Lust for Life
by Vincente Minnelli
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anthony Quinn, Everett Sloane, Kirk DouglasDirector: Vincente Minnelli
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-01-31
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 66988
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Vibrant orange sunflowers. Rippling yelow grain. Trees bursting with white bloom. "The pictures come to me as in a dream," Vincent Van Gogh said. A dream that too often turned to life-shattering nightmare.Winner of Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Best Actor Awards, Kirk Douglas gives a fierce portrayal as the artist torn between the joyous inspiration of his genius and the dark desperation
Movie Reviews of Lust for Life
Movie Review: Brilliant Colors, Solemn Reverence, and Brotherly Devotion
Summary: 5 Stars
In one of his finest performances, Kirk Douglas gives a dead-on and very intense portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh, capturing both the brilliance and the madness of the doomed artist to perfection.
We first encounter Van Gogh as an idealistic young man, refusing to accept that a society of Belgian missionaries have rejected his application. He begs to be used by the society in any way possible, and the board concedes. From his time among the lowly miners and potato gatherers, he produces the first of his paintings, "Dutch Peasant Woman", and "The Potato Eaters". The colors are dark and muted earth tones, and the figures are careworn. But in due time, Missionary Society representatives denounce his missionary work as demeaning to the clergy because he insists on living at the same level as the people and giving them his possessions. He, in turn,denounces them as hyprocites.
After some time on his own, his brother, Theo(James Donald)finds him, and brings him home, making an effort to sell his paintings. At home, we see his tempestuous relationship with his father (Henry Daniell), and his attraction to his newly widowed cousin, Kay( Jeanette Starke), and her young son, Jan(Mickey Maza), who fuel his artistic creativity for a while. But when the lonely painter becomes too instant on marriage, he loses them both. A confrontational scene at her parents' home reveals signs of madness.
He later encounters a lonely laundress named Christine(Pamela Brown)in a bar. They quickly take up residence together, and he looks after her infant son as though he were his own. But due to Vincent's inability to support them, that relationship also falls apart.
After the death of their father, Theo invites Vincent to live in Paris to see what other artists are doing. Among the prominent artists that he meets are Camille Pissarro (David Leonard), Georges Seurat (David Bond), and Paul Gaugin( Anthony Quinn), the last of whom later stays with Van Gogh at his house in Arles for a time.
Van Gogh also finds friendship with the postman, Roulin (Niall MacGuinnis), and the action in the story is moved along via the recital of Vincent's letters to the unflinchingly dedicated Theo.
Directors Vincent Minnelli, and George Cukor successfully capture Van Gogh's world, and give light to what inspired the contents of the Impressionist's canvases. We see this in the gold light of Arles, as created by the sun on the wheat fields, the blossoms of the trees, and the lights of the city at night time, which figure in the painting, "Starry Night".
The main self-inflicted crisis of Vincent's life takes place after a feud with Gaugin. The two appear as an Impressionist Era Oscar Madison and Felix Unger until Gaugin walks away from a feud, and Van Gogh pursues him with a razor blade for a time before returning to his apartment and severing his own ear. The tortured scream resulting from this calamity is the scream of all agonized humanity.
Checking himself into a mental hospital at Saint-Remy, he finds new inspiration for his work, but continues to suffer from seizures and paranoia. Marion Ross has a few brief scenes as Sister Clotilde at this juncture.
Although still suffering from seizures, Van Gogh decides to create his final painting, "Crows Over the Wheat Field" which has both brilliant and dark symbolism.
The film accurately recreates Van Gogh's acquaintances, such as Dr. Gachet(Everett Sloane) who were immortalized on canvas, and gives a considerable portrayal of those closest to Van Gogh, such as his sister, Willhelmien (Jill Bennett).
All in all, skillful direction and fine performances move the troubled life of Vincent Van Gogh past its dark ending and give it new illumination, and we see how Theo Van Gogh's belief in his brother's artistic ability has ultimately paid off.
Summary of Lust for Life
LUST FOR LIFE - DVD MovieLust for Life is appropriately titled, for mere passion seems inadequate when describing this superb fictionalized biography (based on Irving Stone's popular novel) of Vincent Van Gogh. In a deservedly Oscar®- nominated performance, Kirk Douglas is physically and emotionally perfect as the tormented Dutch painter, whose life is chronicled from his ill-fated stint as a preacher to Belgian miners in 1878, to his Impressionist-inspired artistic awakening and psychological descent to suicide in 1890. Having triumphed with 1952's The Bad and the Beautiful, Douglas, producer John Houseman, and director Vincente Minnelli brought vigor and vitality to this blessed project, which centers on Van Gogh's stormy friendship with fellow artist Gaugin (Oscar-winner Anthony Quinn). Minnelli used an outmoded color film process and innovative camera techniques to vividly recreate Van Gogh's paintings, and he filmed on the actual Dutch and French locations where Van Gogh's mastery flourished. The artist's lust for life also fed his madness, and this film deeply understands the fine line in between. --Jeff Shannon
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