Modigliani (2004)S

Sometimes, it gives one a certain sense of inner satisfaction to have one's prejudiced opionions confirmed. In other words, I sat down with a greasy dinner to watch a film about an Italian painter called Amedeo Modigliani. The film is called, surprise, surpise, Modigliani and it was everything I expected it to be. I've seen many films about self-centered artists before, but this about takes the biscuit. Yes, it was about drinking & pride & women & artistic poverty & mental asylums & old masters & hallucinatory fever dreams. Of course, several moments of gun-waving were included. What else. Sorry, forgot. Toiling to finish THE MASTERPIECE.

It had melodramatic lighting and lots of smarmy music. I am not exaggerating, even the lighting was terrible. In a film like this, it is only appropriate to have all actors speak English with a horrendous "European" accent. (Except the flashbacks of Modigliani's childhood - for authenticity value, the actors spoke Italian) The funniest thing about the film is that Gertrude Stein is of course played by a woman who does everything to hammer home the point that Stein was a VERY MASCULINE WOMAN.

But really. This kind of movie is a bit fascinating, after all. Not because of its content, which is conventional, but because of the strange & overwrought way in which it is done. It is not supposed to be comedy, but for all that, the dialogue is so bombastic and corny that most anything these "artistic spirits" say showcase the art of accidental comedy. Actually, if this film would have been just a tad bit more trashy (and it WAS trashy) then I might have actually liked it.

You guessed it; I didn't finish this film either. But I watched half of it. Modigliani is, of course, one not-so-honorable example of the not-so-honorable Europudding type of production.

A question to which I have no answer is why there are so many films about art and artists, but almost none of them is any good. The only examples I can think of, where a film about some sort of artist/writer is not a piece of self-indulgent crap, are Jane Campion's Angel at my table, the film about Truman Capote and, a third one, Derek Jarman's Caravaggio.