MODIGLIANI

UK, 2004, 123 minutes, Colour.
Andy Garcia, Ojid Djamili, Elsa Zylberstein, Hippolyte Girardot, Udo Kier, Miriam Margolyes, Jim Carter.
Directed by Mick Davis.

Modigliani is based on the life and career of the Italian artist, Amadeo Modigliani. He was a Sephardic Jew from Livorno – who went to France, joined in the artists’ café society of post-World War One Paris. He was a friend/rival of Picasso. He died young, a victim of self-absorption, self-destructive attitudes, drugs and alcohol.

The film shows something of his career, his relationship with Picasso, with other artists in Paris at the time including Utrillo and Diego Rivera, his relationship with a young Catholic woman, Jeanne, the mother of his child.

However, the film says at the beginning that it is a fictionalised portrait of the artist, an interpretation of his life and career and its meaning.

Andy Garcia is far older than Modigliani was at the time of his death. British stand-up comedian Ojid Djamili is an unusual choice as Picasso. Elsa Zylberstein is Jeanne. The Paris society at the time included entrepreneur Max Jacob, portrayed by Udo Kier, and American writer Gertrude Stein, portrayed by Miriam Margolyes. Jim Carter has a strong role as Jeanne’s bigoted and domineering and abusive father.

The film was written and directed by Scots director, Mick Davis. The setting is only twenty to thirty years after the time of Toulouse Lautrec and the other artists of the Moulin Rouge. A cinema companion piece would be James Ivory’s Surviving Picasso with Anthony Hopkins as Picasso.

1.The film as history? A portrait? Fictional interpretation? Interconnections?

2.Paris, 1919, post-World War One, the cafés, café life, the arts, the musical score? The reproductions of paintings?

3.The audience knowledge of Modigliani, his life, his art, Jewish background, prejudice?

4.The effect of a fictionalised biography? Portrait? How much insight into the artist?

5.The narrative, direct, Modigliani in 1919-1920, the flashbacks, his childhood, the device of himself as a young boy appearing, being a conscience? His walking of hand-in-hand with Picasso at the end?

6.Andy Garcia as Modigliani, Djamili as Picasso, the various artists, Utrillo, Jeanne, Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, Jean Cocteau?

7.The introduction to Modigliani: the sketches at the café, the crowds, the exuberance, the clown? Picasso and Olga, Gertrude Stein and Jacob? Cocteau? The variety of artists? The build-up to the competition? His encounter with Jeanne, at the art school, the liaison, the child, his living with her, her passion? His habit of running away? His decisions, the conflict with Jeanne’s father, his anti-Semitic prejudice? His mother-in-law, her care, going to the orphanage and bringing back the child? His painting? The competition, his refusal, the agent and persuasion, the discussions, arguments, the rivalries with Picasso? His drinking, the drugs? The imagination of Utrillo in the asylum, his visit? Picasso and his taunt, using his painting as an empty canvas? Signing for the competition, painting Jeanne, her pregnancy? Completing the painting, its being hung, his drinking, his being bashed outside the bar, in hospital, his getting the licence for the wedding, the beginning of a new life, his death?

8.Jeanne, her background, parents, her bigoted father, his abuse? Meeting Modigliani, infatuated with him, the liaison, the baby, her passion, her conflict with her father, the support of her mother? Posing for Picasso, the gift? The moments of happiness, her pregnancy? Sitting for the painting? Her pleasure at its acclaim? His arrival home, the blood, going to the hospital, his death, her not being able to live without him, her suicide? The close-up of the gravestones?

9.Picasso, in himself, his success, relationship with Olga, in 1919, Paris, art, reputation, his personal life, in the cafés, friendship with Cocteau, painting, taunting Modigliani, the rivalry, painting Modigliani for the competition, leading the applause, the information about his last breath and saying Modigliani’s name?

10.Utrillo, his drinking, mad behaviour, in the asylum, his painting this for the competition?

11.Diego Rivera, the other artists, the painting of the carcass, the military, the women? Modigliani in this vein, his nudes, his exploration of the body? Using the techniques of Picasso and others at the time?

12.Parisian society, Gertrude Stein and her eminence, writing, Cocteau and his influence, Max Jacob, the entourage?

13.The agent, his support of Modigliani? The paintings in the competition, unveiling, their skill and acclaim?

14.Art, style, achievement? Art history via drama?