Gauguin: Maker of Myth (2011)

Actors: Willem Dafoe (actor), Alfred Molina (actor), Susan M. Arensberg (producer), John Warnock (editor),

Plot: Narrated by Willem Dafoe and with Alfred Molina as the voice of Paul Gauguin, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Gauguin: Maker of Myth at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Gauguin (1848-1903) abandoned impressionism to create an art driven less by observation than by imagination. His gifts as an artist were matched by a talent for creating myths about places, cultures, and, most of all, himself. This film explores his search for an authenticity he felt missing in modern Europe, a search that took him to ever more remote lands: Brittany, Martinique, and Polynesia. Never finding the paradise of his dreams, he recreated it in his paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints.

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Actors: Marion Cotillard (actress), Alison Pill (actress), Michel Vuillermoz (actor), Laurent Spielvogel (actor), Kathy Bates (actress), Marianne Basler (actress), Olivier Rabourdin (actor), Michael Sheen (actor), Gad Elmaleh (actor), Kurt Fuller (actor), Adrien Brody (actor), Thierry Hancisse (actor), Atmen Kelif (actor), Jack Rollins (producer), Owen Wilson (actor),

Plot: Gil and Inez travel to Paris as a tag-along vacation on her parents' business trip. Gil is a successful Hollywood writer but is struggling on his first novel. He falls in love with the city and thinks they should move there after they get married, but Inez does not share his romantic notions of the city or the idea that the 1920s was the golden age. When Inez goes off dancing with her friends, Gil takes a walk at midnight and discovers what could be the ultimate source of inspiration for writing. Gil's daily walks at midnight in Paris could take him closer to the heart of the city but further from the woman he's about to marry.

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Van Gogh: Painted with Words (2010)

Actors: Benedict Cumberbatch (actor), Alan Yentob (actor), Alan Yentob (writer), Alan Yentob (producer), Rowena Cooper (actress), Aidan McArdle (actor), Adam Recht (editor), Christopher Good (actor), Andrew Hutton (writer), Andrew Hutton (director), Daniel Weyman (actor), Jamie Parker (actor), Richard Trinder (actor), Stephanie Jacob (actress), Vincent van Gogh (writer),

The Yellow House (2007)

Actors: John Simm (actor), Kevin Eldon (actor), John Lynch (actor), Clive Russell (actor), Natalie Sloan (miscellaneous crew), Eve Swannell (miscellaneous crew), Deborah Findlay (actress), Andrea Cornwell (producer), Simon Farnaby (actor), Scott Handy (actor), Sarah Smart (actress), Chris Durlacher (director), David Piechaczek (miscellaneous crew), Sue Thomson (costume designer), Katie Davies (miscellaneous crew),

The Eyes of Van Gogh (2005)

Actors: Jack Gattanella (miscellaneous crew), Veronica Mulero (miscellaneous crew), Roy Thinnes (actor), Michael Bevins (costume designer), Veronique Doumbe (editor), Dillon Neaman (miscellaneous crew), Gordon Joseph Weiss (actor), Brandon Carraha (miscellaneous crew), Carlos del Rosario (miscellaneous crew), Melissa Drotar (miscellaneous crew), Ray Wasik (actor), Marcia T. Mohiuddin (producer), Alexander Barnett (actor), Alexander Barnett (writer), Alexander Barnett (director),

