Loving Vincent

[osprey_archer]

This afternoon I popped over to the theater to watch Loving Vincent, which is an animated movie about Vincent van Gogh which was created, the first titles helpfully inform us, by over one hundred artists working in oil paint. It is the first animated movie ever done in oils, and quite possibly it will be the last - I imagine the costs involved were tremendous - which is too bad, because I would love to see oil paint animations based on the works of, oh, Monet perhaps, or Renoir. I could easily imagine some sweet dreamy fantasy set among Monet's works.

Also, although the animation is gorgeous, I do think they were still working out the kinks of the animating-in-oil-paint process and it sometimes gives the film a distracting jerkiness. But perhaps it's just that it's quite unlike anything else I've ever seen, and that in itself is distracting? Only more films would give me the opportunity to tell...

Anyway! The film is set about a year after van Gogh's death. Armand Roulin's father tasks him with delivering a letter that Vincent wrote to his brother Theo but never mailed - only for Armand to discover that Theo, too, has died. So Armand heads to Auvers, where Vincent died, in the hopes of asking his doctor where he might find Theo's widow - which somehow metamorphoses into an attempt to recreate Vincent's last days, and answer the question of why he killed himself. If he killed himself.

I must confess I felt skeptical when the film took this turn. I went through something of a van Gogh phase in college (his doomed friendship with Gauguin hit me where I lived), and nothing in my reading suggested that there was any controversy about how he died. He shot himself in the fields where he was painting, using a revolver that he brought along to scare away the crows, and then dragged himself back to the house where he was staying and died there two days later after telling everyone that he shot himself.

HOWEVER, upon repairing to Wikipedia I have discovered that in 2011 (in short, after my van Gogh interest waned) two academics published a book in which they argued that maybe van Gogh was accidentally shot by a rich spoiled teenage hooligan who liked to run around Auvers dressed as a cowboy and menace people with a gun - and van Gogh said he did it himself to... shield the miscreant, I guess? I don't know, I think this kind of theory was slightly more plausible when someone argued that Gauguin was the one who cut off Vincent's ear (in a fight, not just for funzies, I feel I should clarify), and Vincent said he did it himself to cover for him. At least we know for a fact that van Gogh was unhealthily invested in his friendship with Gauguin. Why's he going to cover for the random cowboy kid?

But I did like that the structure allows the filmmakers' to show Vincent from multiple angles (through the eyes of his paint dealer, his landlord's daughter, his doctor...) and forces Armand to think more about his own attitudes toward van Gogh - whom he didn't give a damn about in life. He saw Vincent as weird and kind of alarming, and now he wishes that he had seen his loneliness and understood and befriended him.

I have read other stories where the main character learns more about someone after their death (Olive's Ocean comes to mind) and goes, oh, I wish I'd known they were so lonely, we could have been friends - but I'm not sure that actually works; I'm not sure you can force yourself to be friends with someone just because you know they need a friend. I would think there needs to be something else there beyond just sympathy - some kind of esteem or respect or something - to make it a true friendship rather than just pity.

Also, I think that when people learn this sort of thing about someone who is still alive, their reaction is rarely "Oh, we should be friends!" - because the person is alive, that would demand a real investment of time and emotion and energy. This is why sadness makes fictional characters mysterious and fascinating but can be off-putting in real people: a fictional character is never going to stop speaking to you for three months because you said the wrong thing that one time and touched off a downward spiral and how dare you be anything less than a constant wellspring of undemanding support.

TL:DR, this movie hit me in a weird place because when I was younger I invested really hard in the importance of Being There for your friends during their mental health issues, which might have worked out better for me if I were better at setting boundaries, or had fewer friends with mental health issue, or knew when the fuck to just let someone go. I burned the fuck out and now when I watch Armand having this "Why didn't I see that he was in trouble? Why didn't I try to help?" crisis I want to shout at the screen, "BECAUSE YOU HAVE SENSIBLE BOUNDARIES, ARMAND, DON'T GUILT YOURSELF OUT OF THAT."

Comments

[lilysea]

Thank you for this post! ^_^

[lilysea]

You may be interested in a graphic novel about Vincent I read recently and quite enjoyed:

"The turbulent life of Vincent van Gogh is a constant source of inspiration and intrigue for artists and art lovers. In this beautiful graphic biography, artist and writer Barbara Stok documents the brief and intense period of creativity Van Gogh spent in Arles, Provence. Away from Paris, Van Gogh falls in love with the landscape and light of the south of France. He dreams of setting up an artists' studio in Arles - somewhere for him and his friends to paint together. But attacks of mental illness leave the painter confused and disorientated. When his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin refuses to reside permanently at the Yellow House, Van Gogh cuts off part of his ear. The most notorious event of art history has happened - and Van Gogh's dreams are left in tatters. However, throughout this period of intense emotion and hardship, Vincent's brother Theo stands by him, offering constant and unconditional support. Stok has succeeded in breathing new life into one of the most fascinating episodes of art history."

https://www.bookdepository.com/Vincent-Barbara-Stok/9781906838799?ref=grid-view&qid=1508763517692&sr=1-1

[osprey_archer]

I don't read too many graphic novels, but I'll keep my eye out for it in case it crosses my path!

[ivy]

Oh, neat, regarding animation in oil! Thanks for posting about it. I think you're correct about how people react to loneliness and mental illness in recently deceased people versus currently alive people; I too have been on that rodeo several times, and it's rough on everyone involved. My sympathies.

[osprey_archer]

The whole idea of animation in oil is just so neat, I really hope this film does well just so we can see a few more like it. I'd just love a Monet film, for instance, and he's popular enough that it might at least be possible to get funding... I can only hope!

[missroserose]

a fictional character is never going to stop speaking to you for three months because you said the wrong thing that one time and touched off a downward spiral and how dare you be anything less than a constant wellspring of undemanding support.

This hits me hard too. It was about three months ago that someone I considered a very good friend did precisely this; there were a lot of things that factored into it, including her shaky mental health, but what touched it off was my setting a boundary with her behavior. I tried to do it diplomatically, picking a neutral time and place and acknowledging her feelings as they came up, but she didn't take it well; she said she needed a break and then just...disappeared. I suspect that she's just not up for addressing the underlying issues that caused her to lash out in the first place, and it was easier to cut me out of her life. Ironically, she's someone who believes strongly in self-awareness and confronting one's shortcomings; but in the way of highly intelligent people, that means she has the vocabulary and the rhetorical ability to conveniently avoid any of her blind spots.

I've been dealing with my own sense of guilt on that front - I know I did what I could and was maintaining healthy boundaries, but I still feel like if I'd done something differently I could have made it come out all right. I wonder if that's a related trap those of us with a lot of emotional intelligence and communication ability fall into - we're so used to thinking of ourselves as able to guide the outcome of a conversation, and it throws us for a loop when all our abilities of empathy and care and bonding aren't enough to overcome someone's difficulty.

[asakiyume]

in the way of highly intelligent people, that means she has the vocabulary and the rhetorical ability to conveniently avoid any of her blind spots. --TRUTH

if I'd done something differently... One way I talk myself down from this is remembering that THAT person has agency and decision-making powers, too, and if I assume that everything in the relationship comes down to my skills, it kind of reduces that person's input/power, you know?

[missroserose]

It's become one of my favorite things to notice about people (including myself), the way we use our intelligence and our abilities to deftly argue around our assumptions. Like the way intelligent/articulate/science-minded people are actually more prone to confirmation bias than people who aren't, because our instinct is to marshal arguments to support our assumptions, rather than examine the evidence and let it possibly sway our assumptions.

(I began to go on a tangent here, but it got a little long, so I'm going to give it an entry of its own, I think.)

That's a very good thing to remember re: other people's agency, and I think it helps a bit. Thank you. :)

[osprey_archer]

Ironically, I've never felt I was very high in emotional intelligence or communication ability (at least where emotions are concerned) - but I still feel guilty, because if only I were better, then I would have been able to guide that conversation to a better outcome, right? I suppose most people feel guilty in the aftermath of a fight with a friend - and just come up with different rationalizations for that guilt, depending on our starting point.

I do think that setting boundaries is inherently sort of painful: it feels like a rejection to the person being told "here are my boundaries, you can no longer call me at 3 a.m. whenever you feel like it (or whatever)," no matter how gently done. So inevitably it's going to blow up sometimes - which doesn't mean it wasn't necessary - but it feels very unfair that doing something necessary can end so badly.

