The wolf's eyes
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The wolf's eyes |
| Original title | Oviri |
| Country of production | France , Denmark |
| original language | English , Danish , Swedish |
| Publishing year | 1986 |
| length | 86 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Henning Carlsen |
| script | Henning Carlsen Jean-Claude Carrière Christopher Hampton |
| production | Henning Carlsen |
| music |
Ole Schmidt Roger Bourland (US version) |
| camera | Mikael Salomon |
| cut | Janus Billeskov Jansen |
| occupation | |
| |
The eyes of the wolf (original title: Oviri ) is a Danish - French biopic from 1986 . The historical film tells the life of the French painter Paul Gauguin from 1893 to 1895.
action
After two years in Tahiti , Paul Gauguin returned to Paris in 1893 . Although he only has four francs in his pocket, he has his pictures exhibited in a gallery with great confidence. It's just that they don't sell as expected. Rather, he is exposed to the ridicule and incomprehension of his potential customers. Edgar Degas ' judgment that Gauguin paints like a wolf does not change anything about his financial hardship. He explains to the young Judith Molard, the daughter of his neighbor, that this name goes back to an old story, that the wolf would rather starve to death in freedom than allow himself to be enslaved by humans like the dog. In Tahiti he had this life and this freedom, but here in Paris he is only plagued by financial worries. Fortunately, a deceased uncle left him a small inheritance that is now making a living. So he visits Juliette Huet and her little daughter Carmen again. With the money he wants to live by her side again and support her.
He just doesn't want to support his ex-wife, Mette Gad, who lives in Copenhagen . He sends her only 1,500 francs. In return, she sells his pictures in order to earn some additional money, while her lawyer Eduard Brandes travels to Paris to collect the necessary share of her inheritance. But Gauguin cannot sell pictures. Although he learned a lot from Vincent van Gogh , he does not want to sell the pictures he left with him. Just his own. For this he is introduced to the homeless Annah, a mulatto who from then on serves as a nude model. During this time, Gauguin, with his legacy and all of his artist friends, who were soon joined by August Strindberg , matured the idea of founding an artists' colony in Tahiti. But first you have to have enough money and really convince your friends of it. Because Gauguin's pictures still don't find buyers. There are also critics among his friends. Strindberg does not understand why Gauguin can only draw these uncivilized Tahitians when the civilized world offers so many motifs. Gauguin strongly contradicts this. After all, these people are much more civilized than he thinks. They would remember a life that a European has become a stranger because they live much more pristine and innocent. He wanted to capture that with his pictures. Pictures that nobody can understand or like. It wasn't until Brandes arrived from Denmark that he found someone who could appreciate his pictures.
In private life, Gauguin has problems with women. He deeply disappoints Judith because he took advantage of her enthusiasm to be allowed to sit nude for him, because Annah was not available at the moment. He cheated on her with that. Juliette later appears and pulls the naked Annah from her chair, after all she is the only one at Gauguin's side. But he doesn't want to lose his model, so Juliette breaks up with him. He can only escape these problems if Gauguin travels to Tahiti with his friends. But on the way to England there is a fight with sailors in which Gauguin breaks his foot and is from then on bedridden. Since he cannot work and his paintings still do not sell, his cash reserves are also reduced. Soon he can no longer deal with the demands of Annahs, so that, disappointed by the lifestyle that threatens her, she destroys several of his pictures and takes everything she can find of valuables with her. Completely penniless, Gauguin then has to beg his ex-wife for money. He just needs some money to go back to Tahiti. She will definitely not hear from him anymore. But he received nothing and had to ask Strindberg for a contribution to his exhibition catalog. He did not earn any money even from auctioning his paintings, only 800 francs. When his friends became aware of the dream of traveling to Tahiti, they gradually gave up accompanying Gauguin, so that he still earned 1,500 francs by selling his Van Gogh paintings and left France alone.
background
Director Henning Carlsen had a heart attack in 1980 and woke up three days later, on November 17th, in hospital, when he immediately thought of a film about Gauguin. Since then he has tried to make a Danish film about a French painter with an American actor in English.
The film had its world premiere during the 1986 Venice International Film Festival . It opened in Danish cinemas on September 5, 1986 and in French cinemas on May 13, 1987. In Germany, it was released directly on VHS on September 13, 1988 .
Donald Sutherland's son Kiefer Sutherland also played Gauguin in Paradise - The Passion of Paul Gauguin , published in 2003 , but in Tahiti in the years before 1893.
Reviews
Michael Wilmington praised in the Los Angeles Times that Sutherland played less for “muscular vitality than for feeling” compared to Gauguin's earlier portrayal in this “fine biographical drama”. He illustrates Gauguin's broken pride with “a weak chin and delicate, watery eyes and the hint of a lisp in his voice”. Salomon's camera work is alluding to this sentimentality with his “chaste, tense images”. Overall, however, the film is "less daring and provocative" and would show a "romantic perspective" in the story through "lovingly composed" music.
Since "Sutherland is everything," this film is a "delicately shaded portrait of an artist as a middle-aged man," said Walter Goodman of the New York Times . In between he plays so “casually and proudly” that he gives the film some “particularly powerful moments”.
Although the scriptwriters portray Gauguin as a “leftist bohemian” and seem to like him, Hal Hinson of the Washington Post was amazed that the film wasn't “more alive” and that there were so few “unforgettable moments”. The real high point for Hinson was when Max von Sydow appeared, because Sutherland's portrayal was “imperious and completely lifeless” and “monumentally inauthentic”.
Hedy Weiss praised this "beautifully designed and very impressive film" in the Chicago Sun-Times . The “sparse, sharp, sometimes self-confident script” was “consistently implemented” by Carlsen. She praised Sutherland, who played "reserved, but also wonderfully sensual and exquisitely biting".
The lexicon of international films said: "A solidly staged and played chronicle of an artist's life, which, however, approaches Gauguin's idea of human wildness too academically and dispassionately to be completely convincing."
Awards
Sofie Gråbøl was awarded both a Bodil for Best Supporting Actress and a Robert for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Judith Molard in 1987 . In addition, the film received a nomination for the Golden Lion at its world premiere in Venice .
Web links
- The eyes of the wolf in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The eyes of the wolf in the German dubbing file
- The eyes of the wolf at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jennifer Wolf: `` Wolf 'director Carlsen impressed by Gauguin ( Memento of the original from June 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Chicago Sun-Times, September 4, 1987 (via Highbeam)
- ↑ Michael Wilmington: Movie Review: A Different Vision Of Gauguin . In: Los Angeles Times , July 31, 1987, accessed March 13, 2013.
- ^ Walter Goodman: The Wolf at the Door (1986) . In: The New York Times , July 31, 1987, accessed March 13, 2013.
- ↑ Hal Hinson: 'Wolf': A Blank Canvas ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: The Washington Post , September 19, 1987 (on highbeam.com).
- ↑ Hedy Weiss: 'Wolf at the Door' paints vivid portrait of Gauguin ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Chicago Sun-Times , September 4, 1987 (on highbeam.com).
- ↑ The Wolf's Eyes. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
