Tonight I watched with great trepidation 'The Yellow House' on C4. I
was nervous, because if any artist is more in danger of being
caricatured by a film it is Vincent Van Gogh. Already the premises of
the book and this film based on the book irked me - why isolate just
this nine weeks stay of Paul Gauguin with Van Gogh probably because
its the most sensational part of the Van Gogh story - when he cut the
lobe of his left ear off after a fight with Gauguin. Besides, although
it has sometimes been laughed at by art critics, I was so familiar
with the great Hollywood film 'Lust For Life' which covered the whole
of Van Gogh's creative life and had great central performances from
Kurk Douglas as Vincent and Anthony Quinn as Paul. I hardly imagined
that 'Lust For Life' could be bettered by this new film and it wasn't.
I had never bothered reading Martin Gayford book of the same name, for
the simple fact of Van Gogh fatigue. I mean I adore him and his art
and his writings, but enough is enough already! There are plenty of
other artists who's stories would make good movies.
In a sense the nine weeks Vincent and Paul spent together were
atypical in Van Gogh's story. He was a profoundly lonely man who spent
most of his adult life in isolation, in one run down room over a cafe,
after another - 37 different places in total. He probably suffered
from manic depression compounded by epilepsy, absinthe poisoning,
frantic over work and malnutrition. He wandered, he painted, he drew,
he read, and he wrote incessantly seeking salvation in his art. But
perhaps because of his isolation he had always dreamed of an artists
community, where he could work together with other like minded artists
on the project of late Impressionism. Vincent hoped that Gauguin would
just be the first artist to join him in Arles. The trouble was that as
characters they were an explosive combination. Gauguin was sinister,
manipulative and domineering while Van Gogh was passive-aggressive,
argumentative and needy. They had met before in Paris many times,
usually near the art supply shop of Pere Tanguy, where Tanguy showed
artists paintings he had received in receipt of art supplies. At this
time, Van Gogh was still trying to find himself in a variety of sub
Impressionist experimentation's. Gauguin on the other hand had slowly
but surely started evolving his own very private style in Brittany.
However when Gauguin walked off the train and saw Vincent's recent
efforts he was walking in to a full scale revolution in art. Seeing
the huge number of canvases that Vincent had made in less than a year
must have been gob smacking. But Gauguin defended his own self esteem
by attacking Vincents slap dash approach to painting. Paul took on a
tutors attitude towards Vincent, trying to get him to paint from
memory, slowly and with consideration.
As artists they were in many ways opposites. Gauguin would in his
later years in the South Seas, produce highly coloured exotic ****s
that were built on a drawn foundation handed down from Ingres and
Degas - they were modern and primitive and yet also strangely
classical. Gauguin thought deeply about his paintings, and painted
them slowly, often over years. Van Gogh on the other hand was all
about capturing the moment. He painted in a frenzy, which had an inner
logic all of its own, and he described his best paintings pouring out
in feverish bursts. But there was far more intelligence in Van Gogh's
manic painting than one might imagine, and despite Gauguin's classical
leanings there was far more of a whiff of sulpher about his work - he
was a decadent familiar with drugs, whores, drink and later underage
Tahitian girls.
Of course the high moment came when after they had a fight, Gauguin
stormed off and Vincent cut off the lobe of his left ear (not his
whole ear) and then handed it in a letter to Rachel a prostitute in
the local brothel. This was just the latest in a series of what today
would be called 'self-harming episodes' in Vincent's life and it would
not be his last - that was when 18 months later he shot himself in the
chest and died a day later. The best explanation I have heard about
this episode, is that Vincent would go to the bull fights in the local
arena and saw the way the matador's cut the ear of the bull off as a
trophy. In cutting his ear off, Vincent was acknowledging Gauguin as
the victor of their psychic battle of wills. But it was also typical
of a passive aggressive man boiling with rage, but who could not bring
himself to strike out at another man so turned upon himself - the man
he truly hated. However he cut his ear lobe off - not his painting
hand! He was not that beaten!
So you would expect that with material like this, any drama could not
lose? Well 'The Yellow House' bombed. Over acted, underacted,
theatrical, tedious and laughable at times - this film was rubbish. I
didn't believe a word of it, even when I heard them quote directly
from their letters. The low brow nature of this film was summed up at
the end when we were told that the 40 paintings they made together are
now worth $1.5 Billion. So ****ing What!!!! What in Gods name does
that tell us about their work or the meaning of their lives!!! Just
another example of the way our capitalistic, consumerist, celebrity-
driven culture devours all higher meanings and ****s it out as sound
bite adverts for consumption, capital and fame. The fact of the matter
is that Paul and Vincent were just two among many artists, thinkers,
socialists, philosophers, decadents, and writers in the late
nineteenth century who imagined a better world, one driven by higher
morals, shared wealth, and belief in the power of art to change the
world. They may have been wrong or naive, but they had principals.
Which is part of the barrier to today's world understanding them and
their art. Maybe the kids on the ramparts in Paris in 1968 were the
last people to truly understand these men at all.
Neither John Simms as Vincent nor John Lynch as Gauguin, had any
understanding of them. Neither of them had the volcanic and tortured
personalities to live up to their parts. These days you would need
someone like a young Robert de Nero to play Vincent and Bernice Del
Tori to play Gauguin - with Martin Scorsese directing it in a 'Taxi
Driver' meets 'One Flew Over The Cook's Nest' kind of style.
If alive today, Gauguin would be in prison for pedophilia, and Van
Gogh would be on lithium, and in a self-help group for painting
addicts. But we still have their art and their example. If you have
never read Vincent's letters - I heartily recommend it. In them you
will hear his real voice and his real thoughts without having to watch
some third rate actors interpret them in a made for television movie.
www.thepanicartist.com
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