Biographic film chronicling the last year of the life of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, 1919, who falls in love with a girl from a wealthy family. Her parents are against this relationship and stop financial help. Modigliani worked and died in abject poverty in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France.
Montparnasse 19, 모딜리아니, Modigliani of Montparnasse, A Montparnasse szerelmesei, Gli amori di Montparnasse, Los amantes de Montparnasse, Milenci z Montparnassu, Os Amantes de Montparnasse, Монпарнас-19, 蒙巴尔纳斯19号, 몽파르나스의 연인, მონპარნასის მოყვარულები, Οι Εραστές του Μοντπαρνάς, Montparnasse 1919
France
USA
France
USA
only thing this film taught me is that them mubi countdowns pressure me more than that damn duolingo bird
This one’s going out for Anouk Aimee, born April 27, 1932.
“You’re impossible to live with, Modi.”
The Lovers of Montparnasse started out as an Ophuls film, but Max died early in the production. While it is well made by Jacques Becker, I can’t help wondering how it would have been different under Max. As it is, the film is more admirable than enjoyable. Becker doesn’t try to explain Modigliani (Gerard Philipe), presenting the artist in his last days as more than disappointed by his failure to achieve success. The film can be criticized as too long and gloomy, with some scenes, as with an encounter with a boorish American millionaire (Frank Edwards), being a tad painful.
Becker excels, however,…
There’s something more than a little tiresome about films centering on the tragic lives of impoverished, self destructive, womanizing, substance abusing painters that go unappreciated in their own time – even if the historical facts support the treatment, the result typically reeks of cliche. Yet, this effort made in black and white (unlike the Hollywood painter biopics from the same decade like Huston’s Moulin Rouge, Koster’s The Naked Maja or Minnelli’s Lust for Life) and centering on the France based Jewish-Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, despite having the typical plot elements and overall narrative trajectory, slowly but surely won me over. The appeal for me was largely due to the performances of the sensitive Gérard Philipe as the volatile and tubercular…
Pure lifestyle porn. I too would like to be a completely dysfunctional artist who lives in Paris in 1919.
"He's certified crazy."
Originally conceived by Max Opühls, it would have been interesting to see how he - given the abstractness of Lola Montès - would have dealt with the formulaic structure at hand, especially since Becker's vision remains so static; occasionally glamorous and gorgeous, often grey and gloomy, but fittingly so for it matches the hopeless view Becker holds on the artist and his integrity (or perceived sense of it) as something only to be upheld via death.
It sticks close to the maudit artist bio template, in this case Amedeo Modigliani, one long walk towards death's liberation undercut by the artist's passions. Becker's major achievements are two: one, he does imbue the love story with true frenzy, and another, he manages to move the dissolution from the body of the artist towards the place as a whole. Gerard Philippe is usually a better actor than the movies he is in, so it is good he and Becker got to collaborate on this before both passed. Includes a very menacing turn by Lino Ventura as the shadow of capital.
At one point in Montparnasse 19 Anouk Aimée tells Gérard Philipe that she was afraid to speak to him lest he would find her too ugly. Which is totally hilarious because Aimée is utterly ravissante in this film. As is Philipe. As is Lilli Palmer. They are a trio of gorgeousness to which the humble punter is honoured to be granted audience.
Jacques Becker has crafted an exquisite life of Modigliani, balancing the torments of his artistic life with the pendulum swings of his romanic existence. Philipe convincingly portrays the crippling doubts of the alcoholic artist and Palmer is just wonderful as the socialite supporter with whom Modi enjoys a sado-masochistic relationship - although, even if he slaps her around,…
"He said... He'd rather paint the eyes of homeless people than cathedrals. There's something in their eyes you don't find in cathedrals."
An excellent film from Becker is always the one I've newly discovered; it's been a while since I teared up like this.
Rest in paradise Max Ophüls, Jacques Becker, Amedeo Modigliani, Gérard Philipe and the beautiful Jeanne Hébuterne 🌹❤️
June 2022: Actor of the Month - Gerard Philipe
In one of his last films, Gerard Philipe plays Amedeo Modigliani, the Italian painter and sculptor who lived a dissolute life in Paris, achieving worldwide fame only after his death at age 35 from tuberculosis exacerbated by alcoholism and drug abuse. (In an eerie parallel, Philipe himself died within a year of this pictures release at age 36 of liver cancer) Not really a biopic, it focuses on the final, tragic years of Modigliani's life.
The film stumbles, however, in making it hard to sympathize with Modigliani because he is so messed up from the outset - a womanizing drunkard - sometimes obnoxious and confrontative, sometimes charming and sometimes sloppy and…
'I can only offer you to share the rain with me..' (Gérard Philipe as Modigliani)
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When the great Max Ophüls succumbed to rheumatic heart disease on 26th March, 1957, very early on in the preparation of this biopic charting the final months in the doomed life of Italian artist/sculptor Amedeo Modigliani, the very differently talented but equally great Jacques Becker was given the call to come and rescue the troubled production. And bearing in mind it wasn't a personal project for Becker and he can't possibly have been emotionally invested in completing the film, his professionalism won out and he delivered a successful picture, one which concentrates mainly on the troubled artist's love life rather than his artistic aspirations.…
Gli interni come un film di Carnè, ricordando il realismo e il degrado (con interni scurissimi e cupissimi) del cinema degli anni '30.
Doesn’t exist without Borzage—lovers’ spiritual telepathy: he tells her he loves the rain; she later waits outside for him as soon as the skies open up—and Pialat’s Van Gogh is the only worthy heir in its boozy caprice. Becker ignores the progression of history by making his film more of an ambling, guided tour through his recreation of the artist’s twilight, any and all linearity totally coincidental. Lino Ventura somehow shoulders the impossible task of playing the ahistorical stand-in for the predatory art-dealing world with just a few calculated gestures and a beautifully ambiguous final act of (faux?) benevolence.
