Lust for Life (1956) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The life of brilliant but tortured artist Vincent van Gogh.

Directors: Norman Corwin (screen play), Irving Stone (based on the novel by) Stars: From $2.00 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC ‘T2: Trainspotting’ Soundtrack Includes Iggy Pop, Wolf Alice, Underworld, And More 10 January 2017 6:37 AM, -08:00 | The Playlist a list of 30 titles created 04 Sep 2011 a list of 37 titles created 16 Oct 2012 a list of 45 titles created 28 Feb 2013 a list of 25 titles created 01 May 2013 a list of 33 titles created 14 May 2013 Title: Lust for Life (1956) 7.4/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 1 Oscar. Another 3 wins & 6 nominations. See more awards » Photos An unscrupulous movie producer uses an actress, a director and a writer to achieve success.

Director: Vincente Minnelli Boxer Midge Kelly rises to fame...mainly by stepping on other people. Director: Mark Robson A slave and a Viking prince fight for the love of a captive princess. Director: Richard Fleischer A fiercely independent cowboy arranges to have himself locked up in jail in order to then escape with an old friend who has been sentenced to the penitentiary. Director: David Miller A movie adaptation of Homer's second epic, that talks about Ulysses' efforts to return to his home after the end of ten years of war. Director: Mario Camerini On one day in the 21st Precinct squad room, assorted characters form a backdrop for the troubles of hard-nosed Detective Jim McLeod. Director: William Wyler A frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to re-jump start his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus. Director: Billy Wilder The slave Spartacus leads a violent revolt against the decadent Roman Republic. Director: Stanley Kubrick Edit Storyline Vincent Van Gogh is the archetypical tortured artistic genius.

His obsession with painting, combined with mental illness, propels him through an unhappy life full of failures and unrewarding relationships. He fails at being a preacher to coal miners. He fails in his relationships with women. He earns some respect among his fellow painters, especially Paul Gauguin, but he does not get along with them. He only manages to sell one painting in his lifetime. The one constant good in his life is his brother Theo, who is unwavering in his moral and financial support. Written by John Oswalt <jao@jao.com> Magnificent in CinemaScope and Color See more » Genres: 15 September 1956 (USA) See more » Also Known As: La vie passionnée de Vincent van Gogh See more » Filming Locations: 122 min Sound Mix: Mono (Perspecta Sound® encoding) (35 mm optical prints) (Westrex Recording System)| 4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints) (Westrex Recording System) Color: Average Shot Length (ASL) = 15 seconds See more » Goofs Camera shadow falls across Ducrucq as Van Gogh finds him dead.

See more » Quotes Vincent Van Gogh : If I'm to be anything as a painter I've got to break through that iron wall between what I feel and what I express. my best chance of doing it is here, where my roots are... the people I know, the earth I know. (Denmark) – See all my reviews When I hear the name Vincente Minnelli certain scenes pop up on my inner screeningroom: A tracking shot at the fair (Some came running), the low tracking zoom towards Douglas and Turner at the pool (Bad and the Beautiful), snowmen (Meet me in St Louis) and the agony in Douglas's face in "Lust for life"; in fact as soon as his redbearded agonized face pops up, all the other movies fade away and "Lust for life" takes over my inner screening room. But apart from being my favorite Minnelli movie, its a movie that more than any other shows his genius in use of colors; every scene is composed in breathtaking technicolor with the deepest respect for Van Gogh's own use of color, and Douglas's acting is filled with the same agony and passion as the strokes of Van Gogh's brush.

As the other great movies who uses color to its fullest (Wizard of Oz, Black Narcissus, Ten Commandments), the simularities between the director and the painter is obvious. Hence, Minnelli's struggle for "painting" the scenes with the richness of technicolor becomes an echo of Van Gogh. It also reads as a textbook in composition from Steinberg's Dead Space to Eisenstein's juxtapositions. In all, Minnelli is of great skill and uses it to the fullest. The story, which focuses on the struggle for a new way of expression, is tame at times and the acting (apart from Douglas) seems static most of the times, but the tortured face and body of Douglas and the use of color makes this one of the greatest achievements in MGM's history and one of the best movies Minnelli ever made. 27 of 34 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes Lust for Life - Kirk Douglas's Finest Work Lust for Life (1956) Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh 'Lust for Life' is a dramatic biographical film about about the life of the Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh, made in 1956 and starring Kirk Douglas, James Donald, Pamela Brown, Everett Sloane and Anthony Quinn. The movie was directed by Vincente Minnelli and was based on the 1934 novel by Irving Stone, which was itself based on the many letters written between Van Gogh and his brother, Theo. The film performed poorly at the box office but was critically praised, receiving four Academy Award nominations including Best Actor for Kirk Douglas. (He lost to Yul Brynner for 'The King and I'.) It won in one Oscar category, Best Supporting Actor for Anthony Quinn. Search Amazon for 'Lust for Life' Plot Whilst based on the Irving Stone novel the movie does deal with the most important parts of Van Gogh's life and in a surprisingly accurate way. It does not shy away from the ugliness of parts of his life: the loneliness, the anguish, the mental instability, the lack of appreciation from everyone except his brother.

