A 100-minute exploration of the creative process that takes off from the essential question how do artists get ideas? and soard into the fascinating world inhabited by seven diverse artists. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 04/08/2003 Starring: David Bowie Dale Chihuly Run time: 100 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Michael Apted

In Inspirations seven artists from the famous (the late Roy Lichtenstein, David Bowie) to the more obscure (Pueblo sculptor Nora Narango-Morse, French Canadian dancer Louise Lecavalier) discuss why they became artists and what it means to create as both a daily routine and a lifelong passion. Director Michael Apted (Enough, the Up documentaries) neatly avoids the usual talking-head format of documentaries by focusing on very visual subjects. Narango-Morse digs mud from the mountains and works it between her toes, glass artist Dale Chihuly instructs urban kids as they turn molten mass into colorful creations, and Lecavalier and partner dance in dramatic staccato, choreographed by film subject Edouard Lock. Revelations are surprising, such as when Bowie extols the calm of waking at dawn since he quit drinking and drugging, and candid, such as when Japanese architect Tadao Ando confesses that the ugliness of his home city Osaka inspired him to add beauty and spirituality to his designs. --Kimberly Heinrichs