I also think that self-awareness, like humility, is the kind of virtue that can only be approached obliquely: anyone who finds themselves thinking "Gosh, I'm so self-aware and/or humble," is probably no such thing.

[missroserose]

I don't know you in person, so I can't say for sure, but from your descriptions of characters in books and your few stories of interactions with your friends, I'd be surprised if your ability wasn't higher than average. But that's the joy of the Dunning-Kruger effect, I suppose; none of us are any good at judging our own ability.

And yes, boundary-setting is...I don't want to say inherently painful, because it can be healthy and happy-making for both people, but definitely inherently fraught; if it weren't a point of contention the boundary wouldn't need to be set. And there's just no way to control how the other person's going to take it, because it absolutely can feel like rejection, even when the person's self-aware enough to realize that it's only reasonable.

You're almost certainly right about self-awareness, haha. I try my best, but I'm just as prone to failures as everyone else.

[osprey_archer]

It might be more accurate to say that I don't think I'm very good at emotional communication in the moment. Something emotional happens and I'm there going "blub blub blub" like a fish and don't even figure out for another hour what I was feeling in the first place, let alone what I should have said.

[asakiyume]

"Gosh, I'm so self-aware and/or humble" --tangential, but this reminds me of an interview I heard on the radio the other day with a film maker who very blithely went on and on about empathetic she was and how animals just naturally trusted her etc. and I couldn't help thinking, "Okay, but you're bragging right now, and you seem unaware of it, and so I just wonder about those other claims you make."

If you're having a conversation with a friend where the two of you are talking about your personal strengths and weaknesses, that's different: I think it's okay, in analyzing yourself, to say, "Hmmm, maybe I'm able to read other people/myself better than other people, at least judging from outcomes." But to go on the radio and gaily talk about how empathetic you are just seemed... clueless.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, exactly! That's the perfect example. There are times & places where it is reasonable to discuss one's own self-awareness or empathy or Disney Princess animal powers, but if someone is going on about their ~amazing empathy~ in public, there's definitely this effect of "But you are demonstrating the exact opposite of that."

I think this effect is heightened because people often talk about their empathy (or whatever other characteristic) when they've done something that seems to threaten their understanding of themselves as an empathetic person. So often people are talking up their empathy when that is really at its low ebb, and it makes them look worse than they usually are.

[asakiyume]

The trailers for this movie were beautiful, but that's just the *look* of the thing; how a movie actually is to watch depends on more than just looks.

And yes to the double-edged problem with the "If only I had known" statement. On the one hand, it's a very safe statement to make since the person is dead, and on the other hand, is pity a good reason to initiate a friendship?

Although, maybe? People become friends by virtue of just circumstance sometimes (working the same shift, riding the same bus, etc.), and barring any reason **not** to like a person, then an intention to make someone a friend might work out. In Armand's case, though, it sounds like there were actual things that put him off becoming friends--the weird and alarming things.

Sometimes people can be weird and alarming, but there can be other things about them that would make them likable if you were able to get past the weird and alarming, and I feel like that's worth remembering. But even so, it kind of depends on **how** weird and alarming the weird stuff is. Like I can imagine being turned off someone who has a really loud and raucous demeanor but later learning to like that person for other reasons, but if I found out a person had a habit of sudden rages, I don't think it would matter how many other appealing characteristics the person had--I'd be very reluctant to become friends.

[osprey_archer]

I think as long as there's something else to ground the friendship in - similar taste in anime or a shared work project or anything - then a friendship that started in part because one party thought the other seemed sad & lonely & needed a friend might work out. As long as it's not solely motivated by pity, because pity (like most emotions) can be evanescent, and in any case the pitied person might see it and resent it. "I may be pathetic, but I'm not pathetic enough to need someone who hangs out with me just so because they feel sorry for me!"

In re: van Gogh, the whole thing where he cut off his own ear - in part because of a friendship gone wrong! - seems like a perfectly good reason not to want to be friends. Even if he was a delightful companion who would be a great friend for other reasons (and he doesn't seem to have been), that's a terrifying responsibility. You'd think, "What if our friendship goes wrong and he lobs off his nose next?"