The film shows van Gogh's unhappy life from his younger days when he attempts, unsuccessfully to do missionary work amongst coal miners in Belgium. Interpreting too literally the Christian gospel, he gives away all his worldly possessions and, unsurprisingly, finds himself poverty stricken, living in squalor. He is found by his brother, Theo, the one constant positive force in his life, played by James Donald, who persuades him to return to Holland, where he finds his true vocation, and his great natural creative gift. After being rejected by Kay, the woman he loves, played by Jeanette Sterke, he forms a relationship with a prostitute, Christine, played by Pamela Brown, which ultimately fails, like all his relationships with women. He eventually goes to live with his brother in Paris, where he meets other major Impressionist artists. One of these, Paul Gauguin, played, to the hilt, by Anthony Quinn, is persuaded by Theo to join Vincent in the southern village of Arles. The emotional clashes of temperament between the two men increase Van Gogh's mental instability and cause him to mutilate his ear.

The remainder of the film shows his attempts to deal with his mental health problems, first in an asylum headed by Dr. Peyron, played by the English actor, Lionel Jefferies, and then with a sympathetic homeopathic doctor, Dr. Gachet played by Everett Sloane. Despite the attempts to help him, his despair overcomes him and he commits suicide by shooting himself. As one would expect in a 1956 movie, the grisly aspects of his life - the ear mutilation and the suicide - occur offscreen. Main Cast Lust for Life (1956) - Van Gogh from Irving Stone to Kirk Douglas — Immortal Ephemera By Cliff Aliperti 22 Comments This post is part of the Classic Movie Blog Association's "Fabulous Films of the 50s Blogathon." You'll find the entire list of CMBA participating sites here . Admire it or not, Irving Stone’s 1934 bestselling novel Lust for Life allowed the popular image of Vincent Van Gogh to sweep through mainstream America in a way that gallery exhibitions had not and possibly never could.

The cult of the famous failed painter, who had only sold one painting during his short lifetime, had been growing in art’s inner circles for much longer, gaining steam along with the entire avant garde at the 1913 Armory Show in New York and standing out through publication of several of Van Gogh’s letters by his brother Theo's widow in 1914. Given all of the color and intensity of Van Gogh's work, it is ironic that he was launched as a mainstream pop culture figure in America through the printed word in a book that did not even contain lush reproductions of his art. Above: Anthony Quinn as Paul Gauguin with Kirk Douglas in the background as Vincent Van Gogh. Gauguin has just joined Vincent in Arles and finds that his friend has been busy. Beyond invigorating Van Gogh’s reputation and legacy with the mass public, Lust for Life launched a career for Stone that would encompass some twenty-five books through the time of his death in 1989 at age 86.

The Van Gogh book is usually paired with the Michelangelo book, The Agony and the Ecstasy, when discussing Stone, though The Agony and the Ecstasy was published many years later in 1961. But Stone did not just render fictionalized biographies of figures from the world of art: He also published novels with subjects as varied as Sigmund Freud, Jack London, Abraham and Mary Lincoln, Clarence Darrow and Earl Warren. It was a long and fruitful career but a trailblazing path that was initially stalled by failure and often accompanied by harsh criticism that called his work anything from lazy to dangerous. Stone was known for his intensive research so why, asked the naysayers, doesn’t he just write straight biography? “Biography is all facts. It appeals to the intellect only,” said Stone in 1962, about a year after publication of his Michelangelo book. “But with a biographical novel, you can move the reader emotionally. Feel something emotionally and you’ll never forget it” ("Biography"). Stone went to Paris in 1926 with plans to spend a year writing plays. Upon his arrival he was exposed to Van Gogh’s paintings for the first time and a new course was begun.

