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Modigliani
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by UMVD/Visual Entertainment
Sales Rank: 8886
Price: $17.99
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Andy Garcia stars as the painter Modigliani, an Italian Jew, has fallen in love with Jeanne, a beautiful Catholic girl. The couple has an illegitimate child, and Jeanne's bigoted parents send the baby to a faraway convent to be raised by nuns. Modigliani is distraught and needs money to rescue and raise his child. The answer arrives in Paris' annual art competition. Prize money and a guaranteed career await the winner. Modigliani and his dearest friend and rival Picasso believe that competitions are beneath true artists like themselves, but with the welfare of his child on the line, Modigliani signs up. Picasso follows suit and soon Paris is aflutter with excitement over the outcome.
Viewer Reviews
The question is asked of the artist, Modigliani, by his lover, Jeanne Hebuterne while the two ride a streetcar in Paris. Moreover, it is an appropriate one considering Modigliani's life. He sleepwalks through life mostly oblivious to opportunities for exaltation and abasement alike.
Although the artist is dying of TB, he continues to drink, smoke, and take opium. He is also blind to Jeanne's unhappiness. Their baby daughter is taken under order from Jeanne's father, by the French equivalent to Child Protective Services, and placed in an orphanage. Modigliani does nothing to reclaim the child although Jeanne is heartbroken.
Modigliani's attention focuses mostly upon his rivalry with fellow painter, Pablo Picasso. The enmity is returned four-fold. Both artists fence throughout the film. Picasso is portrayed as narcissistic and loutish, yet brilliant and well respected throughout the French artistic community. It galls Modigliani that his lover actually implores Picasso to show one of his rival's paintings so that the couple will not starve. To complicate matters further, Picasso uses Jeanne as the subject in one of his paintings. This rightly infuriates Modigliani.
The film, although slow-paced, is wonderfully cast and acted. I could find no weak performance anywhere. The challenge scene in the Salon de Artistes is pivotal and although there is very little dialogue, riveting. The denouement at the exhibition, while triumphant, is tragically juxtaposed with scenes from a brutal beating.
One element I greatly adored was the soundtrack, especially the music we hear while Jeanne and Modigliani dance down the street in the dark. The scenes, we see them twice, are magical.
If fine art interests you, or you enjoy intense, melancholic dramas, you will enjoy this film.
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Modigliani
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