Total Eclipse

Plot synopsis:
The older Paul Verlaine meets Arthur Rimbaud's sister, Isabelle, in a café in Paris. Isabelle and her mother want Verlaine to hand over any copies he may still have of Rimbaud's poems so that they can burn them; they fear the lewdness of his writings. Verlaine reflects on the wild relationship he had had with Rimbaud, beginning when the teenaged Rimbaud had sent his poetry to Verlaine from his home in the provinces in 1871. Verlaine, instantly fascinated, impulsively invites him to his rich father-in-law's home in Paris, where he lives with his young, pregnant wife. The wild, eccentric Rimbaud displays no sense of manners or decency whatsoever, scandalising Verlaine's pretentious, bourgeois in-laws.
Verlaine is seduced by the 16-year-old Rimbaud's physical body as well as by the unique originality of his mind. The staid respectability of married, heterosexual life and easy, middle class surroundings had been stifling Verlaine's admittedly sybaritic literary talent. His taking up with Rimbaud is as much a rebellion and a liberation as it is a giving in to self-indulgence and masochism. Rimbaud acts as sadistically to Verlaine as does Verlaine to his young wife, whom he eventually deserts. A violent, itinerant relationship ensues between the two poets, the sad climax of which arrives in Brussels when a drunken and enraged Verlaine shoots and wounds Rimbaud and is sentenced a fine and two years in prison for sodomy and grievous bodily harm.
In prison, Verlaine converts to Christianity, to his erstwhile lover's disgust. Upon release he meets Rimbaud in Germany, vainly and mistakenly seeking to revive the relationship. The two men part, never to meet again. Bitterly renouncing literature in any form, Rimbaud travels the world alone, finally settling in Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) to run a "trading post". There he has a mistress and possibly a young boy-lover. A tumour in his right knee forces him back to France where his leg is amputated. Nevertheless, the cancer spreads and he dies at the age of 37. When he dies, the image of one of his most famous poems, Le Dormeur du val, appears.
During her conversation with Verlaine, Isabelle Rimbaud asserts that her brother had accepted confession from a priest right before he died, showing Christian penitence, which is why only the censored versions of his poetry should survive. Verlaine pretends to agree but tears up her card after she leaves. Later, Verlaine, drinking absinthe (to which he has become addicted), sees a vision of the sixteen-year-old Rimbaud, returned from some transcendent realm to express the love and respect Verlaine has thus posthumously earned. The film ends with the young Rimbaud walking alone on a mountain range, Verlaine proclaiming that they were both happy together, and Rimbaud claiming to have finally found eternity.

Tags: violence, romantic, cruelty, sadist, flashback

Review:
It's a good thing not too many people saw this film when it came out [no pun intended], because, if any of DiCaprio's female fans had seen him in this, one of his best early roles, his career would have been over well before he was involved in "Titanic." And that's because he's so utterly convincing as the tortured, bisexual teen genius poet Arthur Rimbaud, that it would undoubtedly set many of those young ladies to wondering if he'd played the part a little TOO well, if you get my meaning.
It's a good thing he wasn't successful, because I think that this film rates right along with "The Basketball Diaries" as possibly his best performance.But it takes two to tango, at least in this case, and David Thewlis is almost as good opposite DiCaprio as Paul Verlaine, who began as Rimbaud's mentor and wound up as his long-time lover.
I realized going into this film that it was not going to be a straight bio-pic about Rimbaud's life so that loosened my expectations for the movie a bit, which is good considering had I expected a life story I would've been sorely disappointed.
This film is more about Rimbaud's rocky relationship with fellow poet, Verlaine, whom he falls in love with and subsequently about Verlaine being stuck between a rock and a hard place with Rimbaud on one side and his beautiful but ultimately empty headed wife, Mathilde on the other.The set/costume design was done well enough; not enough to win awards but enough to make the time and place believable.
DiCaprio gives an inspired performance as the young, opinionated, Rimbaud as does Thewlis in his role as the older poet, Verlaine who takes him under his wing.
You won't get a complete round view of either man or his life here, but what you will get is a story about love, madness, writing and the search for meaning.If you like what you see of Rimbaud from this movie, I would whole heartedly recommend his work to you and any and all written biographies as they will shed even more light on a truly great poet's life..