Stone trekked across Holland, Belgium and France, all the while becoming intimately familiar with Van Gogh’s letters. Hundreds of additional letters were made available from the time of the 1914 published edition and Stone himself would preside over a condensed version of Van Gogh's letters published in 1937. In a note dated June 6, 1934 that follows the original text of Lust for Life, Stone acknowledges Van Gogh “friends and enthusiasts” who aided him in his research with first or second-hand accounts of the artist. Sticking to names we can recognize from the 1956 film, this included the family of artist and Van Gogh relation Anton Mauve; Dr. Felix Rey, who attended Van Gogh in Arles after the artist severed his ear; and Paul Gachet, the art lover who treated Van Gogh at the end of his life in Auvers. Stone’s completed novel, Lust for Life, would be rejected by seventeen or more major publishing houses in New York and Boston before finally finding a home with Longmans, Green & Co. in 1934. Stone told his story of rejection numerous times throughout his career.

In 1978 he told an interviewer that editors and art experts at Doubleday had approved his manuscript, but when Lust for Life reached the sales department they said, “‘No way. There is no way to sell a book about an unknown Dutch painter’ — and in 1931 Van Gogh was unknown — ‘to the American public in the midst of a depression.’” After establishing himself Stone eventually did sign on with Doubleday and the publishing house later bought the rights to Lust for Life from the original publisher, Longmans. It remains in print to this day. That last bit probably has everything to do with the movie. The first report I could find of a potential Lust for Life film adaptation comes in 1937 when Film Daily reported that Edward G. Robinson might star in a film for Associated Artists. That, along with a later Louella Parsons column tabbing John Garfield as Van Gogh in a Warner Bros. version of the book, were probably just rumor, as Stone’s novel wasn’t sold until 1946, when MGM picked it up with plans to star Spencer Tracy as Van Gogh as soon as he completed work on Cass Timberlane (1947) .

Tracy would have been a little old for the part, but from all of the names I’ve seen associated with rumored Lust for Life projects--and add Van Johnson to those above--Tracy is the only actor other than Kirk Douglas who I could possibly imagine in the part. Even beyond any extra censoring, which according to '40s reports would have likely included a title change, we would have had a much different movie with Tracy bringing a much quieter intensity to Van Gogh than Douglas, whose outward physical rage Tracy could have never matched, nor do I think he would have tried. “The next picture I wanted the Bryna Company to produce, and me to star in, was Lust for Life,” Douglas writes in The Ragman's Son . It was director Jean Negulesco who had pointed out to Douglas the resemblance between the actor and Van Gogh, stirring Douglas enough to eventually announce that his company would produce a film version of the novel. “I got a call from MGM. ‘Guess again. We own Lust for Life,’” they told him (239).

But nearing the end of their ten-year agreement with author Stone, MGM suddenly felt pressure to make Lust for Life, especially after John Huston’s success with a filmed version of Toulouse-Latrec’s life, Moulin Rouge starring Jose Ferrer, in 1952. Old scripts were put aside and Norman Corwin was brought in by producer John Houseman to create a new screenplay. “I don’t think much of the book,” Corwin told Houseman, after finding value not in Stone’s fiction, but in the source of Van Gogh’s actual letters that Stone colored with his fiction (Forrest 313). Having read Stone’s novel in preparation for this piece, as well as having gone over several of Van Gogh's original letters, all archived online by the Van Gogh Museum , I don’t disagree with Corwin. The Stone novel is entertaining, but immature in spots and, at least after having been familiar with the film for some time, includes several episodes from Van Gogh’s life, fact or fiction, that were correctly excised from the film.

Kirk Douglas wound up getting his wish when producer Houseman reunited the team from The Bad and the Beautiful, signing Douglas to star and Vincente Minnelli to direct. Just as Stone had done when writing his novel, the MGM film unfolds across the actual locations where Van Gogh had lived and worked throughout Holland, Belgium and France. While author Stone is to be credited for writing a novel that brings all of the necessary visuals to life for the reader, the Minnelli film deserves applause for actually showing them. The opening credits to the film express gratitude to an extensive list of museums who allowed their Van Gogh paintings to be exhibited in the film. Thinking back to the possible Lust for Life adaptation with Spencer Tracy planned ten years earlier, I can’t help but to think of the 1942 United Artists release, The Moon and Sixpence, an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s more heavily fictionalized account of Paul Gauguin starring George Sanders. Sanders is painting throughout The Moon and Sixpence, but all we see are the backs of the canvases in what is mostly a black and white film.

