Loving Vincent - Extra Credit
As part of an extra credit opportunity, the class viewed the hand-painted film “Loving Vincent” to analyze the movie’s use of color and presentation.
While watching the movie, I was struck by the frenetic energy and vivid palette of each frame. Much like Van Gogh’s paintings near the end of his life, the “present” portions of the movie were marked with bold colors that did not mirror reality. Before his suicide attempt, Van Gogh’s paintings were almost manic in style; perspective was warped and dreamlike, such as the composition of his painting “The Room”, as is the colors chosen. Many art critics believe that Van Gogh’s color choices reflected his unsteady mental state.
In “Loving Vincent”, the main character, dressed in a sallow yellow jacket, is tasked with delivering a letter to the recently deceased artist. The people he met along the way have all been affected by Van Gogh in some way, and his death is something they struggled to cope with.
In the “past” segments, the frames take on a black-and-white realistic art style, in heavy contrast to the unusual colors and sometimes unnatural stylization of the movie. I interpreted these black-and-white segments as reflecting the true reality of the characters, not yet marred by the trauma and guilt of Van Gogh’s deteriorating mental state and suicide.
Post-suicide, the characters of the film are bathed in the colors of the artists’ paintings; they now know the depth of Van Gogh’s mental torment, and bear the weight of their final interactions with him in some way. They wear the still-tangible traces of his mental illness, the lament of their inability to help him, and realizing too little too late.