Crucially, as the title suggests, Robert Altman’s Vincent & Theo is not merely a portrait of Vincent van Gogh that happens to feature the painter’s brother (the other man in the title, of course), but a rich study of both characters, showing a distinctive understanding of these men, what made them great, and what haunted them about themselves and each other. Fine films have been made about the lives of artists tortured by their own vices, and the imprint of Vincent & Theo can be felt in later titles such as 2000’s Pollock and 2018’s At Eternity’s Gate (also about van Gogh), most notably the restless energy of its approach to and subversion of the typical biographical picture.
In terms of the details, it admittedly isn’t much of a departure from those traditional trappings. Altman’s version of Vincent is played by Tim Roth as a man almost psychopathically obsessed with capturing the world and people around him on canvas. Multiple scenes in the film depict him voraciously dipping his paintbrush in colors whenever his otherwise dulled mind is sparked into doing so — consent of the subject be damned, as one model/girlfriend discovers early in the movie. After his model has finished her session for the day, Vincent dares to begin to draw her while she’s doing some business in the chamber pot.
When she understandably objects, Vincent doesn’t stop immediately – it’s a good 30 seconds before he considers her words and halts his unauthorized depiction. It’s obvious that he longs to continue, and Roth makes clear how slightly tethered Vincent is to the everyday world of convention, manners and people who don’t like to be depicted going to the bathroom. He cannot not paint, of course. It would be like asking him not to breathe, and the film proceeds to assert that Vincent’s dedication to his art is what slowly corrodes his relationships with other people, isolates him from the outside world and leads to the type of mental deterioration to which he may have already been predisposed. After all, van Gogh died at only 37, in the year 1890, having turned a pistol to his own chest and pulled the trigger.
The film splits its time between the inexorable journey Vincent takes toward this point (yes, including the infamous bit involving his ear and a cutting tool, rendered with a haunting gravitas) and the professional woes of his brother Theo, played with a growing sense of exhaustion and resentment by Paul Rhys. As Vincent’s mental state frays and leads him toward the necessity of confinement in an asylum, Theo hocks paintings for a living in a gallery, an endeavor that gives him no satisfaction as an art lover or as a human being. Both brothers become obsessed with the idea of finding satisfaction in their lives, but Altman’s film finds no contentment of any kind waiting at the end of the line for these men.
Vincent would remain troubled until his death — by a lack of interest in and comprehension of commercial dictates, good hygiene and the demands of society on one hand, and by the absence of the spiritual clarity and enlightenment that are supposed to follow the repudiation of civilized life on the other. Roth’s portrayal of this is a powerful testament to an actor’s understanding of his subject, even as Vincent remains a bit elusive to us in the audience. Rhys is also quite good at communicating how Theo arrives at the same point of despair as his brother, even if they took different routes to get there – Theo was nothing if not a man who played ball. The movie lives almost exclusively in both of their heads for the entirety of its more than two hours, and it’s a troubling place to be.
The cumulative effect of the movie lies in the natural tension between these two characters. Vincent loves art and cannot fathom a life without painting. The artistic act is more than an outlet; it’s a way of being in the world. But if it’s the only way a person has of existing, what happens when it’s not enough to sustain them? Vincent found out, as did Theo, more or less – he died less than a year after his brother, at age 33, likely from the effects of syphilis.
For Altman (and at least in its theatrical form, as this critic cannot comment upon any differences that might exist in a longer, miniseries-length cut released in the intervening years), this is more traditionally structured film than his looser ensemble pieces. Indeed, the group is smaller here, fittingly so, given the spartan lifestyles of these men. Its initial reception was accordingly respectful, but it seems to have vanished into its director’s filmography, in favor of the more celebrated works that surround it. That’s a shame, because although it does not stray too far outside the traditional realm of the biographical picture, it does burrow into its central personalities quite memorably.
Aesthetically speaking, Vincent & Theo is as spartan as the lifestyles of his protagonists and has fewer of Altman’s typical widescreen long takes. The interiors are as dank as the exteriors are lovely, and that, above all else, reflects the internal despair of its subjects, who, though they appreciate the potential splendor of the world as it’s reflected in art, can’t quite translate that beauty into the recesses of their troubled souls.
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