Can you imagine Lust for Life without seeing any of Van Gogh’s paintings or, probably worse, seeing them in black and white? Instead we get color by Metrocolor and a film shot in widescreen CinemaScope, a combination that helps to bring Van Gogh to life as well as any film could. But while Vincente Minnelli and company breathed life into the world of Van Gogh that Irving Stone had helped reawaken more than twenty years earlier, it was Kirk Douglas who ripped Van Gogh from Stone’s book to bring him to the screen with a startling combination of tenderness and intensity. While Stone calls upon the full menagerie of Van Gogh’s contemporary artists for a large and, granted, entertaining portion of Lust for Life, the film concentrates solely upon Vincent’s relationship with Paul Gauguin, played here by Anthony Quinn , who won an Academy Award in the supporting role. While Gauguin is also the predominant supporting player in Stone's coverage of Vincent’s time in Paris and Arles, all of his additional characters, including Lautrec, Rousseau, Seurat and Cezanne, would have been distracting in a feature-length movie.

Scaling down this catalog of personalities in the film leaves Gauguin to better serve in direct contrast to Van Gogh as difference between the characters are more clearly represented: “I like them fat and vicious and not too smart,” Gauguin tells Vincent about women. “Nothing spiritual either. To have to say, ‘I love you,’ would break my teeth. I don’t want to be loved.” “You really mean that, Paul,” Van Gogh replies, astonished it could be so. Later, as they are about to enter a drinking hall, Gauguin, bored with Arles to this point, excites himself by joining into a street fight. Vincent watches, pinned against a wall, seemingly repulsed by the entire incident. Inside, Gauguin seems amused by his own actions as he almost comically laments: “Vincent, why do I do it? Now here I pride myself on my sense of logic and order, and inside I’m a savage. I have this—this attraction to violence.” “Violence makes me sick,” says Vincent. “I have too much inside me, I’m afraid of it.” “That’s why I let it out before it hurts me,” Gauguin replies.

It is an earlier moment in this same scene that a touch of subtlety stretches a long way in showing how the film turns out superior to the novel. Inside the drinking hall, Vincent is seated with his prostitute friend, Rachel (Julie Robinson), while Gauguin still scopes out what will be his new haunt. Just before Gauguin sits down with them the woman casually drapes a piece of jewelry over Vincent’s left ear, foreshadowing the inevitable moment of the movie which we know must soon come. There is no spoken reference to the action. Minnelli and Corwin employ great subtlety in this moment, especially in comparison to novelist Stone, whose Rachel is, I assume more accurately, a very chatty sixteen-year-old prostitute. Upon their meeting Stone shocks us when within a few moments when the playful girl teases Vincent by commenting, “What funny little ears you have” (382). After asking her is she really likes them Vincent says, “Then you can have them.” Then, not thirty pages later, Rachel asks Vincent to “give me your funny little ears” (414) as proof of his apology for staying away for too long.

A few pages later, at the end of that same meeting, when Vincent declines to join Rachel in private that evening because he does not have the money, she offers, “Then will you give me your ear instead?” (421). Vincent simply replies, “Yes.” All this was achieved to much less jarring effect in the film by Rachel just fawning over Vincent’s ear with a piece of jewelry. Above: Julie Robinson, as Rachel, plays with Van Gogh's ear. For pure shock value Stone’s course continues to differ from the film when Vincent, upon severing his ear, wraps it up nicely and delivers it to Rachel, who is, of course, horrified. The film instead takes the opportunity to ice the Van Gogh-Gauguin relationship with a moment of insane treachery that finally leaves Gauguin to understand just how ill his friend is, before giving over to a moment of private anguish that sees Vincent battle his own reflection in a mirror with a straight-razor clutched between his fingers. As he runs his hands over his head and face trying to stop the pain, or perhaps contain the demons, the razor threatens just by virtue of its proximity and our foreknowledge of what is about to happen.

