The parts with just Varley himself ambling about are kinda dull and boring, but it gets a lot more interesting once it starts to delve into the lore and magic and meaining of painting and creating. "What For" indeed... My god, what amazing beautifully desolate works. Now that is what I would personally call art.
Possibly the only time in history that an artist created a painting with the frame already attached. Totally bogus. He'd get paint all over it. Paintings are framed when they are uh, finished, and in the case of oil paint, dry. That shot at 13:18 is ludicrous.