Vincent van Gogh - A life of passion
Vincent van Gogh - A Life in Passion is a feature film by the director Vincente Minnelli based on the novel of the same name by Irving Stone , shot in the USA , the Netherlands and Belgium in 1955 , about the tragic existence of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) .
action
Vincent van Gogh is sent to a lonely mining village as a lay preacher. A mining accident that claims the dead and injured, as well as the ignorance of his superiors, who see the dignity of his post as being violated by the fact that he shares his belongings with the poor, shake his belief in God. At the same time, he has a tendency to draw and depict normal people at work in the field. After his cousin, who has been a widow for a year, spurned his passionate wooing, he met Christine in a pub; both become a couple.
Van Gogh now also decides to paint. After a few months, his marriage to Christine resulted in a quarrel, as he only devoted himself to painting and there was hardly any money for food. Christine separates from him; at the same time his father suffers a stroke and dies.
In Paris, van Gogh was impressed by the works of the French Impressionists . At the same time, he expresses astonishment at painters who think they have to paint according to scientific formulas. But even after six months in Paris, his brother Theo, who worked as an art dealer, did not manage to sell the pictures by the new painter Vincent van Gogh, especially since his open manner deterred potential customers. After van Gogh met Paul Gauguin, he left his brother's apartment and moved to the southern French city of Arles. When he took the opportunity to move into his own house there, he painted with ever greater passion and dreams of founding an artists' colony. Van Gogh is delighted when Gauguin moves in with him; the two become friends. However, increasing differences develop between the two men, which are mainly expressed in their different attitudes towards painting. When Gauguin moves out, van Gogh is afraid of loneliness; in a fit of madness he cuts off his ear. At his own request, van Gogh is admitted to the psychiatric ward. After a steady recovery phase, he has a surprising relapse, but is released from psychiatry anyway and moves in with his brother Theo and his family. Theo can tell him the good news that he has been able to sell one of Vincent's paintings. After a further boost in creativity, however, his emotional despair reappears; Vincent makes a suicide attempt, as a result of which he dies.
synchronization
The German dubbing was created in 1957 in the MGM synchronization studio in Berlin . Kirk Douglas was voiced by Wolfgang Kieling (who dubbed him several times) and Anthony Quinn by Willy A. Kleinau (both actors who had their greatest successes in DEFA films).
Awards
Although it was Vincent van Gogh for a total of four Oscars nominated, but only Anthony Quinn won the award for best male supporting role as Paul Gauguin . Kirk Douglas , who won the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of the title role , lost out to Yul Brynner ( The King and I ) at the Academy Awards for Best Actor . Also nominated for the Oscar were Norman Corwin ( best adapted screenplay ) and Cedric Gibbons along with Edwin B. Willis , F. Keogh Gleason , Hans Peters and Preston Ames ( best equipment for color film ). Minnelli's direction as well as FA Young and Russell Harlan for their color camera, Adrienne Fazan for editing and John Houseman as producer were completely neglected.
Reviews
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- "A film biography (...) that adheres carefully and with respect to the known facts in his life. At a high level of entertainment, it shows the connection between his human fate and artistic work without being able to interpret his creative secret. Exquisitely played . " - " Lexicon of International Films "
- “Kitschy, colorful picture sheet about the life of the famous painter, pathetically exaggerated to the point of embarrassment. The only bright spot: Anthony Quinn as Paul Gauguin (...). Index finger film for college students in the lower grades. ”(Rating: flop) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz in Lexicon“ Films on Television ” (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 891
- "Since this film stuck to the facts in a pleasant manner, it couldn't be uninteresting." - Münchner Merkur , Munich
- "For the main role, Minnelli was able to use the great Kirk Douglas, who, in the opinion of many critics, played the best and most demanding part of his film career. (...) Legendary about this film are the incomparable images that Frederick A. Young captured and with which he ingeniously corresponded to van Gogh's world of images. The powerful natural shots seem to flow smoothly into van Gogh's paintings, which are repeatedly inserted into fades. " - -jg- in: The great TV feature film film dictionary . Digital library special volume (CD-ROM edition). Directmedia, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89853-036-1 , pp. 13457-13458
The Wiesbaden film evaluation agency awarded the production the title valuable .
Others
The film was first shown on German television on March 30, 1972 at 8.15 p.m. on ARD .
According to Nicola Mazzanti, the film can be classified into the four periods of van Gogh's painting style: the black and gray period in the Borinage, the blue and green in the Dutch period, the red in the Paris period and the last phase of his, bathed in yellow light Life. No other van Gogh film has so far managed to capture these phases in this way.
In 1879 there was a serious mining accident near Frameries with 121 deaths. Van Gogh experienced this and was used in the film.
media
Publications
The film is available on both DVD and Blu-ray Disc.
Soundtrack
- Miklós Rózsa : Lust for Life. Original motion picture soundtrack . FSM Golden Age Classics. Turner / Rhino / Film Score Monthly, Burbank, Culver City, etc. a. 2002, sound carrier no. FSM Vol. 5 No. 1 - Original recording of the film music (stereo) by the MGM Studio Orchestra under the direction of the composer from 1956
literature
- Irving Stone : Vincent van Gogh. Life in passion. Novel biography. (Original title: Lust For Life ). German by Mildred Harnack-Fish . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-499-11099-7 .
- Katharina Bantleon: Vincent van Gogh in the feature film. Life and work of the artist in Vincente Minelli's “Lust for Life”. Leykam, Graz 2008, ISBN 978-3-7011-0128-3 .
Web links
- Vincent van Gogh - A life of passion in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Vincent van Gogh in Arne Kaul's synchronous database ; Retrieved December 2, 2007
- ↑ a b for li at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed on April 2, 2015
- ↑ Vincent van Gogh - A Life of Passion in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Vincent van Gogh - A Life of Passion. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .