Emile de Antonio's Painters Painting brings us "face-to-face" with many of the greatest artists of our time. The subject of the film is the New York art world, and painting in particular, from 1940 to 1970: not just the work but the artists, the critics, dealers, and owners-the whole of the artist's milieu. Rather than dealing in generalities and overviews, this very personal film attempts to convey how an artist actually functions and to treat art as a living thing: at once everyday and magical. The film was made as a labor of love by one of the preeminent (and continually provocative) American documentary filmmakers who, in his words, "had known many of these painters for much of my adult life. I admired their work long before they had dealers or a public." (In the film, to de Antonio's question, "What started you painting?" Andy Warhol replies, "You did.") Emile de Antonio brings us much closer to understanding the thought and the work of, among others, de Kooning, Johns, Pollock, Rauschenberg, Motherwell, Poons, Stella, and Warhol.