Modigliani (2004)

Andy Garcia brings to life artistic genius Amedeo Modigliani'sstory of tragic love rivalry and excess in the midst of arthistory's golden age when greats like Picasso Rivera Cocteauand Modigliani held court in the salons of post-WWI Paris.System Requirements: Running Time 127 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 602498842478 Manufacturer No: FI4247DVD Product Description

Wow

Why this movie did not get a wider audience is a mystery.
It may not be the most historically acurate movie, How many are?, but it is beautifully shot, well acted, with a wonderful music score May 3, 2008

Modigliani: A Passionate Cinematic Ode to One Madly Passionate Artist

Director and writer Mick Davis, in a disclaimer at the beginning of the film MODIGLIANI, cautions viewers that it is a fictional work based loosely on the lives of its historical characters. What the disclaimer does not point out is how brilliantly the film captures the ironies of artistic achievement and the agonies of human failings that characterized the challenging lives of those same historical personages.

At the smoldering core of Modigliani is a love affair between the Jewish-Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani and the French Catholic art student Jeanne Hébuterne. Andy Garcia, who has had many fine hours as an actor, pulls out all the stops in his portrayal of Modigliani as an artist who lives for nothing so much as he does for art and love. Actress Elsa Zylberstein proves his chemistry-stirring match in one compelling scene after another.

Their story unfolds in the community of Montparnasse, Paris, France, just as World War I is coming to an end in 1919. The place and time were remarkable for the sheer concentrated genius of its creative inhabitants, including these artists: Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Diego Rivera, Chaim Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, and Modigliani himself. All of them would leave their indelible imprints upon 20th century art through individual works and their stylistic inventions of Surrealism, Dadaism, Fauvism, and Cubism. Likewise, one of their renowned American patrons, Gertrude Stein, would leave hers upon the era's literature.

As the film Modigliani illustrates, these artists were as famed for their ability to endure devastating poverty as they were for their talent and are generally considered, for better or for worse, the quintessential bohemians of their time. Two things made their lives bearable and worth celebrating: one was their passion for their art, and the second was their passion for each other. They painted on anything and everything: doors, napkins, tabletops, menus, walls, themselves, and even other paintings. Their passions at times could be as devastating as they were inspiring.

The depth and intensity of Jeanne's passion for Modigliani is evident from the film's beginning when she poses the question, "Have you ever loved so deeply that you would condemn yourself to an eternity in hell?" A kind of hell is precisely what viewers watch her go through when she's torn between her father's condemnation of Modigliani and her love for the artist. Rather than give up Modigliani--or "Modi" as he asks to be called--she walks away from her parents and the child she has with Modi to share his life in pursuit of his muse, fame, and fortune. For his part, in an attempt to create a life conducive to maintaining a family, Modi makes a concerted effort to produce paintings worthy of exhibiting and selling. He meets with some success when his agent Leopold Zborowski--who once described Modigliani as "A child of the stars for whom reality did not exist"--arranges a one-man show for him and introduces the world to the artist's series of now famous nudes.

Virtually every scene in this film could be paused at any point and framed as a work of art itself. There is Modi performing his bear dance around a statue; Utrillo chained up in an asylum smoking hashish with Modi; a furious Picasso holding a gun to his friend Modi's head then switching hats and joking with him; and softly glowing blue snowflakes falling in the dark of night. Some of the most extraordinary images come toward the end when the artists are hard at work preparing new paintings for a grand competition. The frenzy, stress, and excitement of the competition, which carries a prize of 5,000 francs, are driven by a powerful soundtrack and the hope that Modigliani will triumph.

More than one reviewer has noted the difference between the end of director Davis' film and the historical account of Modigliani's death. For the sake of those who have yet to see the movie, that ending will not be revealed here. Nevertheless, I will suggest that those who view the film (and perhaps those who already have as well) consider that Davis' ending was never intended to represent factual history but serves as a symbolic representation of what many gifted artists tend to experience in societies where their labors are more valued upon their deaths than while they live. If that statement sounds like exaggerated drama, we might further consider this: while Modigliani struggled through poverty and illness all his life, his paintings in recent years have sold in excess of $10 million for a single canvas, including a sale of $31.3 million for his portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne.

Guy Farley contributes an energetically mesmerizing score that magnifies and punctuates the emotive and spiritual substance of Modigliani. In the spirit of the artists of Montparnasse's creative daring, Davis fuses musical styles of the era along with later and modern compositions to create an absorbing and complementary soundscape. In addition to Farley's music are: "La Vie en Rose," by the late French diva Edith Piaf; along with "Ode to Innocence" and "Angeli," both by Sasha Lazard.

The one major disappointment in the film for this reviewer was its lack of representation of the influential poets of Montparnasse--the multi-talented Jean Cocteau notwithstanding. Such a representation would have been wholly appropriate considering that the works of literary artists such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, and André Breton often enhanced, informed, and promoted the works of their visual artist peers. Still, film as an art form is designed for viewing and utilizes essential literary and musical elements for its overall composition. With that in mind, it becomes a pleasure to recognize Modigliani as a triumphant and passionate cinematic ode to one madly passionate artist.

by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of "The Bridge of Silver Wings"
and Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History)
January 29, 2008

"When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes."

