Vincent (1987 film)
Directed byPaul Cox
Written byPaul Cox
StarringJohn Hurt, Marika Rivera and Gabriella Trsek
Narrated byJohn Hurt
Release date
1987
Running time
95 minutes
Box officeAU$301,205 (Australia)[1]

Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh is a documentary film by Australian director Paul Cox, exploring the last eight years of the artist's life. Cox was attracted to the project because of his personal admiration for Van Gough:

I found him such a compassionate, wonderful human being. That attracted me above all. I found him always honest, always real, always doing his utmost, and I related very much to his type of loneliness. It's the loneliness, the dreadful loneliness that I've known all my life. That was still much stronger for me when I tried to become a film-maker - you know, up to 30, 35, I was terribly alone. I was not equipped for the world at all, and, at that level, that is a very similar background to Vincent.[2]

The screen images consist of a wide selection of the paintings and sketches, shown in a chronological sequence, supplemented by shots of the locations he lived in, and a number of dramatised reconstructions of biographical events.

The voice-over narration by John Hurt employs the letters of Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo.

The film was a popular hit on the art house circuit and ran for two years in New York.[3]

References

  1. ^ "Australian Films at the Australian Box Office", Film Victoria accessed 24 October 2012
  2. ^ "Interview with Paul Cox", Signet, 13 January 2001 accessed 18 November 2012
  3. ^ David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, Pan MacMillan, 1990 p114
Categories