noted, "I disliked films on painting that I knew. They were either arty, narrated in a gush of reverence, as if painting were among angelic orders, or filmed with violent, brainless zooms on Apollo's navel, a celebration of the camera over the god. They revealed nothing at all about how or why a painting was made." The intimate opportunity of access to the show, and the similarly close relationships with many of the artists, led de Antonio to select thirteen painters to profile in his film, in addition to critics, curators, dealers, collectors, and other influential figures in the contemporary art world. Combining interviews with live footage of the artists at work in their studio, de Antonio and cinematographer Ed Emshwiller created a groundbreaking work that captured abstract expressionism and other major contemporary art movements in a way no film maker had ever before. In an interview regarding his filmography, de Antonio spoke about his relationship with the painters and his role in the creation of the film: "I was probably the only filmmaker in the world who could [have made Painters Painting] because I knew all those people, from the time that they were poor, and unsuccessful and had no money. I knew Warhol and Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and Stella before they ever sold a painting, and so it was interesting to [do the film about them]." Controversy De Antonio was the creator/producer of many politically-motivated films (including the 1969 Oscar-nominated In the Year of the Pig) attracting a substantial amount of controversy, and was also known for aligning himself with Marxist thought. His films are critiques of various aspects of American culture or politics, on the whole reflecting a certain degree of political dissension. Over the course of his professional life, de Antonio was under surveillance by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. This surveillance resulted in a 10,000-page dossier on de Antonio, and is the subject of his "autobiographical swansong," Mr. Hoover and I. Death On December 15, 1989, de Antonio died of a heart attack in front of his Lower East Side home. In popular culture A still photograph used in the film that displayed Marine Corporal Michael Wynn later was incorporated into the album cover for The Smiths' second album Meat Is Murder (1985). The insignia on Wynn's helmet was changed to "meat is murder". Filmography Point of Order (1964) McCarthy: Death of a