As for the social status of the artist there is an interesting point raised in this movie, when first of all Rembrandt is confronted with his (humble) origins as a miller's son from Leiden, but yet more interestingly yet, when socially higher ranking people (his orderers) imply that he has dirty hands - though he proves to them that at that moment and in this situation they actually are as clean as theirs.
In a consequence the artist falls inbetween the working classes, having to live of their hands' work, and the ruling classes, who do not get their hands "dirty" and rather living of their prestige and intellectual/ financial background. I surely love the idea that the artist is the one, who by his own choice does not distinguish between those two possible attitudes/ ways of living, but he is the one incorporating both, thereby living what Derrida would call the "and/or" rather than the "either/or".
In his documentary "Rembrandt J'Accuse" Peter Greenaway claims that most people (maybe our entire culture) is visually illiterate, ie not able to "read" an image properly, and going on he says that else we would not have such an "impoverished cinema". As a silent movie fan I must say he is right at that point, visual expression was very much neglected when the talkies arrived, early talkies tried to encorporate both means of articulation, ie words rather added a dimension to what you are seeing, but soon sadly the word would take over. One of the worst movies I have ever watched was "Last Man Standing", for I almost left the cinema yelling because I was told by the "inner voice" of the main character what I had just been seeing, but probably Walter Hill, the director, did not trust the audience's abilities or he was just planning the commercial breaks already. Fact was that I couldn't watch because I was talked to all the time.
So in fact I'm now thinking about "Peter Greenaway J'Accuse"....
