Someone’s bound to make a movie about Egon Schiele.
I’m surprised that none of the current crop of young actors with
surly expressions and aspirations to be taken seriously as artists
has staked a claim to the Austrian painter’s life, the
way Madonna has with Frida Kahlo. Schiele’s history has
everything—conflict, sex, persecution,
social criticism,
and even hints of incest. You can imagine the synopsis.

Born in 1890 to a bourgeois family in a provincial
Austrian town. Age twelve: in trouble for disrupting his
Gymnasium classes by drawing. Age fourteen: death of
his father from syphilis. Struggle to convince his uncle-guardian
to allow him to apply to the Vienna School of Applied
Arts, in defiance of his late father’s wish that he enroll at the
local polytechnical school. Drawings presented to the School of
Applied Arts are so impressive that he is advised to set his
sights higher and apply to the Academy of Fine Arts. Age
sixteen: triumphantly passes Academy entrance exam, earning
his guardian’s support—for the moment. (The incest angle?
Schiele’s sister Gerti, four years younger, often posed for him,
naked.)

At the Academy: despite his precocious talent, Schiele
soon finds himself at loggerheads with a conservative faculty.
Before age eighteen: participates in first exhibition. A year
later, Gustav Klimt, Schiele’s hero, selects four of his works for
an important exhibition, resulting in Schiele’s acquaintance with
the architect Josef Hofmann and affiliation with the
Wiener
Werkstätte. (Stylish sets here.) Klimt (good role for an