A critical look at the cinematic portrayal of a tortured artist
Julian Schnabel both soars and struggles with his recent film At Eternity’s Gate. With this film, Schnabel utilizes experimental camera work resulting in a truly artistic retelling of Vincent Van Gogh’s struggle. Named after a late reworking of a self-portrait by Van Gogh depicting an elderly weathered man in a state of emotional exhaustion and possibly despair, At Eternity’s Gate focuses on the late half of Van Gogh’s life as he battles professional dejection and personal struggles with mental anguish despite an unfailing drive towards artistic expression. Van Gogh, as played by Willem Dafoe, is a frail and misunderstood artist, full of drive and wonder at the life and light that plays all about him. Dafoe’s face wonderfully captures the weathered experience of his character but also contains the wide-eyed wonder of his soul.
Schnabel chooses to take on the story with less focus on simple historical biography and instead uses an emotionally distraught and chaotic lens to express the torment of its protagonist’s inner world. His overt use of a handycam chases Van Gogh through corn fields, dense wooded forests, and across swaths of nature with the adrenaline of unbroken youth. At times this gives way to kaleidoscopic visions with the dazzle of sunlight and the whirl of colour found in Van Gogh’s paintings but at other times this leads to a dizzying disorientation, like a disturbance in the inner ear one can’t quite level out. The images presented are distorted by movement, out of focus and obscured by the constant swoop and drive of the camera. Sometimes this felt like an intentional choice to send the viewer into the madness of the character, but at other times I felt pushed out of the frame, trying to perceive the world around me through the lens of a slightly mismatched prescription.
The mythology of Van Gogh is further made legend by the scant use of historical narrative and plays loose with some of the facts of his biography. The viewer might not feel like they have met the painter but rather have been fully immersed in Van Gogh’s psyche, having experienced the turmoil of an unsettled genius, out of place in his time, trying to share a unique vision of light and life as he saw it, as he painted it.
I found the film difficult and more of an experimental cinematic experience than I had anticipated. The strength of Dafoe’s performance was truncated by the jarring camera work that harmed more than enhanced Schnabel’s unique interpretive vision of the artist as myth. Those already interested may find its winning moments transcendent while those who are unprepared may find it more frustrating than rewarding.