ScottEssay

I would like to first present two images of a Paris cafe, first as depicted by film director Vincente Minnelli and second as depicted by painter Vincent van Gogh. This will help setup how the filmmakers used mise-en-scene to recreate the world of van Gogh. Here we see the same scene presented once as verisimilitude and once as representational art. Screenshot of the cafe in Paris presented in mise-en-scene by the art directors of //Lust for Life// The cafe in Paris presented as a painting by Vincent van Gogh Above we see a good example of how the filmmakers paid keen attention to mise-en-scene in order to present the streets of Paris as van Gogh saw them.

My proper analysis begins here:

The Use of Mise-en-Scene to Create Verisimilitude in Lust for Life by J. Scott Bugher

Director Vincente Minnelli’s //Lust for Life// is a cinematic work of historical fiction portraying the life of painter Vincent van Gogh. The film is based on a novel of the same title written by Irving Stone, who is known for writing books of biographical fiction by conducting thorough research of his story’s subjects. In the case of Lust for Life, Stone wrote the book based on a collection of letters written by Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo. I have read the van Gogh collection of letters and recognize that Vincent was a man who paid keen attention to every detail of his situations and surroundings, whether they were paramount or slight. Considering the accuracy of Vincent’s letters and Irving Stone’s perserverance to include those details in his book, adapting the novel into film would require much assiduity toward specifications and several necessary means to bring an accurate depiction of van Gogh’s world to cinematic life. In order to recreate van Gogh’s life as verisimilitude, Minnelli had to utilize several elements of mise-en-scene: setting, color, props, and actors.

The process began with finding the proper locations to shoot the movie. The film’s art directors concluded that a sound stage in Hollywood wouldn’t suffice, so they decided to work on location in various areas of Europe, beginning with the Borinage coal mine in Belgium, where they shot hundreds of feet underground with extension cables, and ending with a field of wheat, where they released dozens of crows while filming the main character painting his final picture, the famous landscape called Wheatfield with Crows. Releasing crows was a small detail compared to the film’s other elements of mise-en-scene. Minnelli was anal enough about setting to have trees cut down and replanted according to van Gogh’s plein air paintings, meaning the sixty-year-old settings, where trees had either died or been removed, were all restored to look like the outdoor areas where van Gogh painted.

//Wheatfield with Crows// by Vincent van Gogh After a close viewing of the film, it is clear that the primary mean for verisimilitude, a convincing truth, is mise-en-scene, the overall feel of the film with emphasis on setting, color, props, and actors. As an illustration of the film’s discernment for verisimilitude, I will focus on a sequence depicting a drunk and saddened van Gogh at a pool hall, where he is found passed-out by a postman. The sequence is two minutes long and is a compilation of seven quick shots.

Prior to the aforementioned sequence, the viewer sees a frame with a photo of van Gogh’s pool hall painting, titled //The Night Café//, which gives the viewer a frame-of-reference so the setting is recognizable and familiar when the film arrives at the sequence with van Gogh inside the actual pool hall. During the sequence, the viewer will notice everything found in the setting: the dull colors; props such as hanging lamps, a pool table, and patrons sitting at tables; and actors who resemble the real life characters blocked in the scene.

The first time we see the pool hall is as a painting by van Gogh After a dissolve transition from an earlier scene, we begin at the 108:30 mark, where we see a medium distance high-shot of van Gogh passed out drunk with his head resting on a table, depicting the artist’s way of facing his hardships. Props included here are a bottle and glass of absinthe along with van Gogh’s straw hat both sitting on the table. On the floor, resting against the table, is a picture of a river van Gogh had painted prior to entering the pool hall.

The film's representation of the pool hall through mise-en-scene. Notice the details from the hanging lamps to the patrons

The camera then tilts up over van Gogh to a long shot that establishes the interior setting including the props mentioned above. Not only do the props bring The Night Café to life, but also the colors of the setting. Van Gogh favored dull and muted colors in his paintings even though he presented them vividly, meaning the yellows had an ochre look to them, greens were mixed with browns, reds had an earth-orange hue in them, and some colors were muted with white, making them a pastel tone. The aesthetic of the colors might have been due to the actual paint or the lighting of the room. I would argue it is due to lighting since a special emphasis is placed on the hanging lamps that provide light in the pool hall since they are a bit blurry and pushed back in the room with a shallow focus. With a convincing setting, true to van Gogh’s painting, the viewer witnesses life in the painting and van Gogh’s meta-presence in his own picture.

After the setting is established, at 109:21 the film cuts to a medium close-up, eye-level shot of van Gogh waking up at his table and drinking more absinthe, giving the viewer the sight of his drunken face. The only prop is the bottle of absinthe, but this shot is enhanced by another element of mise-en-scene: makeup. Van Gogh is rubbing his eyes with his hands, which are covered in different colors of paint, which indicates he painted the picture of a river sitting next to him on the floor just a short time prior to arriving at the pool hall. Minnelli ties together both makeup and a prop to add more realism to the situation, which also gives the viewer a sense of the scene taking place in real time since the prior scene was of van Gogh painting a picture of the river.

