VINCENT

Australia, 1987, 100 minutes, Colour.
John Hurt.
Directed by Paul Cox.

Vincent is a film about Vincent Van Gogh. It was a project dear to Paul Cox for some years before he was finally able to make the film. It is an appreciation of Van Gogh as a man, as an artist, his search and despair.

Paul Cox was born in Holland and therefore has a right to this interpretation of Van Gogh for a world audience. He returned to Europe to shoot location photography in Holland and France. He also re-creates some 19th century scenes: a town street, a tavern, the sequence of Van Gogh's burial. However, the only words in the film (and there are many) come from Vincent's letters to his younger brother Theo. They are spoken with strong interpretation by British actor John Hurt.

The film combines the locations of Van Gogh's life with his words so that the audience is looking at the landscapes that he saw, understanding him through his own words, and then appreciating his artistic achievement in interpreting and presenting those landscapes, objects, people. There are many self-portraits. There is a background of classical music, Cox uses his regular slow pans of nature to create atmosphere. There are many of Cox's grainy 8mm, home movie-style segments in order to create a subjective atmosphere about Vincent. The film is an appreciation as well as an invitation to the audience to perceive Van Gogh's world.

1. The popularity of Van Gogh as an artist? audience knowledge of his life? (The 50s film, Lust for Life, by Vincente Minnelli with Kirk Douglas) Van Gogh as a person, his context and environment, his artistic achievement?

2 Paul Cox and his film-making, style, his Dutch background?

3. The use of Vincent's letters to Theo, as providing information, audience empathy with Van Gogh and his life and character, appreciating his artistic talent, his decline, depression and death? The background of his family, relationships, his religious obsessions and his understanding of God? The choice of John Hurt to read the letters? His interpretation?

4. Holland and its landscapes? Paris? The South of France and the change of light? The importance of colour and light? The classical score and its creating atmosphere?

5. Re-creation of the 19th century: the street scene, the tavern, the house, Van Gogh's death?

6. The initial information given about Vincent Van Gogh to familiarise the audience with him as a person, with his times? The information given throughout the film to build up something of his biography?

7. Seeing things through his eyes: the camera being the eyes of Vincent? The audience-subjectively appreciating the landscapes that
he saw, understanding their effect on him, shapes, colours? The use of sketches and paintings throughout the film?

8. The quality and style of Van Gogh's paintings, sketches? His lack of professional training? The quality of his eye, skill?

9. Vincent' s character: his own view, self-assessment, self-portraits? The Dutch background, his famaily, his relationship with Theo, the continued letters? Theo being younger and dying soon after him? Their being buried side by side? The religious' questions? His wanting to be a pastor and a preacher? The letter with the effect of his first sermon? His continual probing of the nature of God, understanding the world as created? His training as a minister? His growing interest in art, compulsion to paint? It being his life? The continued need tor money - and his selling only one painting in his lifetime? Relationships and his love for his cousin? Her mouthing the word 'Never'? His going to the brothels, his concern about his sexuality? The pregnant prostitute and her kindness towards him? His understanding her, painting her? His letters and his references to his sexuality, his going to the brothels? His appreciation of women and his painting them? His painting of the doctor and his depression? The cinematic ways of indicating his decline and madness? The background to his slicing off his ear? His growing loneliness, doubts? The move to madness and death?

10. The significance of the self –portraits? The portrait of the doctor?

11. The devices that Cox uses to help us appreciate Vincent’s decline and share his awareness of his depressed state and madness?

12. The subjective shots, the grainy home movie style and the insertions into the text and texture of the film?

13. The achievement of presenting a film about Vincent Van Gogh? His achievement and audience appreciation, the influence of
The impressionists, his distinctive style?

14. An overall contemplation of Van Gogh, the musical mood, the panning sequences for the motif of the train and the journey
throughout the film, the comparisons between nature and paintings? Art?