Van Gogh (1991)

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Movie
German title Van Gogh
Original title Van Gogh
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1991
length 158 minutes
Rod
Director Maurice Pialat
script Maurice Pialat
production Sylvie Danton ,
Daniel Toscan du Plantier
music A. Bernot, JM Bourget, J. Dutronc, P. Revedy
camera Gilles Henri ,
Jacques Loiseleux ,
Emmanuel Machuel
cut Yann Dedet ,
Nathalie Hubert ,
Hélène Viard
occupation

Van Gogh is a French feature film by Maurice Pialat from 1991. The film deals with the last few weeks in the life of the painter Vincent van Gogh , which he spends in the small town of Auvers-sur-Oise , north-west of Paris , where he finally settles life takes. For his impressive portrayal of the main character, Jacques Dutronc was awarded a César .

action

The last three months of Vincent van Gogh's life are told when he arrives at the train station in Auvers-sur-Oise, moves into his room at the Ravoux inn and pays Paul Gachet his first visit, because he is examining him as a doctor for his headaches and depression therapy that he has been suffering from since his nervous breakdown in Arles . At the same time, Gachet is his advisor and sponsor, since he paints himself and is interested in the international art scene. He is a doctor, advisor, friend and conversation partner all in one. Vincent is a permanent guest at the Gachets, he is invited to dinner, among the guests is his brother Theo , who runs an art shop in nearby Paris, is married and has a child with his wife Johanna van Gogh-Bonger , Vincent Willem van Gogh , who was born just months before. Vincent paints Gachet's daughter Marguerite, once playing the piano, once in the garden. Later he falls in love with her. Marguerite and Vincent's relationship divides Vincent's friendship with Gachet. Vincent moves into a studio, an overgrown old farmhouse in the village, receives visits from the poorest villagers, including drinkers, homeless, unemployed and have-nots.

Vincent is often in a bad mood and it becomes apparent that he suffers from depression, he is also easily contentious and you see him with a face of stoic indifference and exaggerated seriousness. He has employed an assistant in the studio with whom he gets into the aforementioned quarrels over small things and details of his paintings. Vincent visits his brother Theo in Paris, where he also gets into a dispute over the pictures that Theo cannot sell. They briefly reconcile by visiting the entertainment district of Montmartre : At Le Moulin de la Galette , where they do the famous Cancan in one dance in a long shot and make the acquaintance of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec . There they, or rather Vincent, get a visit from Marguerite, who secretly follows him. This strengthens the relationship and weakens it again, because on the return journey by train to Auvers, Vincent gets into another argument, in the course of which he turns away from Marguerite.

Vincent receives a visit from friends from his time in Arles, including Cathy, the mutual friend of Paul Gauguin and Vincent, who gave rise to both Vincent and Paul falling into an argument, during which Vincent suffered a nervous breakdown and cut off his ear. to mail it to Cathy as a gift.

In Auvers they picnic, go for walks and take part in outdoor dance events. The walks are long, not only walks on the Oise with friends from Arles and Paris, but also the company around Marguerite, Theo and Gachet take place there, questions and topics about the field of painting are explained, why for example Vincent that He doesn't like painting water, in contrast to his impressionist painting colleagues Claude Monet or Auguste Renoir , he finds it difficult to find the form, the appearance unclear and tries to circumvent it in any form. Finally Vincent borrows a pistol from one of his Arlesian and Parisian friends.

The seemingly carefree life with his friends from Arles and Paris, his difficult and conflicting relationship with Marguerite, the relationship with Dr. Paul Gachet and his brother Theo as well as the supposedly unsuccessful painting prompt Vincent to use the borrowed pistol. He shoots himself in the chest. Injured, he staggered to his room in the inn and went to sleep. Madame Ravoux at the inn calls Gachet and another doctor. However, they fail to remove the bullet, for medical reasons, instead of removing the bullet, they decide to leave it in the body, and Vincent dies from excessive blood loss and heart failure.

Vincent even gets into an argument with Gachet on his deathbed, he tries to fend off him with his hands and fists, but he does not succeed due to his weakness. In the meantime, brother Theo from Paris also comes, Vincent dies, so to speak, in his arms. The film ends with the funeral and one last sentence spoken into the camera by Marguerite Gachet.

effect

The focus of the film is Vincent's relationship with Marguerite. This apparently complicated and developed by Dr. Gachet's not tolerated relationship represents a visualization of the painter's inner conflict. From there, every branch is impaired, like painting itself, the non-sale of his pictures, the non-being invited to the Paris Salon (Salon de Paris), not even in that of the rejected artists (Salon des Refusés) of the Paris Salon. Another branch is that of the inner life of Vincent, which is also influenced and impaired by the love affair. With the artist's unsuccessfulness comes the tension with Brother Theo. Even the relationship with Marguerite, which on one level promises luck or support, fails. Marguerite herself becomes the harshest critic of his works, although she stands by him as a person and a lover. This inner conflict pervades the film and gives it a poetic depth. The construction network of internal sensation and external experience, external experience of what has been experienced, seems coherent and convincing in its entirety.