Along this line, I am sure that the poetry of Rimbaud and Verlaine would have stood forward excellently, when recited in the movie about their relation.
It would also have helped in making their interactions understandable.After seeing the movie a second time, I read some of Rimbaud's writings, and there was a slightly different character emerging from his words, than the one portrayed, though excellently, by Leonardo DiCaprio.
He might have been type-cast, to do the obnoxious adolescent, but they got more than they bargained for - he included the most important aspect of Rimbaud: the prodigy poet, the artist living for art, loving for art.His acting is sometimes stunning, and not only in delicate scenes where minute nuances are essential, but also in all kinds of silliness in between.
His is the muse which revels in the squalor of creation.Many people will dislike this film because the two main characters, Rimbaud and Verlaine, are bisexual and not at all stereotypical.
the kind of love story you'd expect for people who live and breathe life in the way great alternaculture poets must.Eternity is where the sunlight mixes with the water.
It is one of DiCaprio's best independent films before he became a titanic superstar.Rimbaud"s painfully self-destructive bisexual life and his affair with Verlaine is not a "nice" story to tell, but the drama is interesting as a study in the eccentric mind of the artist.
David Thewlis' role was also very well acted (and quite impressive) as Paul Verlaine.Most have said it's not an accurate portrayal of what really went on....well that's what the disclaimer on the beginning of the movie states.
"Total Eclipses" narrates the romance that is born among the poets Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis, in a courageous and excellent performance, Thewlis plays strong scenes with experience and professionalism) and Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo Di Caprio, before being thrown to the Hollywood's stardom in "Titanic").
The film documents, without make-ups,Paul Verlaine's slow destruction,a man who is consumed by the love and hate that he fells for Rimbauld.Director Agniezka Holland accomplished a touching and beautiful work,counting with a perfect plasticity that reconstitutes the time and the romance among the two men in a detailed way and without shame, what can,in fact,shock Di Caprio's fans in some delicate moments.Even being a little slow in a lot of parts of the story, "Total Eclipse" is efficient when its seen as a drama that lectures about the difficulty of being homosexual, but besides this topic, it analyzes what happens when people abdicate of their happiness and  suffer due to social conventions, and finally it ends up in a intelligent conclusion:that only through the courage and through the love it's possible not only to break such barriers but also to achieve redemption.Director Agnieszka Holland conducts with experience a story that, in the hands of another director, could be reduced into a common and not very innovative denominator, and the lenses of her camera shows, without make-ups and courts to alleviate the impact of the scenes, the whole suffering, the prejudice and the pain that marks the relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine.
There are rough scenes such as the one in which Thewlis is tirelessly sodomized by Di Caprio, there are moments of fondness when the two kiss each other,but in the same way the sick and morbid aspect of the relationship is expressed, when, for example, Rimbauld stabs Rimbaud's hand to prove his love.Being a heterosexual, i concluded that, instead of adopting a dogmatic and racist posture, it would be better if i  could appreciate the film not as just another plot about two gay guys who are in love but I tried to enlarge my point of view, understanding that the film was, actually, a simple feeble love history marked by the suffering and resignation.
Thus, I recommend "Total Eclipse" as an intelligent and efficient drama, a work that deserves to be applauded by its initiative and courage, for the excellent performances and for the safe and kind work by Agnieszka Holland, who tells a love story in a distressing and realist form.
Poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud have been compared to Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, but aside from being gay the pairs have little in common.
Verlaine as played by David Thewlis is a really hateful person, gay audiences can't work up any sympathy for him.However Rimbaud as played by Leonardo DiCaprio by look and talent makes you perfectly understand why Rimbaud became so obsessed with him.
I found it interesting that Rimbaud and Verlaine flee to Great Britain of all places to be freer, the same place that in the next generation would persecute poor Oscar Wilde.DiCaprio and Thewlis play a couple of louts, but a fascinating pair of louts.
There will be those who watch this film for DiCaprio, which is fine, then there will be those who watch this for the fact that it's about a French Poet, Rimbaud.
