I found myself admiring Robert Altman's film about Vincent Van Gogh much less on my recent viewing than I had on previous ones. I will admit that there's something fascinating about it, as there almost always is with any Altman film, even his really bad ones (and this is certainly not one of his really bad ones), but it's a one-note and monotonous film, and the central relationship that the film explores remains cloudy and obscure.
Altman isn't interested in making a straight biopic about Van Gogh, and for that I'm grateful. The last thing the world needs is another tortured artist biopic. He instead focuses, as the film's title implies, on the relationship between Vincent and his brother, Theo. Tim Roth plays Vincent as a portrait of the artist as a mad man; in his hands, Vincent is mentally ill to the point that he can barely function. This gives Roth lots of scenery to chew, and it may even be an accurate portrayal, but it doesn't make for a very interesting character. It falls to Paul Rhys, playing Theo, to develop a character around which the film can anchor itself, but I'm not sure I ever fully understood Theo either. He seems as troubled as Vincent, but we're never sure why. He seems to regard himself as a failure, in business and the bedroom. He spends his working hours selling bad art to people with no artistic sensibility and harboring feelings of guilt at not being able to sell his brother's paintings. His love life is hampered by syphilis.
The script suggests that the two brothers had a love/hate relationship -- they couldn't get along, yet each got from the other something he couldn't get anywhere else. What that something is is never clear, and without that, the film unfolds as a series of scenes in which the men flare out in erratic bursts of anger, over and over and over again, until both die, miserable and alone.
Visually, the film looks terrific. The art director suggests Van Gogh in his production design, and it's fun to pick out the locations that would become the subjects of some of Van Gogh's most famous paintings. Gabriel Yared provides the weird electronic score, which sometimes is too much and other times is just right.
Whatever its flaws, "Vincent & Theo" is miles ahead of that other Van Gogh film, Vincente Minellie's hopelessly dull and overacted "Lust for Life" from 1956.
Grade: B
Altman isn't interested in making a straight biopic about Van Gogh, and for that I'm grateful. The last thing the world needs is another tortured artist biopic. He instead focuses, as the film's title implies, on the relationship between Vincent and his brother, Theo. Tim Roth plays Vincent as a portrait of the artist as a mad man; in his hands, Vincent is mentally ill to the point that he can barely function. This gives Roth lots of scenery to chew, and it may even be an accurate portrayal, but it doesn't make for a very interesting character. It falls to Paul Rhys, playing Theo, to develop a character around which the film can anchor itself, but I'm not sure I ever fully understood Theo either. He seems as troubled as Vincent, but we're never sure why. He seems to regard himself as a failure, in business and the bedroom. He spends his working hours selling bad art to people with no artistic sensibility and harboring feelings of guilt at not being able to sell his brother's paintings. His love life is hampered by syphilis.
The script suggests that the two brothers had a love/hate relationship -- they couldn't get along, yet each got from the other something he couldn't get anywhere else. What that something is is never clear, and without that, the film unfolds as a series of scenes in which the men flare out in erratic bursts of anger, over and over and over again, until both die, miserable and alone.
Visually, the film looks terrific. The art director suggests Van Gogh in his production design, and it's fun to pick out the locations that would become the subjects of some of Van Gogh's most famous paintings. Gabriel Yared provides the weird electronic score, which sometimes is too much and other times is just right.
Whatever its flaws, "Vincent & Theo" is miles ahead of that other Van Gogh film, Vincente Minellie's hopelessly dull and overacted "Lust for Life" from 1956.
Grade: B