Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour, 51 minutes
Director: Julian Schanbel
Quick Impressions:
I liked this much more than The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (the last Julian Schnabel offering I saw), which is not surprising because I didn’t like that film at all. I wanted to like it, but I had trouble connecting with the protagonist. To me, Jean-Do seemed like a selfish jerk who endured a medical catastrophe and remained a selfish jerk. That film also struck me as pretentious, but I can’t remember why. It’s been eleven years since I saw it, and I now remember the way The Simpsons told the story–that weird Treehouse of Horror segment in which Homer is paralyzed by a spider bite and passes gas to communicate–more clearly than the film itself. (Honestly, The Simpsons parody is rather brilliant because the film is so high-brow, and they turn it into a big fart joke.) (That said, however, I do not particularly like that Simpsons parody either.) Maybe I just find Jean-Do’s altered circumstances too grim to feel the full force of his triumph.
My point is, I approached At Eternity’s Gate with some reservations because the director’s previous work failed to captivate me. My husband and I have been excited to see this movie ever since I heard about Willem Dafoe’s buzzy performance and found a trailer online. Dafoe won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival where the film debuted, and he’s picked up a few other awards since. He’s nominated for a Golden Globe (which probably won’t translate into an Oscar nomination, but that’s hardly his fault). I really loved The Florida Project last year, and I’ve been eager to see more from Dafoe. Plus the trailer for this film really sells it. In it, Vincent van Gogh looks like he’s walking through Van Gogh paintings, and we found that intriguing. But I still remained a bit wary, apprehensive that a film by Julian Schnabel might not be for me.
My husband and I really enjoyed At Eternity’s Gate, though. To me, Van Gogh is an extremely compelling protagonist, in whom I became emotionally invested almost immediately. Dafoe’s performance was brilliant, too. And both my husband and I loved the way the film showed us the world from Van Gogh’s perspective. This is definitely not your typical Hollywood film. It’s a piece of art itself (not that Hollywood films can’t be). And I would imagine that some may find it pretentious and off-putting (as I found The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). But we liked it.
The Good:
“This will sound strange,” my husband said as we left that theater, “but I found that uplifting and almost relaxing to watch.”
That was my experience, too.
The film has this amazing, captivating visual aesthetic. We’re always seeing Van Gogh’s world. The artist’s name could be withheld, and we would still recognize his world because it looks just like his paintings.
That’s another really cool thing. In the end credits, I noticed that the Van Gogh paintings were created by Julian Schnabel and Willem Dafoe (along with someone else, I think). Trying to find that other person’s name, I just discovered that sometimes we see Dafoe actually painting, and sometimes we see Schnabel’s arm in one of Dafoe’s sleeves. What an incredibly cool way of generating the art, which is (obviously) a huge part of the story!
I keep forgetting that Julian Schnabel is an artist from New York. That shocked me back when I first saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Initially, I assumed he was a film director from France. But he’s from New York, and he began as a painter.
He makes an interesting artistic choice to make this film in English. I found that fascinating. Typically, characters begin conversations in French, then switch over to English, but I believe we are to assume that they’re speaking French the entire time (since the film is set in various parts of France). Maybe Vincent and his brother really did speak together in English. (But why not Dutch?) I assume the switch to English is done to reach a greater audience (though I am positive this movie’s audience would also gladly have watched it in French). This style reminds me a bit of the way sci-fi films set in space handle language barriers. It’s like we, the audience, are in possession of a universal translator, so we hear the characters’ speech in our own language.
And so Willem Dafoe speaks exactly like Willem Dafoe, and his lines are written in the way he would speak in a movie set in this country in the present day. Sometimes that kind of thing annoys me. (It bugged me a little bit in The Messenger, for example, because Luc Besson was not consistent. Some characters seemed to be from medieval France, others from 1980s California for some reason.) But I think this works here. It gives an immediacy, a vibrancy to Vincent. He keeps having significant one-on-one exchanges with various characters, but really, he’s speaking right to us. We are the ones who are supposed to understand him (if anyone can). This probably works for me, too, because it’s subtle, not obnoxious. He’s not using tons of twenty-first century slang and communicating in emojis. He’s just speaking from the heart in a way that we will understand.
As I watched, I was extremely curious about the origins of Vincent’s speeches. The things he says are so philosophical and psychologically revealing, so fascinating. I wanted to believe they were Van Gogh’s own words, taken from letters, journals, transcripts of interviews. (He certainly spent a lot of time in therapy, so the idea seems plausible.) I would love to know how much of Dafoe’s dialogue is comprised of Van Gogh’s own words (or adapted from his sentiments). We feel like we’re getting the real man. In fact, getting this intimate look at Van Gogh and hearing what he thinks it means to be an artist is basically the point of watching this movie, so I’d be disappointed if the screenplay were not partially based on his own recorded words. I think that it is, but I’m not sure.
Dafoe’s Van Gogh is not the only well acted character in the film, but he’s definitely the draw. It’s a magnificent performance. I’m particularly captivated by the way that the “crazier” and more disturbed Vincent gets, the more sense he makes. So often, we see him being quizzed by some other character in a one-on-one interview. That’s basically the structure of the movie. It’s a series of interviews interspersed with scenes of painting in nature. His answers are uncannily meaningful. He frames himself as a great artist, as a soul not appreciated in his own time. By the end, he likens himself to Jesus. (He’s not claiming to be God, just to be tragically unknown and misunderstood in his own time.) Watching, you think, “Well, of course he can’t make anyone understand him. Everyone else is such an idiot.”