Again, subtlety rules the visual medium as we do not see Van Gogh perform the act of self-mutiliation. Instead, the Miklos Rozsa soundtrack swells to disturbing proportions while Vincent stands before the mirror, only to fade to silence as Kirk Douglas steps out of view. The scene ends with a tortured animal cry and we know the deed has been done. Lust for Life was released in September 1956 beginning a path that led to multiple award nominations including Quinn’s winning of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Douglas’ own Golden Globe triumph for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Drama. It survives as a classic and works as an introduction to the life of Van Gogh and his work. I say it works, because it is how I first met Van Gogh as historical figure myself. The criticism that author Irving Stone so often faced during his career writing literary biographies is one that is always leveled at fictionalized versions of history and biography. Experts in any field, not just art, like to poke holes, especially when an outsider tries to tell a story about a figure from their own field.

Stone had the best reply, in a 1985 interview with Bob Thomas, when he said, “There is no fiction. What there is, is reconstruction.” For those without an intimate knowledge of the finer arts, including myself, for better or for worse, Kirk Douglas is Vincent Van Gogh, or at least Van Gogh immortalized. Lust for Life is available on DVD from Warner Home Video or as one of four movies on Turner Classic Movies' Greatest Classic Legends: Kirk Douglas . Irving Stone's novel can be found on Amazon.com in several different editions here. . Cited ”Biography Gets New Status.” Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal 10 Jun 1962: 7C. Web. Google News. 27 May 2014. Forrest, Jennifer and Leonard R. Koos, ed. Dead Ringers: The Remake in Theory and Practice Albany: SUNY Press, 2002. Web. Google Books. 28 May 2014. Thomas, Bob. “Irving Stone Takes Time to Know Subjects.” Beaver County Times 3 Nov 1985: D2. Web. Google News.

27 May 2014. Lust for Life DVD (1956) Starring Kirk Douglas; Directed by Vincente Minnelli; Warner Home Video | OLDIES.com Academy Awards 1956 - Best Supporting Actor: Anthony Quinn Entertainment Reviews: Uncut - 05/01/2006 4 stars out of 5 -- "Minnelli's vivid palette, all burnished yellows and turbulent blues, conveys something of the artist's fiery intensity." Description by OLDIES.com: Vibrant orange sunflowers. Rippling yellow grain. Trees bursting with white bloom. "The pictures come to me as in a dream," Vincent Van Gogh said. A dream that too often turned to life-shattering nightmare. Winner of Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Best Actor Awards, Kirk Douglas gives a fierce portrayal as the artist torn between the joyous inspiration of his genius and the dark desperation of his tormented mind. The obsessed Van Gogh painted the way other men breathe, driving away family and friends, including artist Paul Gauguin (1956 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winner Anthony Quinn).

Directed by Vincente Minnelli and saturated with the hues of Van Gogh's sea, field and sky, Lust for Life captures the ecstasy of art. And the agony of one man's life. Product Description: A vivid, stylish portrait of tormented painter Vincent Van Gogh, based on the biography by Irving Stone. Description by Warner Home Video: Lust For Life Vibrant orange sunflowers. Rippling yelow grain. Trees bursting with white bloom. "The pictures come to me as in a dream," Vincent Van Gogh said. A dream that too often turned to life-shattering nightmare. Winner of Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Best Actor Awards, Kirk Douglas gives a fierce portrayal as the artist torn between the joyous inspiration of his genius and the dark desperation of his tormented mind. The obsessed Van Gogh painted the way other men breathe, driving away family and friends, including artist Paul Gauguin (1956 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winner Anthony Quinn). Directed by Vincente Minnelli and saturated with the hues of Van Gogh's sea, field and sky, Lust for Life captures the ecstasy of art. And the agony of one man's life.

Plot Synopsis: Biography about artist Vincent Van Gogh, and how his zeal for life and knowledge affected his artwork, and led to his insanity. Keywords: Lust For Life [DVD] [1956]: Amazon.co.uk: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald, Pamela Brown, Everett Sloane, Niall MacGinnis, Noel Purcell, Jill Bennett, Madge Kennedy, Henry Daniell, Vincente Minnelli, John Houseman: DVD & Blu-ray Lust For Life [DVD] [1956] 4.5 out of 5 stars 76 Â£5.49 Amazon Prime Format: PAL, Colour, Anamorphic, Widescreen, HiFi Sound Language: English Subtitles: Dutch, English, French, Italian, Arabic, Romanian, Bulgarian Dubbed: French, Italian Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired: English, Italian Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats. ) Number of discs: 1 DVD Release Date: 20 Mar.

