The main assets of Modigliani are the spectacular acting, the beautiful camera shots and the great music (featuring La Vie en Rose and a beautiful Ave Maria interpretation).
Andy Garcia does a wonderful job as the tormented Modigliani (he always does a wonderful job), whom everybody loves very much but nobody can help at all.
Omid Djalili comes very close to the Picasso image I had in my mind.
The story does not work very well, it is in fact a love story intertwined with a male friendship/rivalry. They tried to cram in so many characters into the plot that I sometimes felt at loss, and would have wished to know more about individual characters, respectively.
For example, there is a scene in which Jeanne tells her father to leave her be and that she "recalls what he has done" already, a reference to her youth or early childhood, I assumed. I did not gather what he supposedly did.
Then Modigliani also sees other women- has there been a break-up with Jeanne, I wondered or is it just his nature, and are we later on witnessing a reconciliation, the story does not tell.
I did not understand why at the end, when Modigliani gets beaten up, his boy-self does not try to intervene, or reflect on the happenings, or why he did not try to urge his adult self to get going from the bar earlier, whereas he quite strongly interferes earlier, suggesting that Modigliani does not let Jeanne leave.
The plot also includes many visions of Modigliani, such as the death of his friend in the asylum, or the conversations with himself as a child, which make a follow-up even harder.
Although the runtime of Modigliani exceeds 2 hours, which I did not notice as the story captured me right from the start, there have been plot lines left unfinished.
The movie Modigliani does not try to be authentic or historical, but rather captures the Montmartre, the Parisienne painters' everyday life and struggle in the '20s, seen through a beautiful and difficult love story and friendship.
If you take it for what it is, a fictional, strongly emotional (and somewhat irrational) story based on some non-fictional characters, in a beautifully arranged setting and shot in a highly artistic manner, Modigliani is a wonderful movie and a worthy homage to the era and the great artists of those times.
Andy Garcia does a wonderful job as the tormented Modigliani (he always does a wonderful job), whom everybody loves very much but nobody can help at all.
Omid Djalili comes very close to the Picasso image I had in my mind.
The story does not work very well, it is in fact a love story intertwined with a male friendship/rivalry. They tried to cram in so many characters into the plot that I sometimes felt at loss, and would have wished to know more about individual characters, respectively.
For example, there is a scene in which Jeanne tells her father to leave her be and that she "recalls what he has done" already, a reference to her youth or early childhood, I assumed. I did not gather what he supposedly did.
Then Modigliani also sees other women- has there been a break-up with Jeanne, I wondered or is it just his nature, and are we later on witnessing a reconciliation, the story does not tell.
I did not understand why at the end, when Modigliani gets beaten up, his boy-self does not try to intervene, or reflect on the happenings, or why he did not try to urge his adult self to get going from the bar earlier, whereas he quite strongly interferes earlier, suggesting that Modigliani does not let Jeanne leave.
The plot also includes many visions of Modigliani, such as the death of his friend in the asylum, or the conversations with himself as a child, which make a follow-up even harder.
Although the runtime of Modigliani exceeds 2 hours, which I did not notice as the story captured me right from the start, there have been plot lines left unfinished.
The movie Modigliani does not try to be authentic or historical, but rather captures the Montmartre, the Parisienne painters' everyday life and struggle in the '20s, seen through a beautiful and difficult love story and friendship.
If you take it for what it is, a fictional, strongly emotional (and somewhat irrational) story based on some non-fictional characters, in a beautifully arranged setting and shot in a highly artistic manner, Modigliani is a wonderful movie and a worthy homage to the era and the great artists of those times.
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