i just need to unwind in my time machine
I think I very much liked that.
The first thing I was really excitedly happy about was that Amy loved art. Seriously, that so rarely happens: arty characters who are female almost always get landed with the "hahah you think the stars are god's daisy chain lolwimminz" thing where they aren't serious, they don't have any legitimate opinions about art or anything, they're just girly. But nope: Amy wanted to go to the Musee d'Orsay, Amy loved van Gogh's art maybe even more than the Doctor did. And there wasn't even one indication that her liking of art wasn't just, you know, her having artistic preferences and opinions. I really liked that.
I really loved Bill Nighy, obviously, and I thought it was kind of hilarious and awful that he was the only member of the cast attempting to actually pronounce van Gogh anything like he would've. Though I guess since apparently van Gogh is now Scottish...
I also really liked how very pretty it was! The way they filmed it all to have the same kind of colour composition as van Gogh paintings pleased me very much. It felt like someone there also very much liked the paintings concerned and actually wanted to try to do that justice. Okay, it wasn't exactly subtle, especially with the starry night bit, but still: pretty!
I also, on reflection, think I liked how they dealt with van Gogh's mental health issues. This is mostly because 1. they didn't just portray him as not having any, which they could have, 2. they didn't play it for laughs (the scene where he's on the bed crying is genuinely moving, I thought), and 3. it said it wasn't anything to do with either Amy/the Doctor not helping him enough or him being rubbish or anything like that. It portrayed it like a disease, like something he suffered with but worked with as best he could. And I actually don't know how they could have done that better.
I think I mostly want to talk about this with regards to the bit where he goes to 2010 and gets to see that he is a famous and well-respected artist. I was CRINGING, because I was totally convinced they were either going to make him See How He Was Wrong and magically become better, or more likely, that the pressure of that future would be too awful and too much and he'd kill himself earlier and then it would be all about how guilty the Doctor and Amy felt, rather than about him. But I didn't like the idea of them not going and having it then be about how maybe they could have stopped him killing himself if they'd Only Tried Harder, which I think is a horrible and life-destroying way of thinking about these things.
Instead, we got what I think is the best of both worlds: Vincent got his moment of (surprisingly heart-clenching despite the cheese) glory, the Doctor and Amy did their best, but it didn't change the fact he had a disease. It kept the focus on him and his art without saying that his mental health problems weren't real and valid and not his fault. It wasn't subtle, god knows, but there is so much worse than that.
(I am less sure by the he-can-see-invisible-aliens thing, but I am deciding that's either a genius thing or a trained-artist thing. Yep.)
Ooh, I hope this cut-tag nesting thing works. Those of you reading on LJ are kind of seriously missing out: Dreamwidth is sodding wonderful. I grin every time I see a code update, because there's so much work being done and so much effort put into making sure everyone knows exactly what's happening and who's done what. Love it. ETA YES IT WORKS HEY DW PLS TO BE MARRYING ME?[/spiel]
Right, and now I have inadvertant!random!freelance work to do, while trying not to be too sad there will probably never be a #Wootstock in Blighty. *sigh*
The first thing I was really excitedly happy about was that Amy loved art. Seriously, that so rarely happens: arty characters who are female almost always get landed with the "hahah you think the stars are god's daisy chain lolwimminz" thing where they aren't serious, they don't have any legitimate opinions about art or anything, they're just girly. But nope: Amy wanted to go to the Musee d'Orsay, Amy loved van Gogh's art maybe even more than the Doctor did. And there wasn't even one indication that her liking of art wasn't just, you know, her having artistic preferences and opinions. I really liked that.
I really loved Bill Nighy, obviously, and I thought it was kind of hilarious and awful that he was the only member of the cast attempting to actually pronounce van Gogh anything like he would've. Though I guess since apparently van Gogh is now Scottish...
I also really liked how very pretty it was! The way they filmed it all to have the same kind of colour composition as van Gogh paintings pleased me very much. It felt like someone there also very much liked the paintings concerned and actually wanted to try to do that justice. Okay, it wasn't exactly subtle, especially with the starry night bit, but still: pretty!
I also, on reflection, think I liked how they dealt with van Gogh's mental health issues. This is mostly because 1. they didn't just portray him as not having any, which they could have, 2. they didn't play it for laughs (the scene where he's on the bed crying is genuinely moving, I thought), and 3. it said it wasn't anything to do with either Amy/the Doctor not helping him enough or him being rubbish or anything like that. It portrayed it like a disease, like something he suffered with but worked with as best he could. And I actually don't know how they could have done that better.
I think I mostly want to talk about this with regards to the bit where he goes to 2010 and gets to see that he is a famous and well-respected artist. I was CRINGING, because I was totally convinced they were either going to make him See How He Was Wrong and magically become better, or more likely, that the pressure of that future would be too awful and too much and he'd kill himself earlier and then it would be all about how guilty the Doctor and Amy felt, rather than about him. But I didn't like the idea of them not going and having it then be about how maybe they could have stopped him killing himself if they'd Only Tried Harder, which I think is a horrible and life-destroying way of thinking about these things.
Instead, we got what I think is the best of both worlds: Vincent got his moment of (surprisingly heart-clenching despite the cheese) glory, the Doctor and Amy did their best, but it didn't change the fact he had a disease. It kept the focus on him and his art without saying that his mental health problems weren't real and valid and not his fault. It wasn't subtle, god knows, but there is so much worse than that.
(I am less sure by the he-can-see-invisible-aliens thing, but I am deciding that's either a genius thing or a trained-artist thing. Yep.)
Ooh, I hope this cut-tag nesting thing works. Those of you reading on LJ are kind of seriously missing out: Dreamwidth is sodding wonderful. I grin every time I see a code update, because there's so much work being done and so much effort put into making sure everyone knows exactly what's happening and who's done what. Love it. ETA YES IT WORKS HEY DW PLS TO BE MARRYING ME?[/spiel]
Right, and now I have inadvertant!random!freelance work to do, while trying not to be too sad there will probably never be a #Wootstock in Blighty. *sigh*