2006 Run Time: 117 minutes Product Description Product Description Kirk Douglas stars as the Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh in Vincente Minnelli's biopic. After giving away not only his own belongings but those of the church to impoverished Belgian miners, Van Gogh is reprimanded by his religious superiors. He turns to a life of squalor, but is saved by his brother, Theo. Van Gogh then develops a passion for painting, using a prostitute as his model. After alienating his patron and relative, Anton Mauve, Van Gogh moves to Paris, developing a close friendship with Gauguin. Anthony Quinn won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Gauguin. Synopsis Lust for Life captures the ecstasy of art, and the agony of one man's life. Kirk Douglas gives a fierce portrayal of Van Gogh, an artist torn between the joyous inspiration of his genius and the dark desperation of his tormented mind. Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Vincente Minnelli, Lust for Life, 1956, the crucial moment.. - YouTube Vincente Minnelli, Lust for Life, 1956, the crucial moment.. Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on May 11, 2008 Vincente Minnelli, Lust for Life, 1956, the crucial moment... Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh Category GOT A LUST FOR LIFE | KIRK DOUGLAS THE ROLE THAT ALMOST CRACKED HIM | The Selvedge Yard GOT A LUST FOR LIFE | KIRK DOUGLAS THE ROLE THAT ALMOST CRACKED HIM * Lust for Life was the film that should have finally won Kirk Douglas the coveted Best Actor Oscar– after having been nominated for the brilliant The Champion (1949), and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).

He was definitely due for his gripping portrayal of the tortured, complicated Van Gogh, and losing to Yul Brenner in The King and I was an injustice. Douglas was personally devastated by the loss– “I really thought I had a chance,” he said stoically after losing. It was a blow that gnawed at his soul for years. Lust for Life Director Vincente Minnelli himself stated, “Kirk Douglas achieved a moving and memorable portrait of the artist—a man of massive creative power, triggered by severe emotional stress, the fear and horror of madness. In my opinion, Kirk should have won the Academy Award.” When you think of method actors, it’s usually Marlon Brando, Monty Clift and James Dean that come to mind– but Kirk Douglas, who’ll never share their misunderstood, hipster mystique, was also known to throw himself into every project. He would not only dissect his own lines, but everyone else’s, and carefully go through the entire script front to back. It was often said that Kirk Douglas tried to direct every film he was in– he was headstrong and wouldn’t back down from any director.

That intensity was also manifested at home, as told by his wife, “When he was doing Lust for Life, he came home in that red beard of Van Gogh’s, wearing those big boots, stomping around the house—it was frightening.” Filmed largely on location in France, Lust for Life is often noted for its beautiful cinematic use of color to tell the story, which is true– but it is Douglas’ deeply personal acting and eerie likeness to Van Gogh (so much so that while filming on location where Van Gogh had lived, some older inhabitants of Van Gogh’s believed that he had actually returned) that power Lust for Life. It was said that Douglas got so deep inside Van Gogh’s twisted pain and inner turmoil that it nearly drove him to the brink of madness, and it was very affecting and difficult for him to unwind from the role. Looking at these still images from Lust for Life crystalize and convey Kirk Douglas’ intensity in a way that even the film can not. They are absolutely stunning in their composition and emotion. They slay me. * * France, 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”.

— image by Frank Scherschel * * France, 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. — image by Frank Scherschel * * France, 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. — image by Frank Scherschel * * France, 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. — image by Frank Scherschel * * France, 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. — image by Frank Scherschel * * 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. * * 1955 — Kirk Douglas poses beside a self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh, painted by the artist in 1886-1887 to show his remarkable resemblance to the great painter.

— Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS * * France, 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. * * 1955, Auvers-Sur-Oise, France — Vincent Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) scatters crows from his painting in the movie Lust for Life. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS * * France, 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. — image by Frank Scherschel * * 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh (and Anthony Quinn, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Gauguin) in the film “Lust For Life”. * * France, 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. — image by Frank Scherschel * 1956 — Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh in Lust for Life.

