User Reviews

The film focuses entirely on the final three months of the artist's life, as he lived in Auvers, near Paris. What we get is a cinematic study, not so much of Vincent himself, but of his relationship with those around him in those final weeks: the doctor and his family, the brother and his wife, the people at the hotel, his various love interests. For a film about a painter, the plot has him painting very little. The film is almost a soap opera of back-and-forth talk, mostly serious but with some lighter moments mixed in. Too much dialogue is my main complaint.

Vincent (Jacques Dutronc) comes across as introverted, shy, temperamental, intellectual, and unpredictable. He gets a lot of criticism of his painting from those around him. It's hardly a supportive environment, especially given how prosaic, trite, and banal these people are. Tensions arise over mundane issues like comparisons with contemporary painters, money, Vincent's recurring mental problems, romance, and so on.

The visuals look really good. Cinematography is competent and unobtrusive. Costumes and prod design seem authentic for the period and suggest strong tendencies toward a Victorian, prim, pretentious culture. Casting is acceptable. Acting is very good because it is so understated. Pace trends slow. There's very little music in this film, and no score; which conveys a sense of realism as people come and go amid the perfunctory activities of everyday life.

It's been said that legends don't look like legends when they are being made. I think that applies to Van Gogh, here. He's just another painter worrying about his art, suffering from mental and/or physical ailments, and surrounded by banal people. That would not be Hollywood's approach to this famous artist. But it's an approach that's far more realistic and believable. The legend stuff would come later.

I had the joy of living another one of those events that give beauty to the life of a cinephile. My first encounter with Jacques Dutronc dates about half a century ago when I was listening to the shows on Radio Luxembourg behind the Iron Curtain. He was and remains perhaps the best French rocker. (Sorry, Johnny Hallyday!) Vincent Van Gogh is a huge artist, one of those who changed the course of art history. But I didn't know that Dutronc played Vincent in a biopic. But most of all, I didn't know Maurice Pialat. Many biographical films have been made about Van Gogh and will probably be made more. 'Van Gogh' made in 1991 by Pialat is a film different from all the others. I even wonder if it should be considered a biopic. Maybe it would be more appropriate to call it an anti-biopic. I have not seen other films by Maurice Pialat, and I intend to recover this unforgivable ignorance of mine as soon as I can find other films of his. In this movie, Pialat seems to desire to make cinema as Vincent created. The painter did not resume to replicate the world around him as the academics had done, nor to observe and reinterpret it through his eyes and vision as an artist as the Impressionists did. Instead, he started from reality and created something new. Likewise, Maurice Pialat starts from the ultra-well-known biography of the painter and the well-documented period of the last months of his life to create on screen his own vision of the man and of the artist Van Gogh and of the people and the world around him.

The trivially known details are missing. There is no cut ear or grotesque bandage around the head. There is no insistence on the mystery of the fatal shooting. But the essence is present. With his physique and especially his shaken psyche, the artist crushed by the lack of understanding and recognition of his art by the surrounding society took refuge in the last months of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, being treated by Dr. Gachet (Gérard Séty) . The connection with his brother Theo (Bernard Le Coq), as reflected in their correspondence, goes through a stormy period, with ups and downs, as in his brother's life we witness the appearance of his wife and of his first and only child. Refused, perhaps feeling exiled from the bourgeois world, Vincent Van Gogh finds dialogue partners in women and in the simple people in the village whose portraits he paints. It is a period of feverish creation, as the end approaches the intensity of his artistic burning increases. The closer he gets to the end the more exuberant his works. Landscapes are on fire, nature is in convulsion, reflecting the storms inside. Pialat adds here another dimension, undocumented but human and credible. Van Gogh may be a depressed person, but not a passive one, he is very much alive. He lives intensely, eats, drinks, and has relationships with several women. Some are prostitutes, but not only, and at least one of the connections, the one with Dr. Gachet's young daughter (Alexandra London) could promise a chance to regain his balance. But it is too late, and perhaps the awareness of this impossible situation is what precipitates his end.

