Vincent & Theo

Vincent & Theo (1990)

An obsessive vision. A desperate dream. A world that didn't understand… And a brother that did.

The tragic story of Vincent van Gogh broadened by focusing as well on his brother Theodore, who helped support Vincent. Based on the letters written between the two.

Date of release
1990-12-02
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (70)
Runtime
2h 20m
Genres
Drama
Director
Robert Altman

Casting

Interesting facts

Vincent & Theo is a 1990 biographical drama film about the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and his brother Theo (1857–1891), an art dealer. While Vincent van Gogh's artworks are now famous, he was essentially unrecognized in his lifetime, and survived on his brother's charity. The film was directed by Robert Altman, and starred Tim Roth and Paul Rhys in the title roles.

Production

Julian Mitchell was the screenwriter for Vincent & Theo; he was known at the time for his play Another Country (1981) and its film adaptation (1984). Vincent van Gogh's life has been portrayed many times. Mitchell's screenplay is unusual in its concentration upon the relationship of Vincent and Theo van Gogh.

The production design for Vincent & Theo was done by Stephen Altman, the director's son. Noel Murray wrote in 2015, "Altman's production-designer son Stephen—the unsung hero of his later films—could almost be credited as the co-author of Vincent & Theo for how well he recreates late-19th-century Europe in both its tactile grime and its old world quaintness. The Altmans bring Van Gogh's subjects back to life."

The composer Gabriel Yared had previously worked with Altman on the film Beyond Therapy (1987). For that film as well as for Vincent & Theo, Yared composed "away from the film", with only a screenplay and general guidance from Altman. He himself considered the score to be "maybe the most creative music he had done".

The editing of Vincent & Theo produced two versions of the film: the 200 minute television version, and the 138 minute theatrical version. Altman was working in France, apparently with Françoise Coispeau, and wanted a second editor who was a native English speaker. He had met Geraldine Peroni in 1984 when she was an assistant editor on his earlier film O.C. and Stiggs. Vincent & Theo became her second credit as editor.

Robert Altman's films are well known for "overlapping" sound editing of dialogue in which several voices and background sounds are combined to create a naturalistic effect. Conventional sound editing presents the main speaker's voice prominently. The dialogue editing in Vincent & Theo is fairly conventional, but there is one exception at the beginning of the film that has been noted by several critics.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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