Just before the next shot, van Gogh’s eyes focus to his left at something off screen. A second later, the film cuts at 109:34 to a shot of a man shooting pool with another man smoking a cigarette at a table. The primary prop of this shot is the pool table, but van Gogh seems to have his eyes on the man exhaling smoke, which lifts to the ceiling, distorting the light projected from the hanging lamps. This serves as a build-up to van Gogh’s interest in the lamps, which makes sense because when the film cuts again at 109:37, we see a medium close-up of van Gogh with a contemplative face, and before the next cut, the viewer notices van Gogh’s eyes shifting upward to the off screen lamps.

At the 109:44 mark, the viewer is taken from van Gogh’s off-camera gaze to a point-of-view shot per van Gogh’s perspective: a close-up shot of the lamps, which have a slight haze and halo around them due to the cigarette smoke, making them more curious and interesting. The viewer begins to wonder the significance of them.

The hanging lamps per van Gogh's point-of-view

The film makes its sixth cut at the 109:47 mark, where the eye-line match is still present since van Gogh’s eyes continue to look toward the ceiling, meaning he is making a closer observation of the lamps. His eyes then lower and the viewer sees van Gogh looking sad, yet contemplative as if he is realizing that he wants to paint the pool hall with strong attention given to the lamps. The idea one might have of van Gogh’s fascination with the lamps leads them to understand their role as a motif later in the film, which will be discussed further in this analysis.

The sequence ends with a longer seventh shot, beginning at the 109:57 mark, lasting through the 110:13 mark. This medium, eye-level shot is saturated with elements of mise-en-scene and many associations can be made based on them. The shot begins with a postman entering the pool hall through a door next to van Gogh. This is the first time the viewer sees the door, and another prop is hanging next to it: a mirror that serves as slight foreshadowing of van Gogh facing a mirror at his home while cutting his ear.

The last key prop in this shot comes from the postman. He takes a letter from his satchel and gives it to van Gogh. After opening the letter, van Gogh unfolds the letter and notes of money fall out, indicating that his brother, who gives van Gogh an allowance to support his art career, had sent the letter. Considering that in real life Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo often exchanged letters to each other and that the envelope contains money from Theo, this prop amplifies the verisimilitude of the story.

After the viewer sees and makes meaning out of the several props from this shot, the sequence concludes with the postman and van Gogh leaving the pool hall while van Gogh reads his letter from Theo.

I felt it necessary to abstain from discussing the film’s actors until reaching the last shot with the postman. Actors Kirk Douglas, who plays van Gogh, and Niall MacGinnis, who plays Roulin the postman, are prime means of mise-en-scene and verisimilitude in the film. The natural appearance of the actors plus their costumes and makeup depict the real life characters they are playing in a hyper-realistic manner. The makeup and costume crew for the film did not miss a detail when getting those actors into character. It is worth noticing Kirk Douglas’s color and cut of his hair and beard. When his character is placed next to a van Gogh self-portrait, there is very little to differentiate the two images. It is also worth noticing the aesthetic of Niall MacGinnis. His long beard is his chief mean for looking like van Gogh’s portrait of the postman, along with the costume that is identical to the costume worn in the postman’s portrait, including the woven patterns on his blue uniform and his cap. The film is also filled with other actors who look like their real life characters, including Anthony Quinn as Paul Gauguin.

The postman as depicted in the film

The postman as painted by van Gogh. Notice the costume.

Van Gogh as depicted in the film.

Van Gogh depicted as a self-portrait painting. Notice the haircut and beard. Lastly, I felt it necessary to discuss the relationship between the hanging lamps and van Gogh after going through the shots where we see the lamps grow more important after each cut. Lamps are found in many scenes in this film, whether they are from van Gogh’s The Night Café, the set of the film’s depiction of the pool hall, or from others set up along the streets or hanging inside other interior settings. They tend to be present when van Gogh is experiencing some form of anguish, which make them serve as a motif. The highest portrayal of this motif occurs later in the film when van Gogh cuts his ear. The film edits together three match-shots of lamps just before the ear scene, beginning with an outdoor lamp van Gogh stares at on his way home after a street argument, which dissolves into a close-up shot of a painted lamp from the actual picture of the pool hall, which lastly dissolves into the ceiling lamp in van Gogh’s bedroom, where he cuts his ear.

Van Gogh gazing at a hanging lamp on the street as he's walking home, which dissolves to... A close-up of one of the hanging lights in van Gogh's painting, which dissolves as a match-shot to...  The lamp that is hanging in van Gogh's bedroom. He soon cuts his ear after this shot. Beginning with the decision to film on location throughout Europe, the makers of this film made steady progress while seeking to create verisimilitude through mise-en-scene. They had all the settings and locations where van Gogh worked, lived, or dwelled; they matched the set colors to the colors of van Gogh’s paintings: yellow ochre, brown-green, orange-red; they had props like the pool table, mirrors, and lamps; and they had actors who looked like their real life characters both naturally and through makeup and costume. All of the above elements were used in the name of presenting van Gogh’s story as verisimilitude just as it had been done in Irving Stone’s novel, and I am convinced that mise-en-scene is the best method of presenting truth and reality in film.