TV REVIEWS : ‘Picture Windows’ Trilogy No Artistic Masterpiece

Great art is not just great on its own terms, but for the inspiration it can provide to other artists--or so posit the producers of “Picture Windows.� But what if great art in turn inspires only mediocre art?

This aggressively middle-brow miniseries of six episodes--presented, pretentiously enough, in two “trilogies� of unrelated vignettes--ostensibly takes well-known paintings as its creative springboard. But the connections between painting and story line tend to be superficial--a Degas ballet painting inspires, inevitably, a story about a ballet dancer, without evoking the original’s tone or luminescence.

First, and maybe the most faithful to the series’ concept, is Norman Jewison’s “Soir Bleu,� based on Edward Hopper’s painting of the same name. The camera zooms in on the sullen, cigarette-smoking clown of the painting, and dissolves into Tully (Alan Arkin).

The story itself is artlessly written melodrama concerning passion and violence behind the scenes of a traveling circus, but Arkin’s performance and Jewison’s ability to squeeze impressive visuals from an obviously tight budget keep it fairly engaging.

No such luck with Peter Bogdanovich’s “Song of Songs,� which literally uses Sandro Botticelli’s “Primavera� as mere window dressing--it’s on display in the storefront window of a new neighborhood lingerie shop that outrages the staid, listlessly married Ted (George Segal).

Nonetheless, when that shopkeeper turns out to be a dippy flirt named Blossom (Sally Kirkland), and when she delivers a monologue about penises that no one outside of Kirkland could deliver, Ted’s hopelessly smitten and, of course, due to learn a lesson or two. Alas, Bogdanovich can’t decide how winsomely he should handle such predictable material, so nothing registers on an emotional level.

Tonal confusion is also a problem for Jonathan Kaplan’s “Language of the Heart,� inspired by Edward Degas’ “The Rehearsal.� It’s a generic love story that’s both propelled and undone by a blustery performance by Michael Lerner that topples headlong into camp.

Lovely Anna (Tamara Gorski) is a struggling dancer for a ballet company who garners the unwanted attentions of the Maestro (Lerner). She tries to persuade him to help out her true love, the street musician Mischa (Joel Bissonnette).

It’s hard to imagine anyone making a coupling of such ancient material and thin characters interesting, and Kaplan’s attempts at lush romanticism are at odds with Lerner’s brashness. Conversely, Lerner’s noisy bravado is the only thing of interest in the piece.

This episode points up a nagging problem with “Picture Windows�: All three of these stories could have been scripts sitting around that the program’s producers simply elected to shoehorn into this format. If “Picture Windows� produces further episodes, struggling writers with pre-existing short-film scripts should take note: Head for LACMA and nose around. Find a work of art that seems like it might peripherally relate to your script. Rewrite the beginning and end of your screenplay to incorporate the work of art. And let me know if it works.

* “Picture Windows,� trilogy I, airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on Showtime. Trilogy II airs Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. Individual episodes are sprinkled throughout Showtime’s October and November schedule.