Loving Vincent | |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Tristan Oliver Łukasz Żal |
Edited by |
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Music by | Clint Mansell |
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Running time | 95 minutes [4] |
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Language | English |
Budget | $5.5 million [5] |
Box office | $42.1 million [6] |
Loving Vincent is a 2017 adult animated drama film about the life of the painter Vincent van Gogh, in particular the circumstances of his death. It is the first fully painted animated feature film. [7] [8] The film, written and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, is a Polish-UK co-production, funded by the Polish Film Institute, and partially through a Kickstarter campaign. [9]
First conceived as a seven-minute short film in 2008, [7] Loving Vincent was realized by Dorota Kobiela, a painter herself, after studying the techniques and the artist's story through his letters. [10]
Each of the film's 65,000 frames is an oil painting on canvas, created using the same techniques as Van Gogh by a team of 125 artists drawn from around the globe. [8] [11] The film premiered at the 2017 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. [2] It won Best Animated Feature Film Award at the 30th European Film Awards in Berlin and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 90th Academy Awards. The film marked Helen McCrory's final film role before her death in April 2021. [12]
One year after Vincent van Gogh's suicide, postman Joseph Roulin asks his son Armand to deliver Van Gogh's last letter to his brother, Theo. Roulin finds the death suspicious, as merely weeks earlier Van Gogh claimed through letters that his mood was calm and normal. Armand reluctantly agrees and heads for Paris.
Père Tanguy, a Montmartre art supplier, tells Armand that Theo actually died six months after Vincent. He suggests that Armand travel to Auvers-sur-Oise and look for Dr. Paul Gachet, who housed Van Gogh after his release from an asylum, shared his love for art, and attended the funeral. Once there, Armand learns that the doctor is out on business. So he stays at the same inn that Van Gogh did during his time in the area. There he meets the temporary proprietress Adeline Ravoux, who was fond of Van Gogh and also surprised by his death. At her suggestion, Armand visits the local boatman, who informs him that Van Gogh kept close company with Dr. Gachet's sheltered daughter, Marguerite. When Armand visits her, Marguerite denies and is angered when Armand implies that Van Gogh's suicidal mood could have resulted from an argument with her father.
Throughout the investigation, Armand begins to suspect a local boy named René Secretan, who reportedly liked to torment Van Gogh, owned a gun, and had often drunkenly brandished it around town. Dr. Mazery, who examined Van Gogh, also claims that the shot must have come from a few feet away, ruling out suicide. When Armand implicates René, Marguerite confesses that she was in close, but not romantic, relations with Van Gogh, but she does not believe that René was capable of murder.
Dr. Gachet finally returns and promises to deliver Armand's letter to Theo's widow. He admits there was an argument between them – Van Gogh accused Gachet of being a coward for not pursuing his dreams, to which Gachet angrily accused Van Gogh of worsening Theo's health by overly depending on his brother. Gachet posits that this accusation drove Van Gogh to suicide in order to release Theo from the burden. After Armand returns home, postman Roulin later receives word from Theo's widow, Johanna, thanking Armand for returning the letter. Johanna attaches to her letter to Armand one of Van Gogh's letters to her – signed, "Your loving Vincent."
The leading cast is as follows: [13] [14]
The filmmakers chose classically trained painters over traditional animators because, as Welchman said later, he wanted to avoid artists with "personalised styles" and employ people who were "very pure oil painters" instead. A total of 125 painters from over 20 countries traveled to Poland to work on the project following selection from around 5,000 applicants, many of whom responded to an online "recruitment teaser". The number of participants was greater than originally envisaged, which meant that due to difficulties in obtaining funding the task had to be completed in a correspondingly shorter period of time. [8] [15] [16]
The creation of the film storyboard was informed by Van Gogh's paintings, sometimes with only minor alterations to the latter, but on occasions more complex transformations involving changes to the weather or time of day were carried out. Since artists typically painted over frames once they had been photographed, of the 65,000 produced during the course of the project only 1,000 survived. [15]
The film uses a form of rotoscoping. Production for the film began with a live-action cast filming against a green screen. After filming, editors composited Van Gogh's paintings into scene backgrounds and finally cut the film together as usual. However, once the actual film was complete, they shot each individual frame onto a blank canvas, and artists painted over each image. In all the project took 6 years to complete, [8] and in describing the laborious process involved Welchman noted that the film's creators had "definitely without a doubt invented the slowest form of filmmaking ever devised in 120 years." [17]
The movie is considered a box office success, grossing over an estimated $42.1 million (in USD) worldwide on a budget of $5.5 million, with United States earnings totaling $6.7 million. The film has most notably grossed $3 million in South Korea, $2.1 million in Italy, and $10.8 million in China. [18]
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 85% based on 162 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Loving Vincent's dazzling visual achievements make this Van Gogh biopic well worth seeking out – even if its narrative is far less effectively composed." [19] Metacritic reports a score of 62 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [20]
