Lust for Life
May. 3rd, 2009 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWatched Lust for Life yesterday.
I expected something in the way of a hagiography - Lust for Life is, after all, from the fifties - which forgives all of Vincent's faults and plays up the NO ONE UNDERSTOOD HIS GENIUS angle. I expected, also, that the movie would be rife with disturbing sexual politics (again: fifties!) and cringe-worthy melodramatic scenes.
Okay, so I'm full up with mortifying anti-fifties prejudice. My predictions were either not true, or only partially true and in any case far less so than in Vincent and Theo, which was made in 1990 and thus has no excuse.
First: the hagiography. Lust for Life doesn't really go in for that, which surprised me intensely. The movie worships his paintings, but not his character; the filmmakers don't apologize for his flaws, and leave most of them in place. (They do - as the makers of Vincent and Theo did - switch around his relationship with his mistress Sien, so she leaves him instead of other way around as it was in life. I suppose it's difficult to put a spin on Van Gogh ditching his girlfriend and her two children which doesn't make him despicable even for an anti-hero.)
Lust for Life doesn't go the anti-hero route, but Vincent and Theo - oh, does it ever. Vincent and his flaws are magnified, in an attempt to make him epic and awful and larger than life - I don't know why people find anti-heroes compelling, but evidently the filmmakers were shooting for that; while in Lust for Life Vincent is tragic, but there is something sad and small about his tragedy. He's still a human being, whereas in Vincent and Theo he's VINCENT VAN GOGH.
Also, the sexual politics in Lust for Life are far less disturbing than in Vincent and Theo. This is partly because they cut a lot of the sex out (it was - say it with me now - made in the fifties), so there's simply less room to make mistakes; but partly also because the filmmakers had no stake in committing character assassination on Theo's wife, Johanna. She's barely ever onscreen, but when she is she's as pleasant and kind to Vincent as she seems to have been in life.
I have a theory why the makers of Vincent and Theo had it in for poor Johanna (whose hard work is the reason Vincent is so famous now, and deserved better treatment). I think it's for much the same reason that secondary characters in romance novels often get shafted: if they're too kind/pretty/interesting the reader might pay attention to them instead of Our Heroes, so of course they have to be loathsome. The fact that the filmmakers didn't think Vincent and Theo could dominate the film on their own is a cowardly admission than they didn't trust their own material.
And they didn't trust their material at all. They tried to amp up the emotions by having most of the scenes involve shrieking, and instead of making it emotional it just makes everything melodramatic and shrill. Lust for Life has its moments of melodrama (particularly when Vincent is painting something; it really does worship those canvases) but not nearly the ugly cacophony of it that Vincent and Theo has.
A couple of other points. I think Lust for Life did a better job with Vincent and Gauguin's relationship. There's no making out (fifties! Also, I think the makers of Vincent and Theo put that make out scene in their film because they thought it showed Vincent's total derangement, which puts a bad taste in my mouth) but Vincent's hero worship is obvious, and the deterioration of their relationship seems more organic and less "OMG WE NEED VINCENT TO HURRY UP AND HACK OFF HIS EAR."
Which brings me to the treatment of mental illness in the films. How sad is it that Lust for Life does better than Vincent and Theo in that arena? It helps, probably, that the Vincent of Lust for Life is treated as a real person throughout the film, whereas Vincent and Theo's Vincent is an elemental force and not really human - but perhaps that isn't the cause so much as the effect: in Lust for Life mental illness is a thing that happens to people, whereas in Vincent and Theo mental illness makes people not really human any more.
The more I write, the more I realize that Vincent and Theo is a total failure. I can't believe I wasted two hours of my life on it.
Basically, if you absolutely must see a Vincent Van Gogh biopic, Lust for Life is the one to see.
I expected something in the way of a hagiography - Lust for Life is, after all, from the fifties - which forgives all of Vincent's faults and plays up the NO ONE UNDERSTOOD HIS GENIUS angle. I expected, also, that the movie would be rife with disturbing sexual politics (again: fifties!) and cringe-worthy melodramatic scenes.