True to his conception of creating something new and not of just putting on screen the biography, Maurice Pialat made no effort to make Jacques Dutronc look like Van Gogh, nor did he force him to grow the iconic red beard. Dutronc's role is far from what other actors have imagined, from Kirk Douglas to Willem Dafoe. It is actually the refusal of conformist adaptation, the simplicity of human relationships, the thirst for life and creation, the power to love that bring him closer to what Vincent Van Gogh may have been in reality. Among the other actors (all very good) in the film I would mention Gérard Séty with a complex and ambiguous portrait of Dr. Gachet and Elsa Zylberstein in the role of a beautiful and sensual prostitute. The scenes of the parties in the brothels of Paris and of the meetings between Vincent and Theo, either in Dr. Gachet's house or on the banks of the Oise, are also very well directed. The frames seem to be taken from Manet's paintings. Women's costumes, dresses and hairstyles descend from Monet's paintings. The figures and bodies of the women come from Renoir. Visually Maurice Pialat quotes the masters of Impressionism and not Vincent. In fact, from his art, we see from time to time only glimpses when a painting appears in the frame. We see the art in character instead. Vincent's substance can found in his behavior. This unique film reconstructs the man Van Gogh from the essence of his art.

I loved every golden minute of this film. It was honest, sensitive and respectful of the artist and anyone who loves Van Gogh's paintings and wants the fly-on-the-wall glimpse of his last days on earth will be in for a wonderful experience.

Unlike such films as "Lust for Life" with the Academy Awards so visibly in mind, this one doesn't offer any mad scenes, or pulpitizing or self-mutilation. In other words, if you are looking for Kirk Douglas chewing up the scenery or Stanley Kramer, bullhorn in hand, preaching one of his messages, or, heaven forbid, "Mondo Cane", this will be a disappointment. Unlike so many biopics of artists' lives, this one doesn't sell out to the mass audience with cheap histrionics. It dares to respect its subject and treat it humanely and humbly.

Every object, every face, every scene evokes what Van Gogh would have witnessed himself before his death. Just walking through a field evokes the thrill of recognizing the scene from one of his paintings! As undramatic as it may seem to some, it's really quite exciting for those of us who revere the artist and his work. In fact, I was actually angry at the end of the film that the beauty finally had to stop.

I would recommend this with all my heart to those viewers who love Van Gogh's paintings and are in search of a film that respects the artist in his dying days. It is moving and honest.

Curtis Stotlar

The idea of Jacques Dutronc as Van Gogh didn't sit well with me at first. I didn't think they looked much alike and Jacques just seemed too cool and French and rock star like to pull it off. It took a few minutes to get used to, but I quickly became engrossed in the tale and the acting and was no longer wary. This film focuses on Van Gogh's last few months of life, while he went to Auvers to seek treatment from Dr. Gachet for his headaches.

Always the recluse, the daughter of Dr. Gachet is drawn to him, falls in love and follows him about, although Van Gogh seems mostly indifferent to her attention and feelings. His mental state becomes worse and worse and in his case it makes him a short-tempered, angry, difficult person. He insults his brother, his brother's wife, his girlfriend, Dr. Gachet and about everyone he knows until he finally shoots himself. The film spends an inordinate amount of time on Vincent suffering in bed with a bullet in his gut, being downright cruel to those who attempt to help or console him. How many scenes of him laying angry and in pain in his soon to be death bed do we really need.

This movie is like an avocado and bacon and watercress salad that Tyler Florence created. First you take 3 avocados (which I have come to love since I went to Chile last March) cut them in half and remove the pit. Then fry up a couple of slices of bacon and crumble them over the avocado halves. Then strew some watercress artistically across the plate. Then drizzle the whole thing with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. I find the salad great when I'm eating bites of avocado and bacon, which I generally eat first. Then I have some watercress with a few bits of bacon leftover. This is bitter and not that pleasant, so it finishes of rather poorly for me. When I'm done I mostly remember the good bites from the beginning with the creamy avocados and the salty, delicious bacon. I should just leave the watercress out and it would be excellent. 6/10 http://blog.myspace.com/locoformovies

This is Maurice Pialat's masterpiece, one of the best French films ever !

Unlike the title may induce, it's not a Van Gogh "classic" biography as Pialat only shows the last three months of the painter's life, from his arrival in Auvers sur Oise until his suicide.

