Japanese film master Akira Kurosawa once made "Dream" at the age of 80. This film consists of eight short films, like the eight dreams the director had in his later years. Although these dreams have different characters and themes, they are inextricably linked. Almost without exception, they show the protagonist of the dream - or the director himself - looking back on and nostalgic for life.
Among these eight dreams, one of them is the "Dream of Van Gogh". The camera follows a young man slowly moving, showing the classic paintings of Van Gogh's life. Then, he put on his hat and packed his bags, as if being guided by Van Gogh, he walked into his works. And our audience, along with the camera, along with the melodious classical music, entered that wonderful world of images.
Akira Kurosawa was keen on painting in his early years, and his failure to become a painter may be a major regret in his life, but at least he is full of enthusiasm and passion for movies, just like Van Gogh was for painting. He once said: "I, minus the film, equals zero." Perhaps through such a short film, he also paid tribute to and remembered this crazy artist from his own perspective. In his opinion, Van Gogh is exactly the The great genius who "minus the painting" and "equal to zero".
Perhaps Van Gogh's life was too short and mysterious, so that in so many film and television books about Van Gogh left by later generations, everyone is trying to speculate or reproduce the accident that happened to this genius before his death. . A tragic life and a fatally tragic ending, an unappreciated genius painter finally chose to end his life because of his inner depression and escape.
This story was written into his best-selling novel "Longing for Life" by Owen Stone. After so many years, this "satisfying" suicide ending has long become a part of Van Gogh's legendary life and has been recorded in history. But much later evidence has questioned the credibility of this argument. However, we don't have a time machine, and we can't confirm the historical truth. We can only try to piece together a relatively complete Van Gogh from all the remaining materials. Perhaps this is why everyone is so curious and obsessed with his life. A big reason.
In the movie "Love Van Gogh: The Mystery of the Starry Sky", although this ending is also adopted, but unlike almost all previous works about Van Gogh's life, this movie is the first time the screenwriter has confronted Van Gogh on the screen. Whether Gao was "suicide or homicide" was discussed and interpreted. From this point of view, this work is also very different in temperament from those of the previous works. The biggest feature of this film is the way it is presented. It is the world's first fully hand-painted oil painting animation film.
This film not only won the Audience Choice Award at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, known as the "Oscars of the animation industry" in June this year, but also won the Best Animation Award at this year's Shanghai International Film Festival.
And the reason why it can cause such a sensation on a global scale is not only that it is another review of the life of the great artist Van Gogh, especially an exploration of his controversial death; more importantly, it is in its highly creative artistic expression.
2015 was the 125th anniversary of Vincent van Gogh's birth. In order to commemorate the former genius painter, film director Dorota Kobiela invited the Oscar-winning Breakthru Films team to create together. Van Gogh offered a different kind of "tribute".
As a biopic of Van Gogh, the film revolves around the investigation of the truth about "Van Gogh's death". In order to truly and perfectly present the artistic style of the film, the production team recruited 125 painters from 15 countries around the world, most of them from Poland. They deeply investigated 800 letters of Van Gogh before his death, painted a total of 65,000 oil paintings, and then completed this oil painting film work superimposed at a speed of 12 frames per second. That is to say, every frame in the movie we see is an exquisite oil painting.
The director said that the reason why he abandoned CG technology and 2D animation and chose the presentation method of oil painting animation is because Van Gogh's paintings themselves have a "fluidity" . The collective paintings of the artists are also highly consistent with the style of Van Gogh's works to the greatest extent. We can see his well-known works in the film as "alive" in general, vividly spread out in front of the audience. Through this most original and most direct way of presentation, the director hopes to present a perfect tribute to Van Gogh.
The film is narrated from the perspective of Armand Roulin, the son of Van Gogh's good friend, the postman Joseph Roulin. After Van Gogh's death, he was commissioned by his father to hand over to him a letter that Van Gogh wrote to his younger brother Theo before his death. In fact, there is no such thing as Armand's "delivery" in history, but in the film, Armand gradually pieced together a complete "Van Gogh's book" to the audience through the mouths of various characters who had contact with Van Gogh during his lifetime. die".
From the beginning, he was full of resistance to this task, and finally "wanted to do something for him". The change in this process is not so much that Van Gogh's personality charm touched him, it is more that the director made a brief review of the last period of Van Gogh's life through his perspective, and gave a brief review of the final period of his life. The accident was reinterpreted.
The film fades out of the perspective of Van Gogh's younger brother, Theo. We don't know what kind of person his brother is from his mouth. And Van Gogh himself only appears in the scene of recollection. The film is told in the way of interlude, the color pictures in the real world and the black and white pictures in people's memories alternately appear, resulting in a strong contrast. On the one hand, the difference in color tone sets off the overall atmosphere of the film, and at the same time it constantly lays the groundwork for the subsequent plot. Even if the audience already knows the ending, they can still feel the unique texture of the image and be substituted into it.
In the film, the static paint and color blocks suddenly take on a life of their own under the gaze of the camera, and the audience can even feel the painting process of Van Gogh. With the surging and beating of his brush, the paint under the nib also seems to be infused with soul. Magnificent and bright colors burst forth, disorderly but full of power. It's like his heart, his vastness and confusion, his unease and madness, all turned into frames of paintings under the lens, from blurred to clear, both abrupt and natural, flowing slowly in front of the audience.
In this film, the two different art forms of painting art and film art form a perfect fusion, showing an amazing presentation effect. In addition to the hand-painted oil paintings, the film also invited a number of actors. The actors performed in front of the green screen, and then made animations, and then the painters drew them into oil paintings. The process was quite cumbersome. The wonderful performances of the actors, together with the delicate brushstrokes of the painters, give life to the characters in this film.
The title of the film , "Loving Vincent" , is derived from the inscription at the end of every letter Van Gogh communicated with his younger brother. His younger brother Theo is also his partner and confidant, as well as a staunch supporter and sponsor on his painting path. Van Gogh was lonely and embarrassed all his life, often reaching the point of nowhere because of lack of food. Even so, he is still smug, hoping that one day he will repay his brother's careful support for him through his own efforts.
The film ends with two letters, one from Van Gogh to Theo, recording the beginning of his journey as an artist; It also recorded a monologue about death by Van Gogh. Perhaps from these two simple letters, we can glimpse part of Van Gogh's true heart, his optimism and confusion, his loneliness and longing, his insignificance and greatness.
It may be difficult for all words to describe the suffering he has experienced, but at least the paints in his brush can keep jumping and dancing, rendering them continuously, turning them into the twinkling stars in the night sky.
There is a line in the song "Vincent": "this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you." Yeah, this world doesn't deserve a person as beautiful as you. The hustle and bustle of all beings is not worth mentioning in front of your pain, and your silence, like the burning sunflower, is bright and dazzling; it is like the dazzling starry night sky, dreamy and charming.
The original text was published | The rear window official account (ihouchuang) has a small amount of revisions in the text, and the original title has been changed.
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