— Image by © John Springer Collection/CORBIS * * 1955 — Actor Kirk Douglas portraying the artist Vincent Van Gogh in the film “Lust For Life”. * Lust For Life Lust for Life Wednesday February, 15 2017 at 01:30 AM Films in BOLD will Air on TCM * | VIEW TCMDb ENTRY For many years, it was common wisdom in Hollywood that an artist's life was not a successful subject for film (and, truth be told, many potentially fascinating biographies have made dreadful movies). So, although MGM owned the rights since 1946 of Irving Stone's hugely popular 1934 novel about the tortured painter Vincent Van Gogh, a film version was repeatedly shelved as too risky. But after a very successful international Van Gogh exhibit in the 1950s introduced his work to hundreds of thousands of people and John Huston's film about painter Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge (1952), proved to be a money-maker, the studio approved the project with John Houseman producing and Vincente Minnelli directing. Minnelli was the ideal choice to bring the story to the screen.

A former stage designer known for his visual style that mirrored and amplified the dramatic story of each of his films, he was the right match for a movie about a painter. But he had to fight several battles to get the look he wanted; some he won, some he didn't. Minnelli didn't want to use CinemaScope for Lust for Life, reasoning that, as he said in his autobiography, "the dimensions of the wider screen [bore] little relation to the conventional shape of painting," but the then-popular process was a must for MGM, which like every other studio was looking for cinematic gimmicks to overcome the threat of television. Minnelli did win a technical battle, however, concerning the film stock. The studio was using the Eastman color process which, contrary to the soft, subtle tones he wanted to depict Van Gogh's world and his art, produced colors "straight from the candy box, a brilliant mixture of blues, reds, and yellows that resembled neither life nor art," the director said. He preferred the defunct Ansco process, and he and Houseman hounded MGM executives until they bought up the remaining 300,000 feet of Ansco stock.

The company then opened a lab especially to process Minnelli's footage. Another problem concerned filming Van Gogh's actual paintings. The masterpieces could have been ruined by the intense light required for motion picture cameras, so Minnelli sent crews into museums and private collectors' homes to capture about 200 of Van Gogh's paintings with special portrait cameras that made time exposures without excessive light. Enlarged transparencies were then made of each shot, which were backlit and refilmed with special lenses. Most of the picture was shot where Van Gogh lived and worked, including The Hague in the Netherlands and Arles in southern France. The production team even found two older citizens of Arles who had known Van Gogh 60 years earlier; one of them had sat for the painting "The Baby Roulin." Even on location, however, there were problems to be solved. Because Van Gogh's work was so well known, the film couldn't get away with showing scenes or landscapes that had been altered since the master painted them. In one case, they had to put a tree in the ground that had been removed since the original's depiction in a famous painting.

One other obstacle had to be overcome during principal photography, and it was a major one. The ten-year film rights to Stone's book were set to expire at the end of 1955 and Stone adamantly refused to grant an extension, so when the project got the green light, Houseman and Minnelli were told they had nine months to complete the picture. They were still shooting when December 31 came around, but Stone had finally relented (to the tune of $30,000 a week), and shooting was completed two weeks into the new year. Kirk Douglas wanted to play Van Gogh ever since director Jean Negulesco told him he resembled the artist. He threw himself into the role, to the point of taking on so many of the artist's stormy, unstable traits he frightened his wife in his off-hours at home. He was rewarded for his efforts with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor but lost to Yul Brynner in The King and I (1956). An Oscar did go home, however, with Anthony Quinn, who in his brief screen time as Van Gogh's contentious friend, painter Paul Gauguin, made an impression that earned him Best Supporting Actor.

Lust for Life was also nominated for Best Color Art Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay. Director: Vincente Minnelli Screenplay: Norman Corwin, based on the novel by Irving Stone Cinematography: Freddie Young, Russell Harlan Editing: Adrienne Fazan Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters, Preston Ames Original Music: Miklos Rozsa Cast: Kirk Douglas (Vincent Van Gogh), Anthony Quinn (Paul Gauguin), James Donald (Theo Van Gogh), Pamela Brown (Christine), Everett Sloane (Dr. Gachet), Niall MacGinnis (Roulin), Noel Purcell (Anton Mauve), Henry Daniell (Theodorus Van Gogh), Jill Bennett (Willemien), Lionel Jeffries (Dr. Peyron), Laurence Naismith (Dr. Bosman), Eric Pohlmann (Colbert). C-123m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning. Descriptive video. by Rob Nixon

Question: The 1956 film "Lust for Life", starring Kirk Douglas, centred on the life of who ?
Answer: VINCENT VAN GOGH