Since I saw Starry Night, I have been very interested in Vincent Van Gogh. The more you read about the man, he truly lived a fascinating life filled with artistic creativity and also heartbreaking depression. At Eternity’s Gate attempts to reframe the historical narrative of Van Gogh’s life, and mostly succeeds thanks to Willem Dafoe’s performance and some interesting direction.
We see Van Gogh’s (Dafoe) life from his creatively prolific period starting in Arles, France, until his death at 37(!). During this time, the man was completely engulfed in his particular viewpoint that saw these extensive artistic outbursts, which could also coincide with irascible behavior toward the townspeople. Because of this, Van Gogh mostly was alone during this time, occasionally visited by his brother Theo (Rupert Friend), or his colleague Paul Gaugin (Oscar Isaac). Also, the world at large couldn’t understand his antics so much he was institutionalized, to be monitored by various priests (Mads Mikkelsen) and psychiatrists alike.
Director Julian Schnabel appears to clearly be a Van Gogh fan, and wants the world to sympathize with the man. As a result, his primary mission is to make the audience feel what it was like to see and create like Vincent Van Gogh. Most of the movie we are seeing through the “Van Gogh filter” as it will probably be known, because this is going to be recreated. Instagram would be jealous at this filter: it’s blurry at the horizon, but always moving, brighter, and shinier than normal. Or sometimes it’s black and white. One of the smart things Schnabel does is give us the same scene with and without the filter, to show why Van Gogh was in a rush to capture something, and maybe handled his business in rude and potentially scary ways to unknowing people. These filter flourishes, though mostly important for showing us who Van Gogh is, go on well past the point of driving home At Eternity’s Gate’s message. Also, I would have liked to see the darker filters on Van Gogh’s creative palette (for example, what was he seeing when he cut off his ear?).
These artistic licenses would be near unwatchable were it not for Willem Dafoe. You couldn’t make a movie that’s all filter: at some point, you need a real world grounding to help us delineate between creative and man, and Dafoe has to make us sympathize with a man who is confused for simply bonkers. Dafoe gives Van Gogh this earnest description of what he sees or feels early on in the story, slowly explaining where his creativity comes from or why he did something strange. There’s no sense of lying in there: even if evidence is incriminating, Van Gogh will say if he “doesn’t remember” what happened. It’s pretty clear through Dafoe’s performance that Van Gogh’s life is defined by his emotional state, and how he is feeling will determine his behavior. During the creative state, Dafoe has extensive extreme close ups that point out the various set of feelings the actor is pulling out of the tortured artist. When given the chance to interact with someone (especially Mikkelsen) Dafoe completely conveys what is going on in a way that’s easy for the audience to understand but also is said in a way that could confuse who he is talking to.
In At Eternity’s Gate, Van Gogh says that maybe he is “not the artist of this time,” which is easy to say today, but is totally true. Through the years people know a Van Gogh painting when they see it, conveying a host of emotions inside each picture. I’m also glad he says he likes Monet, because it shows he has good instincts outside of his own artistic ambitions.