A. O. Scott, writing for The New York Times , found the visual aspects of the film to be innovative, stating: "the viewer also becomes accustomed to the images, and astonishment at the film's innovative, painstaking technique begins to fade. But its charm never quite wears off, for reasons summed up in the title." [21] Actress Angourie Rice had similar sentiments, writing in an essay that “it was such a fascinating experience to witness the actors’ performances turned into Van Gogh style paintings. The great thing about this film is that it also made me question what the merging of art forms meant for art, film, and everything in between.” [22]
Giuseppe Sedia of the Krakow Post praised the impressive visual style of the movie. However, he added, "In their concern to keep the viewers interested, directors Kobiela and Welchman have built an over-narrated and spirit-dampening movie in which the preponderance of the dialogues hinders the viewers’ immersion into the violent beauty and materiality of Van Gogh’s oeuvre". [23]
The film won the "Most Popular International Feature" award at the 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival. [24] It was nominated in the Hollywood Music in Media Awards 2017 [25] for Best Original Score in an Animated Film. It won the Audience Award at the 2017 Annecy International Animated Film Festival [26] and the Golden Goblet for Best Animation Film at the Shanghai International Film Festival. [27] It won the XII Festival de Cine Inédito de Mérida (FCIM) after obtaining the highest score among the projected films and also the highest score obtained in the history of the event. [28] On 9 December 2017, the film won Best Animated Feature Film Award at the 30th European Film Awards in Berlin. [29] The film also received Best Animated Feature nominations at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. [30] [31]
Year | Ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
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2017 | 30th European Film Awards | Best Animated Feature Film | Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman | Won | [32] |
Columbus Film Critics Association Awards | Best Animated Feature | Loving Vincent | Runner-up | [33] | |
Shanghai International Film Festival | Best Animation Film | Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman | Won | [34] | |
Hollywood Music in Media Awards 2017 | Best Original Score | Clint Mansell | Nominated | [25] | |
Florida Film Critics Circle | Best Animated Film | Loving Vincent | Nominated | [35] [36] | |
2018 | Vilnius International Film Festival | The Audience Award | Loving Vincent | Won | [37] |
75th Golden Globe Awards | Best Animated Feature Film | Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman | Nominated | [31] | |
St. Louis Film Critics Association | Best Animated Feature | Nominated | [38] | ||
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards | Best Animated Feature | Nominated | [39] | ||
22nd Satellite Awards | Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature | Loving Vincent | Nominated | [40] | |
Boston Society of Film Critics | Best Animated Film | 2nd Place | [41] [42] | ||
23rd Critics' Choice Awards | Best Animated Feature | Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman | Nominated | [43] | |
90th Academy Awards | Best Animated Feature | Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart | Nominated | [30] | |
45th Annie Awards | Best Animated Feature — Independent | Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart | Nominated | [44] | |
Outstanding Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature Production | Clint Mansell | Nominated | |||
Outstanding Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production | Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Jacek Dehnel | Nominated | |||
71st British Academy Film Awards | Best Animated Film | Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart | Nominated | [45] | |
St. Louis Film Critics Association | Best Animated Feature | Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart | Nominated | [38] | |
Alliance of Women Film Journalists | Best Animated Film | Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart | Won | [46] | |
Georgia Film Critics Association | Best Animated Film | Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart | Nominated | [47] | |
Art Directors Guild | Production Design in an Animated Feature | Matthew Button | Nominated | [48] | |
Golden Eagle Award (Russia) | Best Foreign Language Film | Loving Vincent | Won | [49] |
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic brushwork that contributed to the rise of expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's work was beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard, was sold.
Lust for Life is a 1956 American biographical film about the life of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, based on the 1934 novel of the same title by Irving Stone which was adapted for the screen by Norman Corwin.
Portrait of Dr. Gachet is one of the most revered paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It depicts Dr. Paul Gachet, a homeopathic doctor and artist with whom van Gogh resided following a spell in an asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Gachet took care of Van Gogh during the final months of his life. There are two authenticated versions of the portrait, both painted in June 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise. Both show Gachet sitting at a table and leaning his head on his right arm, but they are easily differentiated in color and style. There is also an etching.
Auvers-sur-Oise is a commune in the department of Val-d'Oise, on the northwestern outskirts of Paris, France. It is located 27.2 km (16.9 mi) from the centre of Paris. It is associated with several famous artists, the most prominent being Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). This was the place where van Gogh died and where he and his brother, Theo, were buried.
