New Van Gogh Biopic, "At Eternity's Gate" (2018)

Last edited Mon Dec 10, 2018, 11:17 PM - Edit history (1)

BBC. Willem Dafoe gives a ‘magnificent performance’ as the troubled Van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s ‘gloriously artistic’ film. There may never have been a painter as sure of his artistic vision, yet as emotionally needy, psychologically troubled and socially isolated as Vincent van Gogh. Willem Dafoe’s magnificent performance captures every bit of the artist’s complexity in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate. With stunning visuals and a judicious balance of poetry and drama, Schnabel draws us into both Van Gogh’s genius and his tortured life.

Film-makers have been fascinated by Van Gogh for decades, of course, from Lust for Life (1956) with Kirk Douglas as the scenery-chewing hero, to last year’s beautiful, animated Loving Vincent. Schnabel, esteemed as both a painter and the director of films including The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, takes an impressionistic approach, freely inventing scenes and swerving from history when it suits him.

The story he tells, of Van Gogh’s last years, is familiar nonetheless. Financially supported by his loving brother, Theo (Rupert Friend), Van Gogh lives and works in the village of Arles, joined for a time by Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac). In and out of asylums, he died at the age of 37 in Auvers-sur-Oise, a thorough failure commercially.

At the start of the film a voiceover by Dafoe expresses Van Gogh’s poignant loneliness. Over a black screen, he says of the villagers in Arles, “I just want to be one of them. I would like to sit down with them and have a drink.” The film then opens to reveal the sky and fields surrounding the village, a vista of rich colours, the blues and greens astonishingly like those in Van Gogh’s paintings.

Dafoe, with reddish hair and beard, piercing blue eyes and a craggy face, looks the part, but the brilliance of this performance comes from the way he quietly conveys the painter’s thoughts, insecurities and moments of inspiration. . .

More, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20181116-film-review-at-eternitys-gate