Vincent van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing
David Bickerstaff, Phil Grabsky, UK, 2015o
This documentary takes the reorientation of Amsterdam's van Gogh Museum as an opportunity to take a fresh look at the cliché-laden life and work of the painter. Using legendary and lesser-known images, letters and insights from experts, it traces the dazzling development by which van Gogh in the 1880s advanced from imitator to legendary innovator of Impressionism, while increasingly experiencing his enthusiastic path himself as failure.
The sunflowers, the wildly moving cornfields and skies, the cut-off ear, the psychiatric hospital, the shot in the chest: more than almost any other superstar of art history, the life and work of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) are obscured by endlessly reproduced clichés. The title of this biographical film is all the more apt, as it presents van Gogh's achievements and tragedy in a new light. Unlike many of his contemporaries, the son of a pastor, who himself wanted to become a preacher for a while and was moved by the misery of London's working class and northern French miners, was not born into art. Like his beloved brother Theo, he was trained as an art dealer but was not happy in this profession. He only decided to become an artist himself at the age of 27, copying folk artists, trying his hand at newspaper illustration and struggling (lifelong) with perspective... With skillfully arranged contemporary impressions and a compelling series of clever image observations by unpretentious experts, director David Bickerstaff and his co-author and producer Phil Grabsky trace the stages of Vincent's life, his tremendous productivity and artistic development up to the bold post-impressionism, which Vincent only had time for a good ten years. The empathetic view from the outside is complemented by excerpts from Vincent's daily correspondence, especially with Theo, which also reveal Vincent to be an excellent writer and relentless Protestant self-analyst. One died in the arms of the other, who bequeathed his brother's carefully nurtured but rarely sold work to the world when he followed him to the neighboring grave a few months later. We know the story, but here it is so succinctly brought to the point that it is shocking all over again. Exactly: A New Way of Seeing.
Andreas Furler