Vincent & Theo
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Movie Reviews of Vincent & Theo
Movie Review: Good but not great
Summary: 3 Stars
This slow moving BBC film by Robert Altman concentrated on Vincent's madness and the parasitic relationship he had with others, primarily his brother Theo. I am very sure that Vincent Van Gough was a difficult character, but his family was not any better. His own father described the artist as not special, but different. Theo did support Vincent financially and spiritually. But I don't think it was fair to portray vincent as a totally raving leech either. Paul Gauguin was given way too much credit for being a good friend, when in real life he was using Vincent for essentally pay. The ear incident was taken completely out of context as well. Having said that, the movie wasnt that bad. It was well acted and artfully photographed. I had high expectations and that may be why I was a little dissapointed in it. It was not a totally accurate depiction of the artist or his relationship with his brother, but it was a movie and not a documentary and as such was a good story and an evening well spent. Movie Review: Realistic portrait
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie about Vincent and Theo gives a more realistic account of the artist life. Also shows the difficult and often antagonistic relationship between the brothers. It coudn't be any other way, Theo economically supported his brother while the world couldn't recognize his amazing style. I enjoyed every minute of the movie, if you want to know more about Vincent, this movie is a must see.Movie Review: Aimless
Summary: 1 Stars
This movie is highly overrated. The only real drama occurs at the very beginning when one of the Sunflower paintings is being auctioned at Christie's in London. It is downhill after that.
LUST FOR LIFE is an old movie but at least there are competent actors, there is character development and it is visually interesting.
Movie Review: No. 1 !
Summary: 5 Stars
The strife and sheer person of being on the edge is amazing. Was it his absinthe drinking? Maybe we will never know. His art and life is so watchable and unknown until his death.Movie Review: Unbearably intense
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Robert Altman has with this film accomplished something biographers, writers of fiction, art historians and yes, filmmakers, have failed at for so long: to give us a convincing portrayal of painter Vincent Van Gogh's life without falling too deeply into the harmful stereotype of "the mad genius" or trying to explain him away as a severely ill man who happened to have groundbreaking talent.
Both Tim Roth and Paul Rhys give exquisite, painful, but never over the top performances as two men who are intimately linked in a way that suggests something more than mere brotherhood. Outwardly they have very little in common aside from being biologically linked: Theo is an art curator who endures the daily trials of the average man with perhaps a little more poverty; Vincent is an isolated painter who operates from an area of the mind and spirit which allows him no rest and no integration into society.
Tim Roth's Van Gogh is a quietly explosive figure who walks in the avenues of his own unrelenting pain and occasional ecstasy at the revelations he has in the most uncanny situations--drawing a prostitue while defecating, for instance. He is in some ways the opposite of Kirk Douglas' overbearing, sentimental painter who begs the world to understand him. This Van Gogh just doesn't care and sneers at the world unless it really bothers him, and then he lets everyone know how he's feeling in a way that is not to be ignored.
Rhys make Theo as interesting if not more. He is also "somewhere else", and not in the sense of a mere romantic cliche. He is a staid businessman but, like his brother, he is violently unable to reconcile himself to the world around him which is mostly composed of phonies and mediocrities. Throughout all the emotional outburts, all the ferocious fights between the two, there is an elusive thread of understanding that ties the two tightly together.
The scenes in which Vincent paints are not pleasant, as they are in so many other films. His agitation grows throughout the film though Roth plays it with a kind of poker faced approach. The lilies, flowers and all the things he sees so intensely do not bring him pleasure but buzz at him, attack his mind, creating the impossible desire to communicate his vision to others.
When Vincent realizes his "psychologist" is a corrupt, patronizing hack and that he is far too gone to be brought back to reality, his suicide is cold and impulsive. The rest of the movie is like a car crash. Theo cannot live without his brother and can no longer maintain the social fictions that allowed him to make a living before. And his syphillis is beginning to destroy him.
This movie is a masterpiece and will probably be the cinematic last word on the relationship between these two legendary figures in the history of art.