The picture is constantly moving, intelligent, funny and masterfully photographed (some sequences along the river look like Renoirs's paintings). It's as much a movie about Pialat himself as about Van Gogh.

The scene between Vincent and his brother Theo , or the ones between the latter and her wife Jo are just extraordinary. And the way Pialat films Van Gogh's agony at the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers sur Oise is the mark of a genius.

Jacques Dutronc may not be a Vincent van Gogh lookalike, he's absolutely outstanding. And Bernard Le Coq as Theo makes his best performance so far.

Unmissable!!!!!!!!!!

If you haven't seen this movie yet, set aside a few hours and treat yourself to this gem of a film.

Jacques Dutronc is great as the Von Gogh, but Alexandra London is fantastic stealing almost every scene she is in with Dutronc. Bernard Le Coq as big brother, Theo, turns in a good controlled performance as well.

The supporting cast is also first rate.

The movie covers the last two months of Van Gogh's life from his arrival in Auvers sur Oise ( then a sleepy suburb 17 miles from Paris) until his death from apparently self-inflicted wounds. He is buried there by the way, next to his brother Theo, and the inn where he stayed is still standing. (Google "Auvers-Sur-Oise") The sad part is that Van Gogh appeared to suffered from a form of depression, if it were today it could have been treated with proper medication. If he had lived 110 years later he might have been fine.

I loved the research they appeared to do on everything from period trains, blacksmiths, inn keepers, farmers, day laborers, other artists and family members. It has an authentic feel to it.

Another good part is the lack of a sappy soundtrack to detract from the story at hand. The lack of a soundtrack renders it almost as if you are standing in the same town watching what is going on. "Excuse me, are you Vincent Van Gogh?" The picture is beautifully photographed and as one IMDb'er from France pointed out in his comments "some sequences along the river look like Renoirs's paintings" It's true.

Don't miss this.

"Lust for life" of Minnelli is a great film, but in my opinion doesn't give a faithful portrait of Van Gogh: his nature is too romanticized. On the contrary this film of Pialat gives a real mirror of the inner nature of the great painter. I think Van Gogh was really so misanthrope as the film describes. This puts the film of Pialat above the one of Minnelli. Besides this film seems a moving painting, because if you pause the playing when you see the video you can see an impressionistic picture. this peculiarity is so marked that there are scenes that are in the film only for a visive aim (for example the Vincent's sister-in-law that washes herself in a tub). Even if "Lust for life" is a great film, I think "Van Gogh" is greater.

The life of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh is brought to the screen by French director Maurice Pialat in his 1991 film simply titled Van Gogh. Unlike Vincente Minneli's Lust for Life which dramatized key events in the artist's life, Pialat's film is limited to the last sixty nine days of Van Gogh's life. It is a fictional film based on the director's impressions of what van Gogh's last days might have been like given his creative output. Unlike the histrionics of Lust for Life, Pialat, a painter himself for twenty years before he turned to film making, disdains sensationalism, showing Vincent as a lonely and tormented artist who had severe mood swings, ranging from kindness to roaring anger and jealousy but one who was fully capable of social and sexual interaction with others.

Pialat defends his conception by saying simply, "One doesn't produce 100 masterpieces in a state of depression--van Gogh died from having had a glimpse of happiness." The film is set in Auvers-sur-Oise where van Gogh recuperated following a self-inflicted injury to his ear after an argument with Gaugin in Arles, and after he was hospitalized at an asylum in St-Rémy for one year. The film begins with van Gogh's arrival in 1890 in Auvers, a town close to Paris where he is greeted by Dr. Paul Gachet (Gérard Séty), an art collector and homeopathic doctor who was contacted by Vincent's brother Theo (Bernard le Coq). Remarkably portrayed by French singer and actor Jacques Dutronc, van Gogh appears pale and emaciated as he takes a room at the Ravoux Inn and begins to concentrate on his work, painting a portrait of Gachet's charmingly coquettish teenage daughter, Marguerite (Alexandre London) who falls for him although he is twenty years her senior.