This is a worthy and successful attempt to make a film about the famous literary and personal relationship between two great poets, Paul Verlaine and the young Arthur Rimbaud.
The life of Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis) begins in 1871 when he was 28 as that is when he discovered young Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) age 17.
And of course very few people could accept watching a movie on some "boring relationship of two unknown french bisexual poets".
Better watch it after having read some of there poetry of both because there are some scenes that can recall poems of there creations anyway this movie is the kind of which can't be acclaimed by all critics for being different of those box-office stereotyped flix...The Rimbaud i like is not exactly the one played by Di Caprio but I can say that his performance wasn't that much deceiving..
I've seen many biographical films, and few of them have been told with the complete witlessness of "Total Eclipse." This is a story about the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine (Leonardo DiCaprio and David Thewlis), two brilliant but tortured artists who had an unhappy but surprisingly long sexual and mental relationship.
Rare are the times when we see either of them writing poetry, and rarer still are the times when we hear any of it.The story begins with Rimbaud arriving at Verlaine's house at the latter's request, after he's read some of his first work.
Soon they are having an illicit affair, though Verlaine does visit back home once in a while to set his wife's hair on fire and throw their baby carriage against the wall.From there the movie breaks down into a pointless, arbitrary series of events that I guess were included because they really happened, but haven't been shaped into any sort of story, and certainly don't do anything to make us care about the characters.
All through the film, I kept wondering, "when are they going to let him read his poetry, and show us WHY it was important, HOW it contrasted with conventional poetry at the time?" I mean, if you're brave enough to try to sell graphic homosexual scenes to a Merchant Ivory audience, then why not be brave enough to "bore" us with some literary analysis?.
Total Eclipse is a VERY well acted movie (espeacially on Leo's part) but the plot and subject matter is VERY questionable because the main characters are SO mean to each other and other people as well!!.
A young and very gifted poet Arthur Rimbaud (played by Leonardo Di Caprio who looks the part, but cannot quite play it) is invited to Paris by Verlaine (Thewlis) and they become lovers and work together on some of the most revolutionary verse the literary world has ever known.
If Holland is going to make a good film on this theme, then why not take two flamboyant people (like Rimbaud and Verlaine) and send them to Africa or another colourful part of the world where they can incorporate their life experiences into their poetry.
Later, when Rimbaud lived in Abyssinia for 11 years, he had relations with women, not with men.The reason why I love this film is because it contains poetry.
But what I originally enjoyed and also originally disliked the first time around were both confirmed when I saw it again: My initial delight was due to the fact that the portrayal of Arthur Rimbaud is as close to capturing the inner workings of the mind of an artist as any I've seen, particularly in the way that he demonstrates a very logical resistance to Paul Verlaine's amorphously fawning "love" that he offers Rimbaud.
This is the first film I've seen DiCaprio in, and I'm really starting to like him, and David Thewlis, as Verlaine, I've been raving about since his blistering performance in Mike Leigh's Naked two years ago.
Rimbaud's motivations seem to flutter between his desire for an intellectual equal and his need for monetary support, which, of course means Verlaine's wife because it was HE who married money, not her.My reservations about this film are primarily because it doesn't deal with the actual poetry of the men enough.
I would have loved to have heard the voice-overs of them both during the scenes where they cavort among the goats on a hillside, or as they climb around the crags of the Black Forest, and when Rimbaud mentions to Verlaine that "the writing has changed me" it would have done more of a service to the audience to let them know WHY he was having his sister burn his earlier poems.The photography, as I've come to expect from director Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden; Olivier, Olivier; Europa, Europa) is stunning, particularly the shots of Charleville, where Rimbaud's family lives on a farm.
But because it was so difficult to get at the time, then I started to look up about Arthur Rimbaud to know if aside young DiCaprio, it will be interesting to watch.
Total Eclipse actually has some good scenes regarding this affair, the problem is when I watch this movie from the start to ending I will be nothing but annoyed.
Joining DiCaprio in this tale of 19th century French poets is the brilliant David Thewlis as Paul Verlaine.There is actually not a single character in this film who is really likable, and that's what separates it from the rest of the pabulum that we tend to get as a daily diet.
