Lust For Life

Vincente Minnelli’s biopic chronicling the life of troubled Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh – whose work was not valued in his lifetime – is a visually beautiful yet unavoidably sad portrait that sticks largely to the facts of Van Gogh’s dramatic life of poverty, uncertainty and mental illness. In one of his career highlights, Kirk Douglas plays Vincent (above), and is intense and direct in portraying the artist’s struggles. Berated by his parents, rejected by lovers, disconnected from God, Vincent flees his minister father, and eventually ends up in Paris with his brother, Theo; there, his life and work take a new direction after he meets another artist, Paul Gauguin (Anthony Quinn). Minnelli frames each scene as a painting – from landscapes to interior shots, the director creates a painterly depth of field as a fitting homage to his subject’s own work.