In life he was impoverished his work largely ignored; yet today paintings by Vincent Van Gogh fetch millions of dollars at auction. This supreme irony is laid bare in the passionate story of an obsessive artist driven by inexorable demons and his alternately devoted and despairing younger brother who seems unable to live with him.....or without him.
Vincent and Theo is a biography of Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo that largely ignores the great painter's artworks in order to focus on the man, his conflicts, and his relationships. Director Robert Altman is of course a perfect helmsman for such an idiosyncratic approach to an artist's life, with his preference for ragged technical qualities and a loose, flowing style. Altman chose to focus in on Van Gogh's tortured and even parasitic relationship with his brother Theo, an art dealer who always supported Vincent even though his paintings never made a penny during either of their lifetimes. The film opens with a modern-day auction in which the value of a Van Gogh painting for sale is escalating by the hundreds of thousands with each bid. Altman then cuts away to a shot of Vincent (Tim Roth), lying in bed with dirt on his face, as the sound from the auction continues in voiceover, with the painting's value finally ending up above £22 million. This tension between history's later estimation of artistic worth and the reality of the life that made it is at the center of the film.
To this end, Altman's trademark darting camera moves around within the Van Goghs' lives, always providing an intimate view of the artist at work which eschews glamour for grittiness and even ugliness. Roth is phenomenal here, in one of his best roles. His portrayal of Vincent has a tinge of madness, but mostly just a willingness to get down and dirty in every way -- with peasant people for subjects, with his impoverished lifestyle, and with the casual way he treats his paints and materials. Two of the most striking scenes are a pair in which Vincent smears paints on his own face in his impressionistic style, and later does the same to a prostitute in a bar. It's the ultimate symbolic expression of life and art intermingling, as Vincent attempts to transform his very life, his own being, into an artwork. In another scene, Altman shows Vincent in a field of sunflowers, and the camera seems to take on the artist's point of view, zooming and darting around the field, focusing on a single flower, finding the few broken and wilting buds within the seemingly lush whole, then zooming back out as though the artist's eye were moving on to something else. This is prime Altman, a true masterpiece about the creation of masterpieces. This wild, messy film is as fitting a tribute as any to that wild, messy artist and his wild, messy art.
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Director Robert Altman explores the relationship between Vincent Van Gogh (Tim Roth) and his brother Theo (Paul Rhys). Life for Vincent is difficult, he struggles financially and his mental health suffers accordingly. Meanwhile Theo is having little success as a gallery owner, and is troubled in his marriage with Jo Bonger (Johanna Tersteege). The film contrasts the poverty which surrounded both brothers with the affluence of the contemporary art world.
A blistering unsentimental portrait of the great Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh Robert Altman's VINCENT AND THEO focuses on the deeply neurotic relationship between the unstable impoverished Vincent (Tim Roth) and his art dealer brother Theo (Paul Rhys) Specifically the film investigates the role Theo played in providing the normality and connection to the outer world that Vincent lacked--while Vincent in turn acted as the living embodiment of Theo's unfulfilled artistic aspirations In the end Theo's inability to secure his brother's financial independence and help him achieve a sense of self-worth by selling his paintings caused him a misery almost as profound as Vincent's As the introverted Vincent Roth delivers an intensely passionate performance and Rhys is just as moving as the more reserved Theo Altman chooses to concentrate on the artist himself likely providing a deeper insight into the individual than scenes of him painting ever could VINCENT AND THEO remains an unflinching and powerful interpretation of the life of one of the world's most famous artists
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