I first saw this movie only because i am a leonardo dicaprio fan...but it turned out to be one of the most touching(in an peculiar way)films i have ever seen.
total eclipse made me want to find more about the poets,(i bought the complete works of rimbaud and am always looking for more info on him and his life...it also helps i speak some french)and it pulls you into their magnificently horrid lives.true, there should have been more poetry in the movie, but otherwise it was perfect.the acting is amazing:leo acts so natural and pure...but sometimes it's hard to watch because he is so cruel and obnoxious.david also is great, but his character is sad and far less interesting to watch.this movie is not for everyone because it is quite graphic and sometimes shockingly sick, but if your open you might love it..and hopefully  read some of rimbauds poems..
Caprio give us the view what the Rimbaud looked like and the way he plays is breathtaking.I think this movie is underrated.
It is in this sense clearly a European and not an American (moral majority) film.Between his 16 - when he left home and joined Verlaine (Thewlis) - and his 19, Rimbaud (Di Caprio) wrote the fine flower of French poetry.
The film is based on the letters and writings of the two French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.
One of the brightest times in the French spiritual culture known as Impressionism.The two main characters are brilliantly performed by David Thewlis as Verlaine and Leonardo di Caprio as Rimbaud.
What the movie is really about is the life of Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo Di Caprio) and his meeting with the fellow poet Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis).
Total Eclipse is about the relationship between poets Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis).
Other then that, I thought Total Eclipse was a fantastic film that was snubbed Best Picture, Best Actor (Leonardo Dicaprio), Best Supporting Actor (David Thewlis), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Score.
If you don't mind dark material, see Total Eclipse, and then read some of the poetry of Rimbaud and Verlaine to learn more about the great poets..
A lot of people may be tempted to watch this one for the Leonardo DiCaprio nude scenes, but David Thewlis gives a terrific performance as well in this story about the absinthe-soaked love affair between French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.
First, even though both Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, the main characters of this film, are considered to be genius poets by many French literary critics (in fact, Rimbaud's collection of poems "A Season in Hell" is considered to be a major achievement in French literature), the two are hardly household names in the English-speaking world.
Taking into consideration that the movie was about two of the greatest French poets, I was somehow looking forward to enjoying their great minds and spirit, and not just learn about their destructive love affair that seemed to be the main issue of the script.
The movie stays on the friendship and love between Verlaine and Rimbaud and doesn't focus at the artistic nature of those two great french poets.
Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his mentor Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis) engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.Whether the main characters in this film are homosexual, bisexual or something else does not matter.
And Dicaprio is no Rimbaud-- his so called acting doesn't do justice to the Rimbaud I studied intensely.The actor who portrayed Verlaine is closer in temperament to the character-- but altogether this movie is a slanted look at the tempestuous affair between two noted poets.
In this very grim portrayal of the love affair between 19th century French poets Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis), we see how they in fact had a mutually destructive relationship.
The story of Verlaine and Rimbaud is told very nice  and in this film you feel the impossible-love they have for eachother.
Okay here's my review of "Total Eclipse".Here's the plot: It is 1871 and the great poet Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis) has asked to meet with the teenage writing genius Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) after reading some of his poems.
He is a genius compared to Verlaine's already beautiful poetry.However, what I didn't expect was "Total Eclipse" mainly focusing on the homosexual relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine.
This film does not do that.We do not hear much from Rimbaud's or Verlaine's poetry.
Whether you're disgusted at Verlaine's disgusting treatment towards his wife or even more disgusted at his self or whether you want to understand what there is to like about this two men, this film cannot fail to express your hidden emotions.Leonardo is brilliant as Rimbaud (and I'm not a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio).
This historical drama, directed by Agnieszka Holland, focuses on the rocky relationship between the renowned 19th century French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.
Based on letters and poems, it presents a historically accurate account of the passionate and violent relationship between the two 19th century French poets Paul Verlaine,played by David Thewlis; and Arthur Rimbaud,played by Leonardo DiCaprio, at a time of soaring creativity for both of them.Rimbaud is a teenage wunderkind known for his rebelliousness against conventional society and his surrealistic writing.
I say the real poets would be very proud of the actors for doing a love story about them in a film more like!