background

  • As early as 1965, Pialat made a 7-minute film about van Gogh's time in Auvers-sur-Oise for French television.
  • Van Gogh's paintings appearing in the film were reproduced from the originals using a laser process. These are, in the order in which they appear in the film, in particular: Marguerite Gachet at the piano , painted by van Gogh, standing in the open air, looking through the open window; the wheat fields finished with the last brushstrokes in the studio after the rain ; still standing on the easel the picture of Mademoiselle Gachet in her garden ; in the studio, leaning against a chest of drawers and gazing at Doctor Gachet, the wheat field under a stormy sky ; immediately afterwards the two portraits of Doctor Gachet , this one and this one ; the picture on the banks of the Oise in Auvers , about which he quarreled with Gilbert; and finally in Theo's apartment in Paris, the almond blossoms still painted in Arles or Saint-Rémy .
  • In some shots and scenes, Pialat pays homage to films by Jean Renoir and John Ford . The formation dance called “la marche” in the dance hall on Montmartre is a direct remake of the corresponding ball scene in Ford's Fort Apache .
  • In addition to the visual references - the images of the Impressionists in Gachet's possession, van Gogh's own images, of course, as well as cinematic references to works by other directors - Pialat also creates the atmosphere of the film through the music, in the way it is presented as part of the plot . Two chansons deserve particular mention: When the Sunday company is gathered at Gachet, the women sing Le Temps des cerises , a song that in France is associated with the Paris Commune; and later in the film, in one of the scenes in the tavern, the accordionist sings La butte rouge , quietly accompanied by (not Van Gogh, but his actor) Jacques Dutronc. Because Pialat affords himself an anachronism in order to have this beautiful chanson in the film: The text of La butte rouge was written by Montéhus after the First World War .
  • As in some of his other films, Maurice Pialat cast the roles with both professional actors - for some of them, e.g. B. for Lise Lamétrie as Madame Ravoux, her role in Van Gogh was her film debut - as well as with amateur actors.

Reviews

“The description of the last two months in Vincent van Gogh's life from the end of May to the end of July 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise in northern France, characterized by great art of representation and impressionistic-subtle photography. In the connection of Vincent's inner drama and the external form of fate with the inherently similar turmoil tragedy of his brother Theo, as well as in the life outline of concise secondary characters, suffering and the need for redemption reveal themselves as the basis of human existence. "

- Lexicon of International Films

“Maurice Pialat focuses on van Gogh's last year of life in Auvers-sur-Oise, on his relationships with Doctor Gachet, his daughter, his brother Theo and his wife, as well as friends and prostitutes. The image of a closed, tormented person emerges from the soberly drawn everyday life, who cannot adapt and is therefore offensive everywhere. The cinematic approach to the artist van Gogh, which is consistent in the reconstruction of the epoch, leaves the secret of his creativity to him. Outstanding Jacques Dutronc in the role of Van Gogh. "

- 1993 film yearbook

“Unlike Altman in Vincent and Theo, Pialat does not aim at a psychogram of the brotherly relationship. Rather, he shows Vincent as a working person who sees his product, with which he identifies, as weighed and judged too easily. [...] 'Van Gogh' is not an artist biography in the conventional sense. "

- Fischer-Film-Almanach 1993

Awards

The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or in Cannes in 1991 , but received no awards.

At the 1992 César award ceremony , leading actor Jacques Dutronc received the award for best actor. The film also received nominations in the categories of best film, best director, best supporting actor (Gerard Sety and Bernard Le Coq), best camera, best production design, best original screenplay, best female lead (Elsa Zylberstein), best costumes and best equipment.

In addition to the César nomination, Elsa Zylberstein also received the Prix Michel Simon for best actress.

In addition, the film received the audience and critics award of the radio show Masque et la Plume.

literature

  • L'Avant-Scène Cinéma , No. 524 of September 2003: Van Gogh - Scénario . ISBN 978-2-84725-020-6 . (French; excerpts available online in various reading samples.)
  • Serge Daney: Diary of the New Year (1992) , in: Von der Welt ins Bild - Eyewitness reports of a cinephile (therein p. 52–56 on Van Gogh ), Vorwerk 8, Berlin 2016. ISBN 978-3-930916-26-9 . Translated from the French by Christa Blümlinger, Dieter Hornig, Silvia Ronelt.
  • Vincent Amiel: Van Gogh de Maurice Pialat , Editions Atlande - Clefs concours, Neuilly 2006. ISBN 2-35030-034-X . (French; in 2006 Van Gogh was selected for the “program de l'agrégation” (corresponds to: examination subject in the state examination) in the “Lettres - Cinéma” section. The “Clefs concours” series includes books to support exam preparation.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Maurice Pialat, Van Gogh (1965) in IMDB. Retrieved June 8, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Didier Coureau: La fiction biographique mise en question par deux expériences cinématographiques singulières ; in: Recherches & Travaux , 68/2006.
  3. ↑ Horst Peter Koll u. a. (Ed.): Lexicon of international film. The complete range in cinema, television and on video. Hamburg, 1993. p. 701.
  4. ↑ Lothar Just (Ed.): Film-Jahrbuch 1993. Munich, 1993. P. 311f.
  5. ↑ Horst Schäfer u. a. (Ed.): Fischer-Film-Almanach 1993. Frankfurt am Main, 1993. pp. 340f.