Not mentioned in Vincent's letter to Theo, Vincent's relationship with Marguerite may be fanciful, but as portrayed by London is convincingly real. Not intending to become a recluse, van Gogh greets Parisian friends at a gathering by the river which Gachet organizes to celebrate the artist's arrival. It is there he meets up with Cathy (Elsa Zilberstein), a prostitute he met at Arles, ensuring a love triangle that serves to highlight the painter's contradictions. As time passes in Auvers, Vincent's complicated relationship with his brother Theo and wife Jo (Corinne Bourdon) brings out his anger that Theo has only sold one of his paintings and he has had to rely on his brother for support, a situation that reinforces his sense of failure, doubt, and guilt.

In this atmosphere of recrimination in which Jo berates Theo for his handling of their finances and Marguerite denounces Vincent as sick, the painter follows his darkest instincts to commit a final self-destructive act. With Pialat's natural and improvisational style, the film Van Gogh provides a full and rich experience. Everything in the film has an authentic look and feel from the old nineteenth century trains to the country inns, the blacksmiths and the farmers. The film is alive with dances and songs, and the beauty of the surrounding fields inspires van Gogh to reflect its bright colors in his work. Many of his famous paintings are shown, although there is little discussion of the artist's technique or creative process.

Praise for the film is displayed in the letter written to Pialat by Jean-Luc Godard in 1991. "My dear Maurice," Godard says, "your film is astonishing, totally astonishing; far beyond the cinematographic horizon covered up until now by our wretched gaze. Your eye is a great heart that sends the camera hurtling among girls, boys, spaces, moments in time, and colors, like childish tantrums. The ensemble is miraculous; the details, sparks of light within this miracle; we see the big sky fall and rise from this poor and simple earth. All of my thanks, to you and yours, for this success – warm, incomparable, quivering.

Cordially yours,

Jean-Luc Godard."

A fitting tribute, indeed.

Perhaps if the movie had been called "Joe Smith" and if it were about an ordinary average schlep who dies, I would consider it impressive. There are many great films which deal with the tragic irony of a tedious and banal death.

But in this case, the director takes an inherently powerful story and reduces it to the mundane. Van Gogh? Who was he? He certainly wasn't the guy they showed in this movie. I have to strongly agree with the other reviewer who said that the title of this movie kills it. It's not about Van Gogh; not even close.

So next I considered that perhaps the director purposely chose a famous subject and purposely wove a creative retelling of history, much like Forman's masterpiece AMADEUS. The funny thing is, this technique only works if you have something creative to depict. But if your intent is to beat history into dullness, there's nothing creative, impressive or even interesting about it.

I watched this movie because I was expecting to see an insightful peek into the final days of one of the world's most passionate and cryptic artists. Instead I found a boring showcase of some pretentious French director's visually masturbatory work. Film school nerds may be impressed, but not me. And I doubt any painters, historians or poets were impressed either. Chalk this one up as another esoteric little waste of film.

PLEASE skip this movie and go watch BALLADE O SOLDATE (1959) instead. Now there's a fantastic film depicting the final, realistic days of an anonymous young man. And it didn't step on any history books, either.

The strength of this film hinges on the plausibility of the account- if this is indeed an accurate portrayal of Van Gogh's last days then it at least has some innate value in that regard. Although the pain of V.G.'s suffering was excruciatingly heightened by the real-life pace, the film suffered overall from being too slow. I was left feeling depressed about Van Gogh and got the feeling that maybe some aspects of a person's life are better left undramatized. The character of "Van Gogh" ultimately comes across as a hopeless case--crazy, depressed, bitter, irresponsible and ill-tempered, hopelessly dependent on his brother and resentful to the point of suicide because of it. But is that the whole story? There must be more and this movie doesn't leave the viewer with the impression that any stones have been left unturned. Too much of this man's earlier life is unknown to us(assumed) and his actions and relationship with his brother, Theo have no real context for the viewer to truly sympathize or understand Van Gogh. And the relations he has with the love interests in the film are in many ways stilted and hard to believe. Van Gogh was a stormy, complex, singular type of human being whose story resists just this type of retelling. Nice try but I think this film missed.

Beautiful Direction.

Beautiful Art Direction.

This movie is a painting.

Must see.

