artists go through anything that anybody else doesn't go through.

``What makes a movie interesting about a writer, a painter or a composer is that it's such a personal thing to them. A door-to-door vacuum salesman, if somebody doesn't buy his Hoover, it doesn't make that much difference. But when they don't buy your script or your painting, they're rejecting you. An artist is always putting himself on the line. So it's what everybody feels, it's just magnified.''

That's one way of looking at it. But the thing that makes an artist unique must also constantly be kept in mind. After all, that's what makes him interesting in the first place, even if other aspects of his life veers toward the banal or melodramatic.

``When I came on, there was nothing about the subjective experience, the paintings weren't coming alive,'' says Taymor, who joined the ``Frida'' project more than five years after producer-star Hayek had seen it through numerous false starts and rewrites. ``It was just a wonderful biopic - interesting, moving, compelling - but I brought to it the subjective experience of Frida and how we would show the paintings coming alive.''

Perspective on success

Another consideration in many of the current artist films is how to define success. Is it the artist realizing his creative goal? Or getting recognized for what he makes - i.e., achieving fame - whether the work is worthy of it or not?

That's certainly a contemporary concern in our lowest-common-denominator, commercially driven pop culture. But according to Menno Meyjes, the Dutch-born screenwriter (``The Color Purple'') who makes his directing debut with ``Max,'' it was the issue at the core of Hitler's artist/megalomaniac dichotomy as well.

``Being an artist, you've got to think in grand terms,'' Meyjes acknowledges. ``If I make this movie thinking nobody is ever going to see it, it'll never get off the ground. But so quickly, you can get into a world of false grandeur.

``Today, there's such a premium placed on fame,'' Meyjes cautions, ``and I think, more than anything, Hitler craved fame. He didn't really care what vehicle took him to that fame, as long as he didn't die unknown. That is an indication of many, many things - a kind of fear, spiritual poverty - and it's relevant today. There are elements of this guy that will never die, and that should always be watched.''

Certainly, more benign manifestations of that can be seen in both the traditional show-biz movie - Prince's ``Purple Rain,'' Mariah Carey's ``Glitter,'' etc. - and heard incessantly in the braggadocio-laden world of rap. But Hanson feels that one of the reasons why ``8 Mile'' feels unique for the genre is that it keeps its eye on the creative fundamentals, even while acknowledging the distracting noise potential fame and fortune can make in a singer's head.

``I never thought of this story as rags-to-riches or finding success or whatever,'' Hanson says. ``This story is not about him becoming successful; it's about him finding direction.

``Often, the dreams in this world are unrealistic,'' Hanson says of the ghetto/trailer park borderline his film is named after. ``If it wasn't hip-hop, it could have been to play in the NBA. But along with that, in the collaboration with Marshall, it gave me the opportunity to get into seeing an artist finding his voice and actually seeing him create. It's so hard to do that, and here there was a really unique opportunity, I think, to see a guy struggling and putting it together and hear fragments of what he's doing, and then at the end actually hear the full-blown version of that song - which is the song that Marshall wrote during the time we were shooting!''

Ultimately, it appears, the way to make a successful movie about an artist is to make it like a real artist would: specifically crafted to match its themes, as original and as honest as it can be, and with all of the imagination that can possibly be applied.

``It's a combination of the actors being who they were and of the level that they are and of the script, Charlie's writing being so specific that it's beyond cliches,'' ``Adaptation'' director Jonze explains. ``Staring at a blank sheet of paper is a cliche, but the way Charlie does it, it's the thought process of what you're dealing with. The way somebody is creative is very much the way they live.''

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) artistic endeavor

Filmmakers use their ingenuity in depicting the creative process

(2) no caption (Eminem)

(3) Whether or not this is thihnnking that noncreative viewers can relate to, it will certainly ring true to anyone who has ever tried to express himself artistically.