Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Vincent & Theo" in English language version.
Vincent & Theo also ignores information that would provide a deeper understanding, all of it covered by Minnelli. We hear little of the van Gogh parents, and nothing of Vincent's ruinous love for his cousin Kee or his ministerial labors in the Borinage.
As far as Hollywood is concerned the Vincent Van Gogh story began and ended with Vincente Minnelli's 1956 Lust for Life, in which Kirk Douglas plays the artist as a frantic, frustrated powerhouse.
His much-lauded performance was the beginning of a new phase in Roth's career, and although he visits Britain about twice a year, since 1992 he has been based permanently in the United States.
Altman isn't interested in the usual "Masterpiece Theatre" bio-pic approach; this is not his version of "Lust for Life."
Altman is not the slightest bit interested in a pat portrait of the artist, and he hardly defers to the conventions of screen biography. (In the case of van Gogh, that more predictable and safer route was pursued with intelligence and taste in 1956 in Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life.)
This film, about Vincent van Gogh and his art-gallery manager brother, could easily have been one of those painfully earnest biographies of great men. Fortunately, the director is Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, Nashville, Three Women and TV's Tanner '88), and he doesn't go in for earnest. He prefers bold, innovative and provocative. That applies to his successes as well as his misfires (Beyond Therapy, Quintet and Popeye). This time, the risks pay off.
Jean Lepine's lush photography makes the pic look like a work of art, while Gabriel Yared's vexing score finely underscores the underlying testy dynamics of living only for art.
When The Player came out in 1992, it was greeted as a welcome comeback for director Robert Altman, who spent much of the previous decade working small—making filmed plays instead of the ambitious, character-heavy genre reinventions he'd been known for in the 1970s. But Altman actually reclaimed his critics' darling status two years earlier with Vincent & Theo, a luminous biopic about painter Vincent Van Gogh (played by Tim Roth) and his art-dealer brother (Paul Rhys).
Best of all is Altman's simple, uncluttered direction, which makes sensitive use of a strong cast, Jean Lepine's evocative location photography, and Gabriel Yared's compulsive music. Nowhere does Altman sermonise about the artist's greatness; his achievement is allowed to speak for itself. If only more film-makers had such confidence and integrity.
Bearing little resemblance to the glamorised, overheated Vincente Minnelli 1956 biopic Lust for Life, this masterwork operates in the intimate, thoughtful vein of the great BBC bios of artistic figures.
When The Player came out in 1992, it was greeted as a welcome comeback for director Robert Altman, who spent much of the previous decade working small—making filmed plays instead of the ambitious, character-heavy genre reinventions he'd been known for in the 1970s. But Altman actually reclaimed his critics' darling status two years earlier with Vincent & Theo, a luminous biopic about painter Vincent Van Gogh (played by Tim Roth) and his art-dealer brother (Paul Rhys).
Altman is not the slightest bit interested in a pat portrait of the artist, and he hardly defers to the conventions of screen biography. (In the case of van Gogh, that more predictable and safer route was pursued with intelligence and taste in 1956 in Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life.)
