page_title: At Eternity's Gate (film)
section_title: Casting
hierarchical_section_title: At Eternity's Gate (film) / Production / Casting
context_page_description: At Eternity's Gate is a 2018 biographical drama film about the final years of painter Vincent van Gogh's life. The film dramatizes the controversial theory put forward by Van Gogh biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, in which they speculate that Van Gogh's death was caused by mischief rather than it being a suicide.
  The film is directed and co-edited by Julian Schnabel, from a screenplay by Schnabel, Jean-Claude Carrière and Louise Kugelberg. It stars Willem Dafoe as Van Gogh, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner and Niels Arestrup. Principal photography took place in late 2017 over 38 days at various locations across France where Van Gogh resided during his final years.
  The film held its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2018. The film was theatrically released in the United States on November 16, 2018, by CBS Films, before streaming on Netflix in France on February 15, 2019. It was released theatrically and through video-on-demand in the United Kingdom on March 29, 2019, by Curzon Artificial Eye.
context_section_description: According to Éntertainment Weekly, "Dafoe immersed himself in the artist's life, learning to paint, reading his letters, and ultimately shooting on location in artistically recognizable landscapes". Dafoe added, "You're not illustrating who you think van Gogh is; you're communing (with) his memory and what he's left behind... It all comes together in a swirl--a swirl of color, a swirl of light. It's not naturalistic representation. But it captures the spirit... [Van Gogh] thought art was a language; art was a way of seeing; art was a way of waking up."
  In an article for 'W' magazine, Dafoe further stated, "I painted in a movie called To Live and Die in L.A., but it wasn't about painting--it was more about counterfeiting and killing people. In playing Vincent van Gogh, painting was the key to the character. I had to know what I was doing. The director, Julian Schnabel, would say, 'Hold the brush like a sword' and 'There's no such thing as a bad mark.' I began to think that painting is about making an accumulation of marks. Acting is the same: You create a character scene by scene. It's a series of marks that start a rhythm, and that rhythm sends you where you need to go." It was noted that Dafoe was 62 at the time of filming, 25 years older than Van Gogh when he died.
caption: The Yellow House, Arles, 1888. The room and house where Van Gogh resided in Arles has since been demolished and converted into a local park. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
exif: {}