Thanks and Regards.

This long film, with Jacques Dutronc in the main role, is considered by the French to be Pialat's best. It seeks to be counter-intuitive -- and also to base its a-historical version of the artist on the conclusion that nobody who made that many paintings in the last 27 months of his life (which the film focuses on) could have been seriously impaired in function, either mental or physical; and that if he was crazy, he was high-functioning crazy. This Van Gogh has moody moments, but also laughs, drinks, has lots of sex, makes a lot of paintings, and doesn't have a cut ear. (Incidentally he also shows little sign of being Dutch; but neither did Kirk Douglas in Minelli's Lust for Life.) But this Van Gogh is also an enigma.

The best feature of Van Gogh is its eccentric, surprising period film naturalism, analogous to that of Rossellini's 1966 The Rise of Louis XIV/La prise de pouvoir par Louis XIX, or Pasolini's Neorealism- influenced period effects in The Gospel According to Matthew and his Decameron, Canterbury Tales, and Arabian Nights films. Probably Pialat couldn't have made this without the Nouvelle Vague and Jules et Jim behind him. Van Gogh's best moments are just throwaways that make scenes seem more "real" because they have little to do with advancing the "plot" or with "character development" -- like the choo-choo train cigarette puffing scene in Jules et Jim. Pialat's biggest influence as a filmmaker is said to be Jean Renoir. But in his Chicago Reader review Jonathan Rosenaum mentions Bresson and notes Bresson called his actors "models." Dutronc is very assured but is a non-actor, a singer primarily. As Theo the film uses the rather wooden Bernard Le Coq. In a sense they both, like the many extras who are or could be non-actors, are "models." And that, like most of the film, can be stimulating, but also frustrating, in a film about a figure people are so interested in.

The film excels at atmosphere, the way people wear their period clothes as if they were today's latest fashions, the everydayness of trains, meals, bars, and all the times Vincent refuses to eat or drink. And its key moments are its ensemble sequences, though one big one succeeds and the other fails. The highlight is a big collective picnic by the river Oise, with dancing, singing, Van Gogh doing an imitation of Lautrec and throwing himself in the river and getting fished out, and all in very long takes, with a wonderful, astonishing sense that we are right there the whole time. But the second long sequence, almost 20 minutes, is another story. It takes place in a Paris brothel with Vincent; Theo, away from Jo, his wife (Corinne Bourdon); Dr. Gachet's daughter Marguerite (a memorably vivacious Alexandra London) who's in love with Vincent and having an affair with him -- an invented plot twist; and a volatile prostitute Vincent has been involved with, Cathy (Elsa Zylberstein). This ambitious sequence meanders so much, is so unconvincing, and goes on so long, it winds up becoming merely boring and dreary and ruining the whole film at the point that should be its climax. In the end it is just confusion and debauchery, a distraction from whatever this is about; but that's where the film is best, otherwise. This is reminiscent of the long dance in Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers/Les amants réguliers: but that becomes a magic moment, and is more germane because it's a film about a lost generation, not the end of a great artist. But if Pialat's Van Gogh is a failure it is a great failure.

Van Gogh's death is disconcertingly real, without poetry or drama, merely flat and grim. And then it's over, with a couple of hints in posthumous scenes of how famous Van Gogh will be. But there have been enough living and thought-provoking moments to make this a distinctive film and maybe one that says something about its ostensible subjects. Such a failure is, though frustrating, better than many people's successes.

Van Gogh (incidentally the French pronounce it "Van Gog," to rhyme with "jog"), 158 mins., opened theatrically in France 30 Oct. 1991, in the USA the same day in 1992. Vincent Canby wrote an understanding and clear review for the NY Times. Watched on a disk from Netflix 6 Dec. 2015, which has the option of no subtitles, English subtitles, or French ones, an unusual feature on US DVD's and a handy one.

Released in 1991, at the centenary of Vincent Van Gogh's death, Maurice Pialat's "Van Gogh" chronicles the final days of the legendary artist whose last stay in Auvers-sur-Oise inspired some of his most celebrated works. The film isn't much about the painting or the painter but a journey into the usual spectrum of human interactions: casual talk, mundane conversations, awkward moments and here and there some outbursts of passions and energy, especially with women, and the brother Theo (Bernard LeCoq).