Plot: As the director, the goal I set for myself in transferring the film script to the screen was never to present but rather to uncover. I employ a subjective camera throughout the entire film. The idea is to get inside Vincent's head. Everything seen and felt is from his point of view. In order to achieve this, the camera, rather than viewing the action, will always be within it. We strove to give objective expression to inner experience, i.e., to show what Vincent was thinking and feeling; to show how a memory, dream or hallucination registers in his mind: texture, sound, color, shape, tempo. The purpose is not for the audience merely to be a witness, but rather for them to live within the image and to participate psychologically in the action. Vincent's mind, from beginning to end, is always engaged. His confusion, struggle, bewilderment and desperation grow and grow. He is never totally in one place. When he is in the past he still retains some of the present and vice versa. Many scenes are dream, imaginary or hallucinatory sequences. In order to convey the intensity and obsessive quality and to maintain the subjective camera movement, all of the scenes were shot at 360 degrees with a handheld camera. From childhood on, Vincent never took anything for granted. He always marvelled at every new discovery; at all the wonders of the world. Vincent suffered constantly with terrible bouts of guilt, remorse and regret because of the burden he put on Theo and because his work never sold. Vincent came to St. Remy because he wanted to be isolated from the outside world and be in a protective environment. As long as he could discover and reveal new truths and carry on with his work he could hold the horrible disease at bay. For Vincent, inactivity was absolute torture. Painting was the only thing that protected him from the constant questions and doubts that haunted him. By going without proper sleep or food, by working himself to the point of exhaustion -- this alone helped silence the most frightening thoughts. It was vitally important to him that his work be recognized; for there to be some sense of recompense, because then he could ease the burden placed on Theo. Vincent van Gogh's three greatest fears were: suffering another attack; being incapacitated and unable to work; and failing to justify though his work all that Theo had done for him. He felt that if he couldn't work he had no reason to live, no right to take money away from Theo. The constant obsession by psychoanalysts, doctors and armchair experts to pigeonhole van Gogh's illness, to give it a specific name, to use it to explain his actions, to claim that the very quality of his personality and his genius can be attributed to a specific malady: bi-polar disease, schizophrenia, autism, tinnitus, gonorrhea, lead poisoning, ad finitum ad nauseam is utter rubbish. It's an insult to Vincent and proof that these people have absolutely no understanding of the man. Vincent was completely original both in his work and in his illness. Certainly he had severe emotional problems and no doubt they were exacerbated by malnutrition and traumatic experiences - the Borinage, etc. that made him more vulnerable - but ultimately he was defeated by an immense sensitivity and an overwhelming empathic nature that was unable to cope with the reality of the world and the nature of most people. In spite of what most think, Vincent was a realist both in his life and his work, but his reality was light years beyond everyday reality and therein lay his genius. He indeed saw life as it was but was never able to come to terms with it. Most realists become cynics, but Vincent was totally incapable of this. When an artist becomes a cynic, he also become a hack and is no longer capable of producing heartfelt work. Technical virtuosity may remain, but the "soul" of the work is lost. Vincent never lost either. By the world's standard of normalcy, then and now, Vincent was not an idealist but quixotic. However, the "world's standard of normalcy, then and now," is by definition pedestrian, mediocre, compliant, herdish, pragmatic, accommodating and compromising. Vincent was extremely difficult to deal with. If he saw some-thing unjust or wrong, he felt compelled to attack it. It was always love or hate and this created many enemies. Even Theo found him impossible to live with. All Vincent thought about, all he cared about was the work. Nevertheless, Theo, like Roulin the postman and Vincent's teacher in Amsterdam, Mendes da Costa, always thought that Vincent was a great and unique individual. These were the only three friends Vincent ever had, the only people who under-stood and loved him for what and who he was. But they were also unique and wonderful people, atypical from the average person. Many people today who adulate Vincent make him into a Christ-like martyr. He was neither and would have detested the notion. He is depicted as the ultimate "communal" artist. This is nonsense. He was in fact the ultimate "individualist" who was never able to work well with others, or to be bound by any sort of cooperative rules. His desire to work with others came from loneliness more than anything else. Another myth is that he sacrificed his life (again, the martyr syndrome) for humanity. No. He gave his life to his work. He did indeed have an obsessive desire to educate and inspire people. But he strove to do so through his work, which superseded everything else. The most significant and revelatory things about van Gogh are not that he cut off his earlobe or that he suffered attacks of madness or that he committed suicide, but rather that he lived life to the fullest, realized his artistic potential as much as humanly possible, fought magnificently against the attacks and all forms of adversity, never willingly giving in to them. Most important, he created a superb body of work that will live as long as the human race survives. The theme of his life, and the theme of my film The Eyes of Van Gogh, is Vincent's quest to achieve immortality through his work.

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Shadow in a Landscape (1987)

Actors: Susannah York (actress), James Aubrey (actor), April Walker (actress), John Hug (actor), Kika Mirylees (actress), J. Brian Waddell (producer), Ivor C. Morrow (costume designer), Jack McQuoid (actor), Dominic Thomas (actor),

Le voyage du Hollandais (1981)

Actors: Jean-Pierre Bisson (actor), Bernard Musson (actor), Michel Robin (actor), Raoul Curet (actor), Gérard Desarthe (actor), Janine Darcey (actress), Christian Marin (actor), Alain Mottet (actor), Pascale de Boysson (actress), Françoise Morhange (actress), Beate Kopp (actress), Charles Brabant (director), Charles Brabant (writer), Gaston Vacchia (actor), Yves Wecker (actor),

Gauguin the Savage (1980)

Actors: David Carradine (actor), Alex Hyde-White (actor), Michael Hordern (actor), Gerald Fried (composer), Flora Robson (actress), Ian Richardson (actor), Lynn Redgrave (actress), Fielder Cook (director), Dominique Piat (miscellaneous crew), Alan Caillou (actor), Bernard Fox (actor), Fiona Fullerton (actress), Christopher Cary (actor), Nicholas Amer (actor), Emrys James (actor),

Más allá del color: La vida de Gauguin y Degas (1958)

Actors: María Aurelia Bisutti (actress), Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (actor), Narciso Ibáñez Menta (actor), Fernanda Mistral (actress), Esteban Serrador (actor), Rosa Rosen (actress), Esteban Serrador (director), Silvia Legrand (actress), Fernando Heredia (actor), Ernesto Mas (director),

Lust for Life (1956)

Actors: David Bond (actor), David Horne (actor), Lionel Jeffries (actor), Al Haskell (actor), Ronald Adam (actor), Henry Daniell (actor), Noel Howlett (actor), Jay Adler (actor), Kirk Douglas (actor), Paul Bryar (actor), Rex Evans (actor), Henry Corden (actor), Roy Gordon (actor), Wilton Graff (actor), David Leonard (actor),

Plot: 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.

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