Well, they’re not all idiots. The people who have meaningful interactions with Vincent are all quite interesting. I’m particularly fond of his brother Theo, stirringly played by Rupert Fried (whom I loved in The Death of Stalin and enjoyed in A Simple Favor earlier this year). At several moments, Friend made me truly feel Theo’s distress, his love for his unhappy brother.
Oscar Isaac is also good as Gauguin, a character who thoroughly annoyed me. I always like Mads Mikkelsen. Strangely when his priest character struggled to make sense of Vincent, I felt sorry for the priest, though surely Van Gogh is the more obviously pitiable person in that scenario.
Emmanuelle Seigner is quite good as Madame Ginoux, a character I remember from a children’s book about Van Gogh that I used to read with my daughter. Her interactions with Vincent feel so authentic. During these scenes, I sometimes cringed and almost laughed.
There’s an unsettling scene with Niels Arestrup that made me uneasy.
Vladimir Consigny is a very sympathetic, reassuring presence as one doctor, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly star Mathieu Amalric sneaks into the movie at the end, playing another doctor.
The movie has an almost overpowering score, which I usually liked. But what I really loved was the use of nature sounds, the way the wind in the trees makes a music of its own. Reflecting back now, I wonder, “Does that overpowering music represent the tumult Vincent feels as he’s driven away into nature seeking respite?” But I am not sure. I’d need to see the film again.
Best of all is the way the film looks. It seems to aspire to be a Van Gogh painting as it shows us the world through the artist’s eyes.
The entire movie is kind of like that sequence with the chalk drawings in Mary Poppins. It’s like we’ve plunged deep into one of Van Gogh’s paintings (which in this film, he often identifies with himself). We’re getting a multi-sensory portrait of the artist. So this isn’t a typical historical drama at all. It is not trying to be that. It is trying to show us the soul of Van Gogh, by using the gaze, the aural experiences, and the words of Van Gogh. And when you’re plunged into his world, you do begin to understand Van Gogh, even though much of what he experiences is nearly incomprehensible rationally.
Essentially, the film shows us the world of the artist. It’s quite captivating.
Best Scene Visually:
After the movie, my husband and I agreed that an early moment when Vincent wanders through the countryside and looks down at the grass is simply amazing. You could show people this grass and ask, “Who is this movie about?” And they’d be like, “Oh? Vincent van Gogh?”
And there’s another brilliant scene later on showing Vincent’s painting technique as he remembers Gauguin’s critique and contemplates some trees.
Best Action Sequence:
I love the moment when van Gogh learns that Gauguin will leave and is unable to accept it. His frantic cries and haphazard flight really spoke to me.
Best Scene:
Theo van Gogh climbs into his brother’s hospital bed, and Vincent cuddles up to him, so desperate for comfort. You can palpably feel the love and desperation of the Van Gogh brothers in this scene. It shows us so much about Vincent and about Theo. It’s very easy to relate to both Van Goghs here on a human level.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Willem Dafoe:
But I kind of cheated just now because the film’s actual best scene comes when Vincent explains to the doctor how he cut off his ear. This is just brilliantly acted by Dafoe. I absolutely love the way he breaks into an unsettling smile, so delighted to be understood even though what he’s smiling about is so awful.
Honestly Dafoe is the perfect Van Gogh. He’s nearly thirty years older than Vincent when he died, and when you watch the movie, you don’t even notice that. He looks just like him. He paints just like him (even though he must, at times, use the hands of others to do so). He guides us through the revelation of the artist’s entire character.
I love the way each meaningful conversation/interview in the film shows us another crucial side of Van Gogh. He reveals himself as an awkward friend with Madame Ginoux, a frightened brother with Theo. To Gauguin he gives his thoughts on art. To his doctors, he expounds on his madness. To the priest, he talks about his relationship to things beyond. The film systematically shows us all these aspects of Van Gogh, and Dafoe is so thoroughly convincing in every instance that we feel we’ve actually spent two hours in deep conversation with the artist by the end.
The Negatives:
Lots of people will hate this film. I keep thinking of the term “tone poem” and wondering what you call that when it also incorporates visual art and philosophical dialogue. This film is basically a meditation on 1)What it is to be Van Gogh 2) What it means to be an artist 3) What Van Gogh the artist and the concept of the artist mean to us.
So it’s very weird. You could reasonably call it slow because it certainly is in no hurry. It shows us everything on Van Gogh’s schedule, and he’s definitely not wearing a wrist watch set to Greenwich Mean Time. He’s not trying to think outside the box. He can only think when he’s outside the box. Some great artists are not aware there is a box. Going a step further, Van Gogh doesn’t even know where he is.
Dafoe’s Van Gogh isn’t trying to conform, but he is trying to connect, and he feels he can only make a meaningful connection when he shows us what he sees. As the film progresses, we feel we understand him more and more. This can’t be achieved through the usual storytelling methods. So the film is presented in an unusual way that may alienate many viewers. (Even people who respond positively to the film probably have to be in the right mood to watch it.)
The film’s pacing is abnormal. Sometimes it’s ridiculously slow, other times, in a mad rush. But this is being done on purpose. Perhaps the very idea of such a thing makes you cry, “How pretentious!” Certainly At Eternity’s Gate has a healthy dose of self-importance. Like Van Gogh, it has high regard for its own vision. I liked it, but I totally get why others might find it off-putting.
Overall:
At Eternity’s Gate is worth seeing for Willem Dafoe’s powerful star turn as Vincent van Gogh. After watching it, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go to a museum or wander into a field of swirling grass and stare wistfully up at the starry night.