Saturday, March 1, 2008

Milos Forman Presents History in Goyavision


I know the buffet seems to be quite full of film commentary lately, but there have been lots of very intriguing titles released recently and so we return to the view from the futon..

One of the premises that comes up in this blog is that troubled uneven art by talented and even great artists are still generally worth observing and interacting with. In fact, I maintain one would be hard pressed to see anything near the merit of a film like Goya's Ghost on a commercial television network. Just to see the lighting and recreations of Goya's paintings is probably worth the time.

This is a film with problems. Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgard) is not presented as tortured soul, but as painter of kings who is not compromising to his subjects, his art, or to the fact he has made a decent life for himself. The audience doesn't get too close to him. The real character in this film is the duplicitous and vain Brother Lorenzo, played by Javier Bardem, a priest of the inquisition later turns into a promoter of the French Enlightenment in the way that somehow reminds me of Art Alexakis' conversion from quasi country to marketable alternative grunge after Kurt Cobain broke on through (whatever the party calls for.) Ines, played by Natalie Portman portrays Goya's muse, is the third party in this tale, tortured by the inquistion, raped by Lorenzo and in final acts looking like Fantine from Les Miserables looking for Cosette. In fact, Ines is looking for her daughter Alicia, who Portman also plays. Goya is called upon by the others to fix, to introduce, to make things happen, partly because he is comfortable both as painter of kings and among the Spanish rabble.

The film presents both inquisition era and Napoleonic Spain and shows both to be horrific. It is also interesting to see how Goya's deafness is portrayed with signed interpreter, especially at significant meetings. Forman always intends to give the audience an experience and frankly, I recall Amadeus being a little loose and messy in some ways as well. I'll take messy and not quite on the mark over mundane and routine any day if an artist is trying to do something and their aim is high and effort seemingly sincere.
posted by well-executed buffet at 5:25 PM
Comments: Post a Comment