TV REVIEWS : An Energetic Look at ‘Mama of Dada’

Making a documentary about artist Beatrice Wood that is as full of life as its subject is probably impossible. But producer-director Tom Neff’s energetic “Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada,” which airs at 10 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28, comes as close as you could ask.

As one of the people associated with the New York Dada movement in the late 1910s, Wood came to know some of the key artists of her time. She was romantically involved with both Marcel Duchamp and Henri Pierre Roche, and their triangle was the model for Roche’s book “Jules and Jim.”

Now 100 years old and living in Ojai, where she continues her work in ceramics, Wood has lost neither her verve nor her irony. She appears on-screen analyzing, laughing and throwing pots with the energy of someone a third her age. Her pithy remarks, which sometimes appear as quotes on a black screen, show an undiminished irreverence.

This film also tries some unconventional ways of dealing with Woods’ complex life. It takes a stab, for example, at defining the definition-resistant rebellion that was Dada. Several abstract montages attempt to show, rather than tell, what this watershed art moment was about.

Among the most compelling sequences are those that show Woods’ autobiographical drawings and paintings. These colorful images are full of the same passion and sensuality that still emanates from the tiny, plucky sari-clad artist whom we now see opening up a freshly fired kiln full of pottery or chatting about the joys of men.

If she were Japanese, as one of the interviewees in the film points out, Wood would have long ago been dubbed a living national treasure. As is, at least we’ve got the worthy tribute that is “Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada” by which to know this incredible woman.