At Eternity's Gate - New Van Gogh biopic
Jan 3, 2019 17:34:40 GMT
mecano04 and joekiddlouischama like this
Post by Jep Gambardella on Jan 3, 2019 17:34:40 GMT
I wasn’t expecting a conventional biopic but I wasn’t expecting such an “artsy-fartsy” one either. There are some stunning sequences and beautiful shots, and Willem Dafoe’s performance is pretty good (the fact that the actor is 25 years too old for the role didn’t bother me at all), but gtf out of here with your shaky camera and bizarre angles and lens glare and scenes where half the frame is out of focus. Not to mention the utterly idiotic convention of having French characters speaking English with a horribly forced French accent. Either speak French and put English subtitles, or hire an actor who can speak English with a neutral accent.
Having all the actors speaking English briefly struck me as curious during the film, but then, Loving Vincent used the same technique, and, hey, so did Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List. Matters can be more efficient that way, if also less accurate historically. But not having the actors speak English in a neutral accent makes sense in the sense that if continentals were going to be speaking English, it probably would have been heavily accented.
Great review, thanks for posting it. I agree completely with what you wrote about the shaky camera in First Man. In At Eternity's Gate, I understand that there were probably very good artistic reasons for the director's choices, but still I thought it made it unpleasant to watch.
On the subject of language, my problem is not with the dialogues being in English, but with the accent. If in the story a French character is speaking English, then by all means use a French accent. If however the characters would be speaking in French and we are just hearing it in English, then in my opinion the accent should be as neutral as possible. I don't need to be reminded that the characters are actually speaking French but the actors are speaking English for the sake of convenience.