Paul-Ferdinand Gachet was a French physician most famous for treating the painter Vincent van Gogh during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise. Gachet was a great supporter of artists and the Impressionist movement. He was an amateur painter, signing his works "Paul van Ryssel", referring to his birthplace: Rijsel is the Dutch name of Lille.
Vincent van Gogh lived during the Impressionist era. With the development of photography, painters and artists turned to conveying the feeling and ideas behind people, places, and things rather than trying to imitate their physical forms. Impressionist artists did this by emphasizing certain hues, using vigorous brushstrokes, and paying attention to highlighting. Vincent van Gogh implemented this ideology to pursue his goal of depicting his own feelings toward and involvement with his subjects. Van Gogh's portraiture focuses on color and brushstrokes to demonstrate their inner qualities and Van Gogh's own relationship with them.
The fame of Vincent van Gogh began to spread in France and Belgium during the last year of his life, and in the years after his death in the Netherlands and Germany. His friendship with his younger brother Theo was documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. The letters were published in three volumes in 1914 by Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Theo's widow, who also generously supported most of the early Van Gogh exhibitions with loans from the artist's estate. Publication of the letters helped spread the compelling mystique of Vincent van Gogh, the intense and dedicated painter who died young, throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
The Roulin Family is a group of portrait paintings Vincent van Gogh executed in Arles in 1888 and 1889 of Joseph, his wife Augustine and their three children: Armand, Camille and Marcelle. This series is unique in many ways. Although Van Gogh loved to paint portraits, it was difficult for financial and other reasons for him to find models. So, finding an entire family that agreed to sit for paintings — in fact, for several sittings each — was a bounty.
Vincent & Theo is a 1990 biographical drama film about the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and his brother Theo (1857–1891), an art dealer. While Vincent van Gogh's artworks are now famous, he was essentially unrecognized in his lifetime, and survived on his brother's charity. The film was directed by Robert Altman, and starred Tim Roth and Paul Rhys in the title roles.
Van Gogh is a 1991 French biographical drama film written, produced and directed by Maurice Pialat. It stars Jacques Dutronc in the role of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, for which he won the 1992 César Award for Best Actor. Set in 1890, the film follows the last 67 days of Van Gogh's life and explores his relationships with his brother Theo, his physician Paul Gachet, and the women in his life, including Gachet's daughter, Marguerite.
BreakThru Films is an independent film production company based in Sopot in Poland. Founded in 2002 by Hugh Welchman and initially based in the United Kingdom. The company concentrated mostly in the production of short films, animation, documentary and live-stage shows but has since focused mainly on feature films. Their 2006 short film Peter and the Wolf was awarded an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and their 2017 feature film Loving Vincent was Academy nominated for Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
The Auberge Ravoux is a French historic landmark located in the heart of the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. It is known as the House of Van Gogh because the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life as a lodger at the auberge. During his stay at Auvers, Van Gogh created more than 80 paintings and 64 sketches before shooting himself in the chest on 27 July 1890 and dying two days later on 29 July 1890. The auberge (inn) has been restored as a museum and tourist attraction. The room where Van Gogh lived and died has been restored and can be viewed by the public.
Girl in White was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, during the last months of his life. Girl in White has been part of the Chester Dale Collection in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. since 1963.
Vincent van Gogh enjoyed making Paintings of Children. He once said that it's the only thing that "excites me to the depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else." Painting children, in particular represented rebirth and the infinite. Over his career Van Gogh did not make many paintings of children, but those he completed were special to him. During the ten years of Van Gogh's career as a painter, from 1881 to 1890, his work changed and grew richer, particularly in how he used color and techniques symbolically or evocatively.
Dr. Gachet's Garden in Auvers and Marguerite Gachet in the Garden were both painted in 1890 by Vincent van Gogh in the gardens of his homeopathic physician, Dr. Paul Gachet. Both paintings reside at the Musée d'Orsay.
Vincent van Gogh died in the early morning of 29 July, 1890 in his room at the Auberge Ravoux, in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, after presumably shooting himself two days earlier.
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh is a collection of 903 surviving letters written (820) or received (83) by Vincent van Gogh. More than 650 of these were from Vincent to his brother Theo. The collection also includes letters van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil and other relatives, as well as between artists such as Paul Gauguin, Anthon van Rappard, and Émile Bernard.
Hugh Stewart Jasper Welchman is a British filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer.
DK Welchman is a Polish filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. She is best known for co-directing her first fully painted animated feature film Loving Vincent (2017) with her husband Hugh Welchman.
At Eternity's Gate is a 2018 biographical drama film about the final years of painter Vincent van Gogh's life, including dramatizing the theory that van Gogh's death was caused by manslaughter rather than suicide.