One would look at Van Gogh's life with glasses tainted by the vivid colors of his celebrated paintings, anticipating lust, passion, furor and anger... but defeating all expectations, Maurice Pialat's "Van Gogh" is a rather quiet film, one of simple warmth embedded in profound melancholy. Jacques Dutronc never leaves you the impression that he's playing Van Gogh, with his sad and worn-down eyes, you barely notice their beautiful blue. Even in his most joyful or tempestuous moments, his eyes look exhausted. It's just as if the pop culture Van Gogh we "knew": the man in love, the self-doubting artist, Gauguin's friend and the ear-cutting madman where all contained in the frozen ocean of his silent stares. This Van Gogh is a moody fellow and it's up to the lively population around: luggage carriers, inn-keepers, maids or prostitutes to 'cheer him' up.

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed Pialat's "Van Gogh". And for one reason, Pialat never felt inclined to tell a story about Van Gogh but of a man with both talent and demons, like anyone else, like Pialat himself, maybe. Vincent is a man who was so focused on the quest of a lost genius in his art that he somehow lost the ability to look at the genuine simplicity of life. And he was so demanding of himself that he could never satisfy, let alone like himself. He wasn't incapable to love a woman but being loved for his talent or his peculiarity as an artist would be like tricking himself into self-appreciation, a reconciliation by proxy... one can't just be cured easily from the imposter syndrome.

But don't take my word for it, this is only my take on Dutronc's performance. The singer-turned-actor won a César for the role and he doesn't play it with the self-awareness of the actor forced to channel standard emotions but by distancing himself from the easy way and paradoxically from the artist himself. On a simple level, it's easy to guess that neither Vincent, nor Theo, could speak French as fluently delivered by two French actors. The suspension of disbelief is all granted because Pialat recreates such a natural and historically accurate microcosm of French society in the late 19th century, we believe this could be Van Gogh. Sometimes, the further you get from a model, the closer.

And at some point, Vincent stops being the main focus and becomes the sponge that absorbs all the liquefied emotions of people around him... the more distant or reluctant to share his feelings he is, the more efforts people pull in order to reach him (including Theo). Doctor and art collector Gachet (remarkably played by Gérard Sety) uses amiability and friendliness, his daughter Marguerite (Alexandra London) is not indifferent and her charm is so natural that any recipient of a cordial smile would take it as seduction, but maybe she is attracted to Vincent. Finally, Theo can be diplomatic and tactful but doesn't mince words when the situation calls for a harsher tone.

I don't think Pialat ever intended to solve a riddle about Van Gogh rather than paint in his own way the tumultuous mind of a man so focused on his visions, doubts and (paradoxically) certitudes that he confined himself into a room that could only be opened from the outside. As gentle as he was, Gachet didn't have the key and in one memorable scene, he keeps on praising an an item that is not even a painting. Vincent smile and Gachet admits that he was being hypocrite. While the scene is played for laughs, who knows if it didn't break a parcel of Vincent's self-esteem. Sometimes Marguerite seems to have a connection with him, as she's also suffocated by the corset of social conventions (like her mother) but it is possible that Vincent only gets from her what any woman can give him, like Cathy the prostitute played by Elza Zylberstein...all the 'joie de vivre' in the world can't cure a man in quest for a meaning to his life.

Le Coq delivers an interesting performance as the sane brother who yet has been infected by that very lust for life from his brother and is incapable to dissociate his own being from his brother's state. He embodies what's so fascinating about Pialat's Van Gogh, he's not the passionate one but the one everyone's passionate about. And what we've got is a vision of an auteur who finds a certain sympathy to ambivalent people, unpredictable, whose conduct never follows a particular pattern. Such people who stand out from the crowd aren't necessarily extraordinary but they have the merit to guide ordinary people into new horizons, discovering many things about the world or a few about themselves, which is almost the world.

