Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 25, 2005 | | Summary | Minelli's masterpiece! | Content
 | I still maintain my personal conviction that, despite the enormous resonance of "The wizard of Oz", this film signs the second stage of Minelli, plenty of expressive maturity and artistic conviction far from commercial concessions.
You and me know the terrible risks you are exposed when some filmmaker dares to film the life of any painter.
There have been successful findings as the famous Norwegian film's Edward Munch from 1975, Caravaggio's Derek Jarman, Loutrec's Huston in the early fifties, Goya ( The German film of the eighties and Saura), Pollock. and in a lesser level , El Greco, but in general terms the most of the filmmakers do not like to bet for these sad, and very often tragic portraits.
I think that Kirk Douglas made two unmatchable performances in the fifties: this one and The Vikings. His Van Gogh characterization is superb as so did Anthony Quinn's Gaugin.
And despite the multiple films made for Minelli in his career, no other reachs the height of Lust for life.
Do not miss this outstanding picture.
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| Rating | | | Date | March 13, 2005 | | Summary | Excellent screen biography | Content
| Kirk Douglas stars as Vincent Van Gogh in this excellent biography of the troubled artist. All the "facts" are presented: the break with his family, the help given by his brother, his living with a prostitute, meeting Gauguin (played by Anthony Quinn), the madness and suicide. Most of all, Van Gogh's pictures are here. Douglas brings a fire to the role, and the whole film is dripping with authenticity. There's no excuse for this not being on DVD yet. |
| Rating | | | Date | January 10, 2005 | | Summary | Van Gogh lives in "Lust for Life" | Content
| Vicente Minelli and Kirk Douglas MAKE Van Gogh come alive in this 1956 biography. After reading several books on Van Gogh, and having travelled to Arles and St. Remi, I was able to appreciate the details reproduced in the film. The characters Vincent painted, the landscapes, Douglas, himsef - all "walked" off the canvas and into the film. It is sad that such work is not yet available on DVD. My hope is that enough people vote it to production, not only for the pleasure of individuals such as myself, but for schools as well. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 05, 2004 | | Summary | Lust for DVD | Content
| This is a classic that i've seen many many times. This may not be the most accurate telling of Vincent Van Gogh's life but there are countless books to serve that purpose. Everything about this film is perfect. The script is great and the acting is wonderful. Many scenes were shot right where Van Gogh painted, and you can easily see it, the film looks like one of his paintings. The style of the film even changes as his painting evolves and he becomes more confident in his skill. This is a film for art lovers, and it deserves the DVD treatment. Hopefully a DVD will include some features on the real Van Gogh, and the making of this film. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 06, 2004 | | Summary | Starry Night | Content
| There haven't been many movies made about great painters, which seems a little odd, but theirs is a static art, hard to capture on film. Producer John Houseman and director Vincente Minnelli do a great job here of placing Van Gogh's life and art before our eyes in a way calculated to whet our interest about the man. His peculiar life was stalked by some kind of mental instability; whether physical or psychological in nature nobody still knows. Kirk Douglas' fine performance is right on in portraying a troubled man trying for both artistic excellence and some kind of normalcy in life; above all a painter who held nothing back from his work. Anthony Quinn, who must have played every nationality under the sun during his career, walked off with an Oscar for his part as the flamboyant and less-gifted Paul Gaugin, destined to play second fiddle to Van Gogh's genius. The film's construction owes something to John Huston's "Moulin Rouge," of four years earlier, a bio of Toulouse-Lautrec. |
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