A portrait of the painter [From Li Zongheng Film Critic]

Roscoe 2022-01-16 08:01:59

I have been looking forward to it for a long time and finally watched it.

Julian Schnabel has filmed a painter-themed film with the same identity as his own since his debut in the film, the work that commemorates Basquiat. Coupled with the famous "Diving Bell and Butterflies" and "When the Night Comes" starring JaVale Baden, his characteristics as a "character painter" film writer have become more and more distinct. He once said that he was a painter first and then a director. He also said that "When I first made a movie, people didn't like it. People always didn't want others to have more than one thing they were good at." I always think He is an extremely successful contemporary artist (painting), but it seems that he still feels that he has not succeeded enough, and every time he seizes the opportunity to try to use a similar and peer-like attitude with Van Gogh and other "failed" masters to tell what they have in common. Inner story.

Van Gogh’s story has been reproduced quite a bit, but it seems that Maurice Piara and the entire film’s voice-overs are still the best. From the perspective of character descriptions and emotions, Piara and Schnabel (Carrière turned out to be one of the screenwriters) best understand art, painting, and therefore Van Gogh. Their expressions are exactly bipolar-Piara is calm and long, Schnabel is hot with excitement-but they are all extremely accurate. They reorganized the torture and silence (simple) of Van Gogh, or an "avant-garde" and "experimental" artist, from different angles with admiration and contradictions.

They "understand" because they understand that Van Gogh and most artists have no intention of "rebelling", let alone writing history and revolution, they are more concerned about their own and artistic essential issues, the most real issues. The core torture of visual artists is precisely the "fresh vision" and "new methods" that Gauguin and Van Gogh talked about in the film. This is still the core issue even in contemporary art today. The mixed use of subjective viewpoints and strong camera presence, and the rush and uncertainty created by the shock of the shoulder, make the concept of "Van Gogh" closer to the public's understanding. Compared with this choice of visual aesthetics, Piara's choice touched me more deeply. This involves a fatal question that can be discussed infinitely: Which one is the real Van Gogh? What is "real"? Although this is a charming false proposition.

Looking at Schnabel’s subjective lens, I am reminded of the many discourses on the origin of art that I have read. It seems that few people really talk about the "therapeutic nature" of the origin of art from the "main perspective" of the artist. Perhaps because the director himself is a painter who has experienced the pleasure of applying paint all the time, he can better understand Van Gogh's saying "When I am painting, I don't need to think." Schnabel's shots are very "like". While Gauguin was drawing a sketch of the proprietress, Van Gogh ran into the house and saw him. His immediate reaction was that he immediately erected his tools and began to paint, just like catching a traitor in bed and taking part in the war. That's right, the true depiction of the world in front of us-the "God Himself" in Van Gogh's words-is in this state, as we have all been. This is the extremely pure primitive impulse of the artist, and it is also the primitive impulse produced by art. They have no intention to "challenge" and "innovate", nor do they have planned and functionality planned in advance. All that is because their "realness" is too "challenging" and "new".

?

View more about At Eternity's Gate reviews

Extended Reading
  • Shane 2022-03-27 09:01:18

    About Van Gogh's life, the public is probably familiar with it, and the story is still full of pain and depression as we all know. Dafoe's performance is okay. There are good times and bad in terms of photography, some scenes restore the real scenes of Van Gogh's paintings, and some close-ups of the heads of the characters are incomplete.

  • Antwon 2022-03-19 09:01:08

    I really like this film in my heart. The photography and pictures are great. William Dafoe's performance is worth watching. It is a pity that he is a bit too old. Van Gogh, who is in his 30s, should be more energetic. The film does not deliberately tell the story, but puts more emphasis on impressions, feelings, and psychology, and has a strong subjective meaning. By the way, I found that the Van Gogh sketchbook that was only discovered in 2016 still seems to be controversial, and the Van Gogh Museum called it a fake.

At Eternity's Gate quotes

  • Madman: Are all the painters crazy?

    Vincent Van Gogh: Maybe just the good ones.

  • Paul Gauguin: You can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends.