At Eternity’s Gate

As one of the most famous painters in the his­to­ry of West­ern art, it’s no sur­prise that Vin­cent van Gogh has fas­ci­nat­ed film­mak­ers for decades. No less than sev­en films inspired by his life exist, and Julian Schnabel’s wispy new biopic makes num­ber eight.

Regard­less of how you feel about van Gogh’s ​‘Sun­flow­ers’ or ​‘Star­ry Night’, his cin­e­mat­ic appeal is easy to under­stand: a fig­ure plagued by men­tal ill­ness and pover­ty, he took his own life at the age of 37, and did not achieve suc­cess until after his death. There are few things that film­mak­ers like more than a sol­id tragedy.

Schn­abel has form for direct­ing biopics about artists, hav­ing made his direc­to­r­i­al debut back with Basquiat, and as he did with Jef­frey Wright in 1996, in At Eternity’s Gate he ben­e­fits from hav­ing a per­fect­ly-cast lead­ing man. Cap­tur­ing van Gogh in the final years of his life, spent in rel­a­tive iso­la­tion in the South of France, Willem Dafoe pos­sess the grav­i­tas and wild-eyed inten­si­ty nec­es­sary to frame his sub­ject, com­bined with a strik­ing abil­i­ty to cap­ture immense melancholy.

Yet for all the strength of Dafoe’s per­for­mance, the film itself is a tech­ni­cal mess. Jostling, dis­ori­en­tat­ing cam­er­a­work and scat­ter­shot edit­ing feels like an overt and fair­ly tired metaphor for van Gogh’s men­tal insta­bil­i­ty, and the painter’s dark side (includ­ing his alco­holism, treat­ment of women and ill-tem­pera­ment) seem all but glossed-over to ped­al the prob­lem­at­ic ​‘artist as tor­tured genius’ narrative.

This, com­bined with Schnabel’s strange choice to change his­tor­i­cal facts to bet­ter serve the trag­ic sto­ry, do a dis­ser­vice to not only van Gogh, but his sup­port­ive broth­er Theo (played by Rupert Friend). There’s no doubt­ing van Gogh’s immea­sur­able artis­tic tal­ent or lega­cy, but At Eternity’s Gate feels too heavy-hand­ed and self-con­scious to real­ly do the man him­self justice.