The 2018 film “At Eternity’s Gate” directed by Julian Schnabel offers a clear example of outré filmmaking, and a fascinating look at how breaking the basic rules of cinema can create a jarringly impactful experience.
The film portrays the last seasons of Vincent Van Gogh’s life — but it is no cookie-cutter artist biopic. It is made up of specific scenes, seemingly lifted straight from the paintings you recognize from Amsterdam or Paris museums or your high school art history book. It has the deep effect of having brought stillness to life.
A lack of narrative structure is unique enough for a major motion picture. But then take into account the camera perspective and lack of focus in this film, and you’re in experimental territory. The “focus puller” received top billing in the credits, and that person’s work was truly integral to to the film. Here’s an interesting interview from the “lenser” —a job I wasn’t sure even existed. (In the trailer, check out the 47 second mark for a short example).
That’s because when Van Gogh has one of his “fits,” the perspective of the film begins to change, and the focus blurs from the edges on in. Eventually it takes over the entire frame. In critical scenes, the film is noticeably — almost completely — out of focus.
Yet somehow this risk works and the filmmaking choice imbues meaning and emotion. The audience feels inside the character’s eyes, and also out of control and at the mercy of the world around them. You also understand what it wold be like to “see” things differently and strangely, and what that would mean for you as an artist.
If you’ve read Van Gogh’s letters, you know what a confused, misunderstood, unwell, unwelcome, sensitive and kind person he was. The film does an excellent job of not just communicating that to the audience via writing and dialogue, but using the technology of the camera to put the audience inside the emotion. The cinematography is the vehicle for doing that — another trick they use is “split diopters,” sort of bifocals on the lens, which helps increase that sense of indescribable focus and shape. (1:37 in trailer)
Another technique that caused a noticeable reaction is the way secondary characters talk directly into the camera — straight down the lens — from what feels like just inches away. (In the trailer, the 18 second mark is a good example of that) It communicates the feeling and look of an interrogation, but it also makes the speaker look warped, almost inhuman. That’s another bit of characterization there, I think, of Van Gogh’s otherness and inability to connect with people and their inability to connect with him. I don’t know lenses well enough to know what technically is being used there, but the effect is very pronounced.
I’m a big fan of Schnabel, the director, but I know him more as a painter than as a filmmaker. And he definitely brought a multi-disciplinary approach to this work. His background in all types of arts — and into the inner mind of an artist and free thinker — is what makes this film work. That on top of the impeccable casting of Willem Dafoe as Vincent — he looks like a Van Gogh self portrait that just jumped out of its frame.
The film is still playing in second run theaters — I saw it at The Academy in Montavilla. A quick Google shows it playing at Cinema 21 and elsewhere. If you need to wait until it’s available on streaming services, make a point to watch this fascinating, original piece that shows you can break new ground in a well known, almost cliché story — if you think and shoot differently and take some creative risks with strong reasons for doing so.
-Tim Trainor