This Pialat's Van Gogh could have been a Rodin's thinker as well, but Pialat provides him flesh, a soul, a spirit and that little lust for life that allowed such great moments as the alfresco lunch where he and his brother impersonate Toulouse Lautrec (that whole sequence is one of the best and jolliest moments from any French film). Special mention to that brother party that ends with everyone impersonating a miliary march and walking hand-in-hand before chaos takes backs its rights through a frenetic Can Can.

Ambivalence again is the key word for that surrealist scene has the ominous resonance of a last surge before death... the only historical fact Pialat couldn't revise.

I was looking forward to see this movie, being in love with Van Gogh's paintings. I have traveled most of the places Van Gogh lived and painted at and was excited to see them in the directors interpretation. In short: I was really disappointed!

To be fair: This might be an average movie with some nice acting and a realistic story.

But how does this have to do with Van Gogh as an artist or his art?

Van Gogh's highly emotional, passionate few of the whole world he lived in, his subtle way to express this, the search for the beauty inside things, the flow inside all of his paintings - you will find nothing like this considered in the movie. Not even the scenes and settings he painted play any role at all, one or two of them appear by pure random it seems, just for storytelling. A character who suicides after having said "I don't want to be considered an unhappy man", a painter who is searching his whole life for a way to show a reality behind the surface, who lays the foundings for generations to come without living to see it - what a terrific movie this could have made.

Instead you watch something that comes along like a well done TV production. This movie would be nowhere bad at all - if it was not claiming to be about "Van Gogh". Like this, it just simply doesn't deserve the title! Instead of watching this movie, you can read the text at Wikipedia about "Van Gogh", it will give you more insight.

I have been an admirer of Vincent Van Gogh for many years and have ready many books about him, so I picked up a copy of this movie with high hopes. I also, like the first reviewer, liked the authentic period look of the movie. The actor that played Dr. Gachet, was very convincing and looked very much like him. Jocques Dutronc looks nothing like Vincent and I didn't really understand why the film makers wouldn't at least have him grow a beard? I have also never seen any photos of Theo with out either a mustache or a goatee but never a beard. Kinda like they got the characters mixed up. Theo was only 33 during the period this movie is supposed to portray. The actor that played him looked 50. I have never really figured out why film makers cannot do a more accurate movie of Vincent. Most of this movie depicts his "affair" with Margurite Gachet and there is little or no evidence to support any this nonsense. There is a lot of very strange and irrelevant dialog in this movie and many of the scenes don't seem to have much purpose or even flow together...Its a very odd film. Could have been much much better with little effort...

As someone with a reverential admiration for van Gogh's art, I simply had to see this film for myself. Having read the collection of his letters to Theo many times, I found myself pinching myself to determine if this movie was actually about van Gogh at all. They got the fact right that van Gogh was an artist, but that's about it. The gentleman who played Dr. Gachet was absolutely perfect, but the actor who portrayed van Gogh apparently wandered onto the set stoned and indifferent. Passion? More like dispassion! When a director pedantically parades all the best shots, sets and costumes and yet crashes and burns, I smell self-indulgence and onanism. There is scarcely a shred of historical evidence (and the letters tell us so much) for the vulgar fiction this film portrays. Van Gogh's letters tell us more intimate details about his life than almost any other artist in history, why create pure fiction? Van Gogh himself was very awkward, shy and clumsy around women, though he did consort in brothels, where the staff usually knew how to break the ice. This van Gogh is so suave and unfeeling he's just a common ss hole, not the man who wanted to be remembered as "feeling tenderly and deeply". In short, mediocre directors should not tackle stories about people far greater than themselves, as the resulting contrast is self-humiliating. Without doubt, one of the most flawed projects I've ever viewed. As for the complaint from one reviewer that van Gogh's ear "wasn't missing"...please...he only cut off cut off the ear lobe, except in the movies. How long will these armchair experts rule art history or make useless films? Pialat is not really "controversial" at all, he's making it up as he goes along and simply should have played the village idiot. Henceforth I will spell and pronounce his name "Pialet", which in French means someone who goes to the bathroom too often... This is the glossiest garbage I've ever viewed! This film is a textbook lesson in artistic casuistry.

