Van Gogh: Painted With Words
I'm linking this back to cumberbatchfans , but I should warn the casual reader that I am not capable of looking at this film through a lens that is not personal, so please forgive my digressions.
Let me first speak about the film itself. At first, I had trouble watching it, because I'm very unaccustomed to the idea of an actor playing a part within a documentary- really playing it, not reenacting it. I loathe and detest most reenactments, and I tend to veer in the direction of Ken Burns when I need my documentary fix. But ultimately it ended up working, being effective in the same way Burns' use of voice-over actors to read letters is effective.
Having the character portrayed fully on screen is, I think, necessary, because Van Gogh is so symbolic, so much a page in an art history books that trying to study him can be alienating. I will freely admit that before this documentary, I had never really taken a serious look at his work. I'd never been able to get beyond the ubiquitous paintings that seemed to have lost all meaning, having been reduced to a post card so many times. As an amateur painter myself, it occurs to me now what an appalling failure that was on my part.
There are a few documentaries whose creators I don't follow as a rule, but whose individual pieces have struck me deeply- Errol Morris' Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, and Frederick Wisemen's most horrifying Titicut Follies, both of which I would recommend to anyone who is serious about high quality documentary work.
I wouldn't necessarily liken Van Gogh: Painted With Words to either of those documentaries except to say that they carry elements of them. I normally get turned off immediately when an actor breaks the fourth wall in a film. Very rarely does it work, and it takes an incredible level of skill to act directly into a camera, a void that clicks, refocuses, and offers no quarter. Even a very good actor talking to a camera is going to find it incredibly challenging, because acting is, at its essence, reacting. How does one react to a machine?
In his interviews in Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, Errol Morris devised a technique that allows an interview in which the subject looks directly into the camera, except that (much like a teleprompter) a pane of glass is placed over the camera and the live image of the interviewer is projected on it, so that the interviewee doesn't see the camera, but rather the other person. The effect on the subject is visible, the brightness of the eyes, and you get this extraordinary sense that you are in conversation with this person. This invention was named the Interrotron, and if you look, you start to see it every where.
If I didn't know better, I'd swear this technique was being used for Van Gogh. In fact, I don't know better, because it may have been, but I prefer to believe it's Benedict all the way (and I think the technique doesn't work as well with monologuing) because the brightness is there. Benedict Cumberbatch has the ability to stare into the void, look at his own reflection in the glass of the lens, and bring absolute truth to a part, even one so unwieldy.
Overall, I think this documentary managed to bring something new to the table on a subject that seems to have been flogged to death. And while a screen separates me from the actor, it gives me flutters of joy, because one of my favourite experiences as an audience member is when an actor locks eyes with me and plays to me. I suspend disbelief so totally that my reaction to the character is real, personal and I become part of the story. I call it the Intiman Effect, after the theatre here in Seattle where that seems to happen the most- no doubt owing to the so named "intimate" lay out.
This film has changed my perspective on Van Gogh, which is the most I could have asked from it. I'm normally quite adverse to expressionistic paintings, and used to think of Van Gogh as an exclusively expressionist painter, but now I'm much more aware of how limited my view has been. Starry Night in particular I've never been able to appreciate, because it was a symbol in my mind before I even understood what a painting was. But as far as the field of art history documentary goes, I'd definitely want to show this in a classroom, because it lends a new appreciation to both the painter and the work itself.
Let me now speak to the madness. It's fast becoming a tired subject with me, I know, but I can't help it. No one with manic depressive disorder can ever watch a portrayal of an individual who is also afflicted (or gifted, if you like) without a highly critical eye. I admit I hesitated a little bit because I always do whenever I see a favourite actor try and take on my illness. Granted, a lot of actors have my illness, probably a lot more than have ever admitted to it, but it makes me wary nonetheless. I have an acute sense of what it's like, so when I see an actor in a padded cell or a rubber room, I watch keenly for accuracy.
I needn't have worried. Benedict didn't trip in any of the pitfalls, didn't do his best impression of a manic person, but rather just played it. A director can't say to an actor, "play it manic!" because it's both a stereotype and an unplayable direction. "Play it as if you had ten cups of coffee and never stop moving" is something an actor can work with, though most good actors don't really need that level of babysitting.
The filmmakers gloss over the reality of bipolar disorder to a degree- that is to say, they don't try to bear witness to the dizzying heights of insanity that it can bring. The violence of Van Gogh's mania is evident in his self-mutilation, but that's probably the tip of the iceberg. By the time I was fully realized in my psychosis, I would have done more than cut off my own ear, I would've have happily used my teeth to sever someone else's and then offered to kiss it better. Fortunately, I was subdued before I managed to commit some kind of crime, but it does make me wonder about the level of Van Gogh's madness. He clearly was a cyclical manic depressive, while my madness lies almost completely dormant with the help of medication, and doesn't fluctuate. Was he crazier than me? I'm not suicidal, so maybe, but it's impossible to know.