A contemporary and antagonist of his contemporary Pablo Picasso, Amadeo Modigliani (1884-1920), an Italian Jew, makes his mark in pre-world war Paris, an avant garde painter caught up in the heady bohemian atmosphere of a turn-of-the-century city. Barely able to scrape a living together, Modigliani is a tortured soul with infinite curiosity, painting the visions in his head, certainly as groundbreaking as those of the larger-than-life Picasso. While Picasso is the darling of Paris, Amadeo's days are lived in the shadows, a man given to the excesses of drink and drugs to ease the pain of his existence. When he meets his muse in Jeanne Hebuterne (Elsa Zilberstein), the work flows from his brush, a distinctive style that rivals that of his nemesis, Picasso. Indeed, the two painters are much alike in their assurance, although Picasso is much more pragmatic, a crowd-pleaser who disdains poverty in pursuit of art.

Unfortunately, Modigliani's life is too short, his brokenhearted muse inconsolable, left with a daughter and another baby on the way, disowned by her rigid Catholic father. The loss of her lover is indeed tragic; as she says to Picasso after Amadeo's death, "At the end of your life, you will say his name, Modigliani" (In fact, it is said that this is the last word Picasso uttered). French society only belatedly applauds the talent of this iconoclastic artist, a shabby painter who dances in the snowy streets of Paris to music only he can hear, shadowed by the boy he once was. Played out in vignettes of childhood memory, the agonies of failure and the natural rebelliousness of a man who cannot fit into society's expectations, Modigliani spirals through the years carelessly, driven only to paint, to dream, to seek oblivion, to paint again.

What I find particularly striking about this film, despite the many criticisms, is Garcia's ability to capture the essence of the creative spirit, unfettered by society's dictates, in fact, unable to perform responsibly. When he fails to meet the standards of a family man, or even to make a viable living, Modigliani escapes into a haze of narcotics and alcohol, the need to disappear married to his artistic genius. What appears pitiful, a man squandering his talent, is familiar to such a man, his inner visions demanding to be brought to life. It is not surprising that Modigliani hurls towards death, helpless in the face of his own self-destruction. It is in his nature, torment built into his psyche, creative demons unleashed.

In sharp contrast, the sensitive love story between Amadeo and Jeanne Hebuterne reveals the depth of his compassion and curiosity, the gleam in the actor's eyes speaking to the profound absurdities of his life. As Modigliani informs Jeanne, "When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes." Indeed, it is her eyes that haunt in his final portrait of his muse, a woman who turns away from child and family to be with the man who has so deftly captured her soul. It is often difficult to comprehend the creative impulse that leaves artists on the edge of decency and acceptability, ever pushing boundaries in a quest to feel the breath of God. It is this arrogant, yet heartbreaking quest that Garcia portrays so brilliantly, his appreciation of Modigliani's spirit that lifts the performance- and that of the talented Elsa Zilberstein- above the script and director's deficiencies, riding on the musical score and stunning cinematography to remind us of the price of genius. Luan Gaines/ 2007.
December 22, 2007

Dark life = dark movie

Andy García played Spanish poet Federico García Lorca so well; I had high hopes for his portrayal of Amadeo Modigliani. These hopes were only partly realized.

This movie needed tighter direction and García deserved a better supporting cast. Jeanne Hebutern was visually arresting and well acted. The rest of the cast were only so-so. I have seen the film once now and once was enough. December 17, 2007

Wandering screenplay cannot capture MODIGLIANI either on canvas or in life

Amadeo Modigliani (1884-1920) was one of the true artists of "The Lost Generation",that particular group of Bohemian writers,painters,sculptors and "artistes" in general, who flocked to Paris after WW1 in particular to live out their tragedies and triumphs with affairs,drinking and drugs in what was to become known as "La Vie Boheme".There, their art flourished and their lives were cut tragically short by the excess and nonchalant attitudes towards life...life that was to be lived to its fullest.

Unfortunately, Mick Davis' tragically unfocused screenplay and lack of directive skills, blinded by his own sincere passion on his subject,cause his film MODIGLIANI to wander aimlessly, introducing many subjects and persons, but never squarely focusing on or fully developing any of them.There is no doubt that Andy Garcia (Modigliani) and Elsa Zylberstein(his lover Jeanne) have done as good a job as possible in their roles.Each summons up moments of passion and tragedy as some of their story is told.However, at the commencement of the film, there is a disclaimer that the majority of what we are about to see is totally fictitious and that is where MODIGLIANI falters.Davis invents a rivalry between Modigliani and Pablo Picasso (a well acted part by Omid Djalili) and the rest of the Bohemian artists.If the film had perhaps put it's attention there it might have been more successful; but this piece of fiction serves to only confuse the love story of Amadeo and Jeanne.There is also the subplot of Jeanne's parental disapproval of her relationship with Modigliani that is thrown in to further muddy the waters along with the Catholic/Jewish problem of the two lovers.Add in numerous flashbacks and the young ghost of the child Modigliani and before you can say VOILA, you are thoroughly confused and frustrated.

Unfortunately,Davis' film never arrives to any sense of greatness about the artist nor any semblance of the real Bohemian life style.Oh, it's all there, but that is where the problem lies.There is too much crammed in, and not enough for you on which to hang your hat.

The supporting performance of Miriam Margolyes (LADIES IN LAVENDER, AGE OF INNOCENCE) as Gertrude Stein is as always genius work from this woman who deserves larger roles.

The film runs a sprawling 127 minutes.The DVD featurette is 5 minutes with little to no information contained that gives any resonance to this film. There are no English subtitles for this DVD which would aid greatly with the myriad of bad accents.Rent....don't buy! October 26, 2007

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