This movie is over-rated and I would not recommend it you unless you particularly enjoy slow, dull French movies."Van Gogh" (1991) is unnecessarily long and, in my opinion, it's pretentious. The dialog is discontinuous, the characters are unlikable, and the pain of Van Gogh's life doesn't seem to follow from the environment in which he lives. This movie fails to engage the viewer and before an hour until the end you'll find yourself wishing it were over.

If you want to know something about Van Gogh's life, I suggest reading it in a book instead of gaining it from this attempt at a film.

I love European cinema, including a number of those films which deal with the lives of artists ("Wolf at the Door" and "Caravaggio" are two favorites that come to mind), but this was one of the most infuriatingly dull and pointless films I've ever seen. Perhaps it's trying so hard to have the quality of everyday life and avoid biopic clichés that it doesn't do anything BUT display the quality of everyday life while avoiding biopic clichés. I never thought I'd see a movie where a character stops in the middle of a conversation, notices her husband has a blackhead and pops it for him before going back to the discussion at hand. Well, fine. But the conversation bracketing this bit of everyday business was dull as dirt anyway. In fact, the popping of the blackhead was the most interesting thing in the scene, which should tell you something.

In terms of the characters, the women are particularly annoying. Every once in a while one of them talks about the suffragettes, or the fact that they're not taken seriously because they're women, but each of their parts seem to have been written and directed by someone who's never even met a woman. One female character gets over a traumatic moment in a heartbeat and goes back to inanely smiling, another shows one mood and one mood only; petulant.

Toward the end, when the audience was looking for their coats assuming, with Vincent dead, that the film was about to end, Pialat throws in a minute or two bit where a minor character has a heavy trap door fall on her foot, which nearly breaks it. She gets upset, yells at the person who dropped the door, is taken outside to soak her foot in water, has a guy massage it. You think: "what the hell is this doing here in the last two minutes of the film? Why didn't they cut it out of this already overlong movie?" Well, the answer might be that if they cut out all the unnecessary stuff like this, there simply wouldn't have been anything left to release.

P.S. I saw this with a friend who is an Art History professor, and he also thought this was the most pointless film about an artist he'd ever seen.

Many reviewers hail this as underrated!. I, most Happily disagree. Unfortunately any insight to the great painter is done in arbitrary exposition from supporting characters, while the main one stands around aloof. If Hollywood romanticized, any previous films of Van Gogh, it's only a natural inclination too heighten what we see in his paintings!. As an actor, I would be emphatic just to be in a scene where I'm told " You're van Gogh!-you stand here"!( I know this is a harsh assessment,but that's the way it plays,three quarters of the way!) What we are given here, is not an attempt of visual or narrative connection from the man to his works, rather, an exercise in screenplay. I didn't wish to agree with the naysayers of this film,so I had to rent and see for myself. This film could have had any other title, maybe.. that's the point, but whatever preparations no matter how extensive was not translated through this media. Watching this made me want to see 'El Postino' for the hundredth time. Now for the underrated loyalist, I recommend Bronson(2009),now this IS a film that is truly underrated!.

First I should mention that I cannot talk much of the cinematography as my monitor for watching this film was much too dark and some scenes were cast almost entirely in darkness, but still I could always read the subtitles and saw much of the movie visually.

Van Gogh is a favorite "character" to me, both his art and his life. Just from the little we DO know about Van Gogh, this movie is just wrong. It is portraying someone else, I don't know who. It's not a bad movie to watch. I agree with the other reviewers who said this might be a very good movie if it were about "John Doe." Just don't expect to get a glimpse of the great painter. You will not.

How true can it be if he never cuts his ear off? The man dies in this film with both ears. I kinda think that this was an important moment that his movie glosses over. The guy dies with two ears! I pretty much know that the man went insane and cut his ear off to give to a whore that he was in love with. I think this show has little or no reality involved. come on! Isn't this basically (besides his paintings) what my Van Gogh was basically known for. This movie drags on and on. Thre is little or no truth to it, and I basically give it a thumb up the ass. This movie is boring and not truthfull at all. Complete waste of what seemed to be 3 + hours. Avoid this movie at all costs. -=db=-

Being a native French speaker, I of course watched the movie in French.

Most actors don't speak, they mumble. Impossible to understand them.

While this is frequent in French pictures, here, it reaches a summit of mediocrity.