Okay, so I'm full up with mortifying anti-fifties prejudice. My predictions were either not true, or only partially true and in any case far less so than in Vincent and Theo, which was made in 1990 and thus has no excuse.
First: the hagiography. Lust for Life doesn't really go in for that, which surprised me intensely. The movie worships his paintings, but not his character; the filmmakers don't apologize for his flaws, and leave most of them in place. (They do - as the makers of Vincent and Theo did - switch around his relationship with his mistress Sien, so she leaves him instead of other way around as it was in life. I suppose it's difficult to put a spin on Van Gogh ditching his girlfriend and her two children which doesn't make him despicable even for an anti-hero.)
Lust for Life doesn't go the anti-hero route, but Vincent and Theo - oh, does it ever. Vincent and his flaws are magnified, in an attempt to make him epic and awful and larger than life - I don't know why people find anti-heroes compelling, but evidently the filmmakers were shooting for that; while in Lust for Life Vincent is tragic, but there is something sad and small about his tragedy. He's still a human being, whereas in Vincent and Theo he's VINCENT VAN GOGH.
Also, the sexual politics in Lust for Life are far less disturbing than in Vincent and Theo. This is partly because they cut a lot of the sex out (it was - say it with me now - made in the fifties), so there's simply less room to make mistakes; but partly also because the filmmakers had no stake in committing character assassination on Theo's wife, Johanna. She's barely ever onscreen, but when she is she's as pleasant and kind to Vincent as she seems to have been in life.
I have a theory why the makers of Vincent and Theo had it in for poor Johanna (whose hard work is the reason Vincent is so famous now, and deserved better treatment). I think it's for much the same reason that secondary characters in romance novels often get shafted: if they're too kind/pretty/interesting the reader might pay attention to them instead of Our Heroes, so of course they have to be loathsome. The fact that the filmmakers didn't think Vincent and Theo could dominate the film on their own is a cowardly admission than they didn't trust their own material.
And they didn't trust their material at all. They tried to amp up the emotions by having most of the scenes involve shrieking, and instead of making it emotional it just makes everything melodramatic and shrill. Lust for Life has its moments of melodrama (particularly when Vincent is painting something; it really does worship those canvases) but not nearly the ugly cacophony of it that Vincent and Theo has.
A couple of other points. I think Lust for Life did a better job with Vincent and Gauguin's relationship. There's no making out (fifties! Also, I think the makers of Vincent and Theo put that make out scene in their film because they thought it showed Vincent's total derangement, which puts a bad taste in my mouth) but Vincent's hero worship is obvious, and the deterioration of their relationship seems more organic and less "OMG WE NEED VINCENT TO HURRY UP AND HACK OFF HIS EAR."
Which brings me to the treatment of mental illness in the films. How sad is it that Lust for Life does better than Vincent and Theo in that arena? It helps, probably, that the Vincent of Lust for Life is treated as a real person throughout the film, whereas Vincent and Theo's Vincent is an elemental force and not really human - but perhaps that isn't the cause so much as the effect: in Lust for Life mental illness is a thing that happens to people, whereas in Vincent and Theo mental illness makes people not really human any more.
The more I write, the more I realize that Vincent and Theo is a total failure. I can't believe I wasted two hours of my life on it.
Basically, if you absolutely must see a Vincent Van Gogh biopic, Lust for Life is the one to see.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 08:30 am (UTC)y/n?
no subject
Date: 2009-05-06 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 10:26 pm (UTC)The more I write, the more I realize that Vincent and Theo is a total failure. I can't believe I wasted two hours of my life on it.
Sometimes it's good to write these things out, to clarify your thoughts. --Imo
no subject
Date: 2009-05-06 01:16 am (UTC)Yes. Generally speaking I dislike works where the creator openly favors (or dislikes) one of the characters; it seems unfair to me. And it's even worse for biopics, because then it's dishonest too.