Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Andy Garcia | ... | Amedeo Modigliani | |
Elsa Zylberstein | ... | Jeanne Hébuterne | |
Omid Djalili | ... | Pablo Picasso | |
Hippolyte Girardot | ... | Maurice Utrillo | |
Eva Herzigova | ... | Olga Picasso | |
Udo Kier | ... | Max Jacob | |
Susie Amy | ... | Beatrice Hastings | |
Peter Capaldi | ... | Jean Cocteau (as Peter Capadli) | |
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Louis Hilyer | ... | Zborowski |
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Stevan Rimkus | ... | Soutine |
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Dan Astileanu | ... | Diego Rivera (as Dan Astilean) |
George Ivascu | ... | Moise Kisling | |
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Michelle Newell | ... | Eudoxie Hébuterne |
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Frederico Ambrosino | ... | Little Dedo |
Miriam Margolyes | ... | Gertrude Stein |
Set in Paris in 1919, biopic centers on the life of late Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, focusing on his last days as well as his rivalry with Pablo Picasso. Modigliani, a Jew, has fallen in love with Jeanne, a young and beautiful Catholic girl. The couple has an illegitimate child, and Jeanne's bigoted parents send the baby to a faraway convent to be raised by nuns. Modigliani is distraught and needs money to rescue and raise his child. The answer arrives in the shape of Paris' annual art competition. Prize money and a guaranteed career await the winner. Neither Modigliani, nor his dearest friend and rival Picasso have ever entered the competition, believing that it is beneath true artists like themselves. But push comes to shove with the welfare of his child on the line, and Modigliani signs up for the competition in a drunken and drug-induced tirade. Picasso follows suit and all of Paris is aflutter with excitement at who will win. With the balance of his relationship with Jeanne... Written by Sujit R. Varma
I find Modigliani a movie worth to be seen! Some of you might consider it doesn't capture the real "spirit" of that era or that it's being put too much accent on the painter's madness and on his interior drama; but this is Modigliani in Mick Davis's conception, it's a movie not a documentary! The soundtrack is perfectly chosen to amplify the feelings transmitted by the excellent performance of the actors. It is more than a cinematographic production. It is a symbiosis between passion and love, human nature and vices. The memories of Amedeo about his childhood, the reproofs of "Modigliani-the little boy ", the incapacity of resisting to temptations and the permanent psychological pressure given by having such a rivalry have driven him to auto-destruction. It is the destiny of a man who passed away just a moment before tasting success... I consider Modigliani-the movie- art about art.