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Post by Jep Gambardella on Feb 19, 2019 21:45:05 GMT
7/10 gtf out of here with your shaky camera and bizarre angles and lens glare and scenes where half the frame is out of focus. The shaky cam bothered me too. Many directors have proven that it can be done in a way where the viewer can still make out the image. That wasn't the case here. The other things you mentioned didn't bother me. What did bother me was how some scenes consisted on just close-ups and POV shots. This worked in THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY because of the main character's state. This is a movie about a painter! Why not be more visually creative? Sure, there are wide shots in other scenes, but it's mostly whenever VAN GOGH is walking/running through fields i.e. moments that don't move the story forward. 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. But the characters spoke French at first and then switched to English. Before watching the movie, I knew that VAN GOGH was Dutch. Whenever he spoke French in the movie, it sounded like he was hesitating. Like he didn't speak it fluently. I assumed that the French people picked up on that and started to speak English for his benefit. The ones that didn't (like the woman at the beginning that he asked to pose for a painting or the teacher and her students) didn't know him personally. After watching the movie, I researched this. It turns out that He didn't speak French fluently I.R.L.
That is possible, but I am not sure there were many French who could speak English in the late 19th century. In fact even today the French are not known for their mastery of foreign languages!
As for his knowledge of French, I don't know how well he spoke it, but at one point he started writing his letters to his own brother in French instead of Dutch, so he must have been reasonably fluent.
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