There are so many good options in theaters right now, it’s hard to keep track of it all. The task of seeing as much as possible in a timely fashion is often overwhelming but that’s a good thing. The downside is theater chains typically make more screens and showtimes available to more financially successful titles. It’s a business. Independent films have short shelf lives at the box office because they just don’t generate a lot of revenue. This makes it difficult on those films to find their way to a niche audience and vice versa. At Eternity’s Gate is a remarkable example of avant-garde filmmaking that the majority of people just won’t get a chance to see in theaters, if at all.
It is a little embarrassing to think that the name Julian Schnabel didn’t immediately ring any bells for me when I heard he directed this movie. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Before Night Falls are two films I thoroughly enjoyed but had watched both of those long before writing about film, so I never committed his name to memory. I won’t make that mistake again. At this point in his life and his career as an artist, Schnabel is a visionary filmmaker at the zenith of his creative prowess. Nobody is making films like this man and it would be difficult to even find a comparison. There is a deluge of passion pouring off the screen, filled with imagination and energy that you just can’t find anywhere else.
His signature intense close-ups and point-of-view camera are used to great effect thanks to Cinematographer Benoît Delhomme. Unlike other films that have utilized the first-person perspective, Schnabel doesn’t present it as a piece of “found-footage”. In presenting van Gogh’s standpoint, the camera used a bifocal lens to literally create a split view of reality: emphasizing the artist’s fractured world-view. The exterior shots and landscape cinematography, combined with vibrant yellow light, beautifully captured the elements of nature that the Dutch painter so desperately longed to connect with. Although it may be a little jarring in some instances, this was easily one of the more ambitious visual efforts in recent memory. Hopefully, it will get recognized as such.
Willem Dafoe was superb as the eternally troubled and tormented van Gogh. He’s one of my favorite actors and seeing him get this opportunity was enough to justify purchasing a ticket. I am no art history major but personal information on van Gogh seemed fairly limited. In taking this role, Dafoe was not only able to embody a very complex character but also bring to light a much more complete understanding of one of history’s most iconic artists. In order to play this part, and to do it well, you needed a guy who’s got some intensity and is a little strange. Dafoe has that in spades. There is a fire in his eyes that worked really well with the character direction and his uneasy charm helped set the table for his social struggles. He’s played so many different characters at this point in career, this wasn’t a huge leap for him in terms of range but that shouldn’t discount the power and raw energy he brought to this role. This was his finest performances in recent memory; much more layered and challenging than his role in The Florida Project which saw him receive an Oscar nod last year. The Golden Globe nomination is fitting and it would be surprising if the Academy didn’t follow suit and include him for Best Actor honors this year.
Outside of Dafoe, the surround performances left a lot to be desired. Oscar Isaac has been getting a lot of work but is very much hit or miss. In this instance, as Paul Gaugin, he didn’t bring anything of particular note to the role. It’s a large supporting part and there’s an implicit same-sex attraction on van Gogh’s part which provides some insight into his myth as an artist. The two actors simply didn’t share much chemistry, romantic or otherwise. Isaac wasn’t bad but it felt like an odd casting choice. Seeing how there is no casting director listed in the film’s credits, I could see why he seemed out of place. Dafoe had markedly better chemistry with Rupert Friend who played his brother, Theo. Their bond as siblings was a strange one and the two actors certainly didn’t hold back in showcasing it. Their relationship was more expository than any other in the script but wasn’t given as much time as it probably should have been.
Both the film and sound editing choices created some intentionally bizarre overlays, mirroring van Gogh’s internal torment. Unfortunately, Schnabel and his film editor Louise Kugelberg were a little overindulgent in the artistry which made for a fair amount of redundancy over the course of nearly two hours. Thankfully, it doesn’t impact the movie negatively but it does slow things down a bit. Helping to move some of that along, Tatiana Lisovkaia’s original music is beautiful, powerful and sad but still maintains crucial undertones of hope. The tone fo her compositions and the timbre of the piano were a perfect match for the troubled artist who still managed to seek out and paint the beauty he saw in the world, despite much of the ugliness that came his way.
I can’t say this was the best movie of the year or even one of my personal favorites but I am a weird guy. However, I walked out of the theater with a profound respect for the level of craftsmanship and ingenuity that went into this film. It’s a really brilliant piece of filmmaking in many regards but certainly a niche project. This movie is definitely flying under the radar right now but the Golden Globe nod should at least get a few more people interested.
Recommendation: Anyone who is a van Gogh’s work should check it out. Fans of Willem Dafoe and Julian Schnabel should also make time for this. Even if you’re not, the movie itself is an art piece that will hopefully move the whole genre towards more challenging endeavors. If you get motion sickness easily, there are some sequences that may be disorienting so be warned.