Benedict Cumberbatch really seems to be riding those waves, and while I would have loved to see the character's insanity more realized, it would have been more appropriate for a feature. It makes sense that they wouldn't incorporate the full extent of the madness into a documentary, because it would have overwhelmed it. Benedict does scratch the surface as he recites the biblical letters, showing signs of a rising manic episode. That kind of thinking, that fast-paced, abstract and ultimately incoherent train of thought that races through the mind is pretty much exactly as Benedict depicts it. Before my crisis, I spent an entire twenty four hours talking avidly to my ceiling in just the same way.
Manic depressives (when they haven't melted their brains with drugs, or killed themselves) can be very high functioning, and often rather more than the "sane" individual. A lot of geniuses (Van Gogh, Beethoven, Byron, Woolf, etc) have been posthumously diagnosed with the disorder, which I knew vaguely in the back of my mind before I was diagnosed last year, but it has, now more than ever, given me cause to examine their works.
It disturbs me slightly to see Van Gogh's work, because I can almost trace its manic origins, the racing energy, almost exactly what he was feeling when he painted a given piece. It's ironic that as his illness progressed, his painting become more and more the distinctive styling we tend to think of when we think of Van Gogh, but I will never be able to look at it without seeing an edge of madness to the genius. There is a strange dichotomy in his paintings, the uproarious lively colours, which I see as a representation of that manic expression, but also the neat, orderly and precise brush strokes that make up the overall picture. Tight, organized brilliance combined with indescribable, euphoric torment.
For me, Van Gogh: Painted With Words accomplished two things. First, I now have a better sense of the diversity of Van Gogh's work and finally have the desire to see it, and second, I am now more determined than ever to get a front row seat at a West End theatre and see Benedict Cumberbatch on stage. Brilliant though he may be on screen, there is something about breathing the same air as a performer that is special. For those brief hours, that character is tangible beyond that which a screen can deliver. Van Gogh gave me a taste of what it would be like to see Benedict challenge me as an audience member (because it is something of a challenge, not blinking, not looking away) and now I'm hungrier than ever for the full course.
.
Let me first speak about the film itself. At first, I had trouble watching it, because I'm very unaccustomed to the idea of an actor playing a part within a documentary- really playing it, not reenacting it. I loathe and detest most reenactments, and I tend to veer in the direction of Ken Burns when I need my documentary fix. But ultimately it ended up working, being effective in the same way Burns' use of voice-over actors to read letters is effective.
Having the character portrayed fully on screen is, I think, necessary, because Van Gogh is so symbolic, so much a page in an art history books that trying to study him can be alienating. I will freely admit that before this documentary, I had never really taken a serious look at his work. I'd never been able to get beyond the ubiquitous paintings that seemed to have lost all meaning, having been reduced to a post card so many times. As an amateur painter myself, it occurs to me now what an appalling failure that was on my part.
There are a few documentaries whose creators I don't follow as a rule, but whose individual pieces have struck me deeply- Errol Morris' Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, and Frederick Wisemen's most horrifying Titicut Follies, both of which I would recommend to anyone who is serious about high quality documentary work.
I wouldn't necessarily liken Van Gogh: Painted With Words to either of those documentaries except to say that they carry elements of them. I normally get turned off immediately when an actor breaks the fourth wall in a film. Very rarely does it work, and it takes an incredible level of skill to act directly into a camera, a void that clicks, refocuses, and offers no quarter. Even a very good actor talking to a camera is going to find it incredibly challenging, because acting is, at its essence, reacting. How does one react to a machine?
In his interviews in Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, Errol Morris devised a technique that allows an interview in which the subject looks directly into the camera, except that (much like a teleprompter) a pane of glass is placed over the camera and the live image of the interviewer is projected on it, so that the interviewee doesn't see the camera, but rather the other person. The effect on the subject is visible, the brightness of the eyes, and you get this extraordinary sense that you are in conversation with this person. This invention was named the Interrotron, and if you look, you start to see it every where.
If I didn't know better, I'd swear this technique was being used for Van Gogh. In fact, I don't know better, because it may have been, but I prefer to believe it's Benedict all the way (and I think the technique doesn't work as well with monologuing) because the brightness is there. Benedict Cumberbatch has the ability to stare into the void, look at his own reflection in the glass of the lens, and bring absolute truth to a part, even one so unwieldy.
Overall, I think this documentary managed to bring something new to the table on a subject that seems to have been flogged to death. And while a screen separates me from the actor, it gives me flutters of joy, because one of my favourite experiences as an audience member is when an actor locks eyes with me and plays to me. I suspend disbelief so totally that my reaction to the character is real, personal and I become part of the story. I call it the Intiman Effect, after the theatre here in Seattle where that seems to happen the most- no doubt owing to the so named "intimate" lay out.
This film has changed my perspective on Van Gogh, which is the most I could have asked from it. I'm normally quite adverse to expressionistic paintings, and used to think of Van Gogh as an exclusively expressionist painter, but now I'm much more aware of how limited my view has been. Starry Night in particular I've never been able to appreciate, because it was a symbol in my mind before I even understood what a painting was. But as far as the field of art history documentary goes, I'd definitely want to show this in a classroom, because it lends a new appreciation to both the painter and the work itself.
Let me now speak to the madness. It's fast becoming a tired subject with me, I know, but I can't help it. No one with manic depressive disorder can ever watch a portrayal of an individual who is also afflicted (or gifted, if you like) without a highly critical eye. I admit I hesitated a little bit because I always do whenever I see a favourite actor try and take on my illness. Granted, a lot of actors have my illness, probably a lot more than have ever admitted to it, but it makes me wary nonetheless. I have an acute sense of what it's like, so when I see an actor in a padded cell or a rubber room, I watch keenly for accuracy.
I needn't have worried. Benedict didn't trip in any of the pitfalls, didn't do his best impression of a manic person, but rather just played it. A director can't say to an actor, "play it manic!" because it's both a stereotype and an unplayable direction. "Play it as if you had ten cups of coffee and never stop moving" is something an actor can work with, though most good actors don't really need that level of babysitting.
The filmmakers gloss over the reality of bipolar disorder to a degree- that is to say, they don't try to bear witness to the dizzying heights of insanity that it can bring. The violence of Van Gogh's mania is evident in his self-mutilation, but that's probably the tip of the iceberg. By the time I was fully realized in my psychosis, I would have done more than cut off my own ear, I would've have happily used my teeth to sever someone else's and then offered to kiss it better. Fortunately, I was subdued before I managed to commit some kind of crime, but it does make me wonder about the level of Van Gogh's madness. He clearly was a cyclical manic depressive, while my madness lies almost completely dormant with the help of medication, and doesn't fluctuate. Was he crazier than me? I'm not suicidal, so maybe, but it's impossible to know.
Benedict Cumberbatch really seems to be riding those waves, and while I would have loved to see the character's insanity more realized, it would have been more appropriate for a feature. It makes sense that they wouldn't incorporate the full extent of the madness into a documentary, because it would have overwhelmed it. Benedict does scratch the surface as he recites the biblical letters, showing signs of a rising manic episode. That kind of thinking, that fast-paced, abstract and ultimately incoherent train of thought that races through the mind is pretty much exactly as Benedict depicts it. Before my crisis, I spent an entire twenty four hours talking avidly to my ceiling in just the same way.
Manic depressives (when they haven't melted their brains with drugs, or killed themselves) can be very high functioning, and often rather more than the "sane" individual. A lot of geniuses (Van Gogh, Beethoven, Byron, Woolf, etc) have been posthumously diagnosed with the disorder, which I knew vaguely in the back of my mind before I was diagnosed last year, but it has, now more than ever, given me cause to examine their works.
It disturbs me slightly to see Van Gogh's work, because I can almost trace its manic origins, the racing energy, almost exactly what he was feeling when he painted a given piece. It's ironic that as his illness progressed, his painting become more and more the distinctive styling we tend to think of when we think of Van Gogh, but I will never be able to look at it without seeing an edge of madness to the genius. There is a strange dichotomy in his paintings, the uproarious lively colours, which I see as a representation of that manic expression, but also the neat, orderly and precise brush strokes that make up the overall picture. Tight, organized brilliance combined with indescribable, euphoric torment.
For me, Van Gogh: Painted With Words accomplished two things. First, I now have a better sense of the diversity of Van Gogh's work and finally have the desire to see it, and second, I am now more determined than ever to get a front row seat at a West End theatre and see Benedict Cumberbatch on stage. Brilliant though he may be on screen, there is something about breathing the same air as a performer that is special. For those brief hours, that character is tangible beyond that which a screen can deliver. Van Gogh gave me a taste of what it would be like to see Benedict challenge me as an audience member (because it is something of a challenge, not blinking, not looking away) and now I'm hungrier than ever for the full course.
.