Van Gogh: Painted with Words

At first, I was a little taken aback by the way the film was presented: a half documentary, half bio-pic, but I realized the filmmakers didn't want to fake anything in regards to what the real life characters had said to each other.

This is the brilliant, sad but enriching story of the life of Vincent Van Gogh, played to absolute perfection by the wonderful Benedict Cumberbatch. Van Gogh has always fascinated me because of his preoccupation with social justice, much like Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens, his gorgeous style in the colors of his paintings, and his battle with mental illness.

It was sad to know that he only sold a fair few of his paintings while he was alive, and only became really famous after death, and not being able to experience full happiness in his life. It's the continuous and inevitable trend that no one seems to appreciate artists until they die. Even though it's important to remember and cherish what that person left behind, the beauty, the words, the message or the brush, it's still always important to remember the person, because all the beauty and creativity in the world comes from within.

All I can say about this is it's brilliant. Benedict Cumberbatch's acting is impeccable. He really brought Van Gogh's character alive. And to think that everything they said is based on actual letters and conversations from his time. I have recommended this film to my family and friends. It's a really good one. I am not an art fan, but whenever I see one of Van Gogh's paintings, I can recognize them now! Yes, I know he's famous, but I know zilch about art, which makes the film amazing, is that even non-artists like me can appreciate the art and the story behind the paintings. Oh, I just love it. I'm a Filipino, so art's not really taught to us at school unless, of course, if you're an art major at college. Brilliant. Just so brilliant and very educational for people like me.

A marvelous movie of my favorite painter by my latest favorite actor.

Love the theatrical feel of this movie, having the actors facing the camera - literally the audience - reading their lines - the letters the conversations - they had with/regards Van Gogh.

Finally I see the struggle of Van Gogh and the development of his arts. Wish I watched this movie before visiting the Van Gogh Museum many years ago. Or, I'll just go again. :)

Cumberbatch once again does a great job. As I specially watch this movie just to see him, he acts so well that he really draws me back to Van Gogh and forget about Cumberbatch is acting. In many movies Cumberbatch involved, he has this subtleness that he can act in any character that makes me see only the character on screen but not him. So after the movie you'll remember the character, touched by the character, but not the actor - only be amazed that he actor does a great job. Super love him!!! Just wish that his Hollywood career won't drown him in vanity so that he can continue produce great work of acting the character out, but not presenting himself on screen - although I do love to know more about him off screen. (wish someone in his circle could see this and tell him about it)

This 60-minute bio-pic is both engaging and informative, and quite appealing.

As someone who has read Irving Stone's consummate biography of Van Gogh, "Lust for Life", I wasn't sure that I really needed what I perceived as the possible redundancy of this film. I finally watched it (on YouTube) because of Benedict Cumberbatch, arguably Britain's best young film actor.

I was very very pleasantly surprised. This isn't your normal bio-pic, where scenes are invented and dialogue is fabricated and everything is only a vague approximation of history at best, and a Hollywoodized confection or melodrama at worst. Instead, the entire script of this bio-doc is taken verbatim from the letters of Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo, and also from those of their contemporaries. The words taken from the letters are ingeniously and engagingly acted out by each actor in their respective locales.

While this might sound possibly dry, it is anything but. For one, we've got Benedict Cumberbatch. I've grown used to brilliant performances by Benedict, and this is yet another one. Vincent comes brilliantly and evocatively alive here. And I must add, to Cumberbatch's enormous credit, he never overplays Vincent -- a figure of such wild passions and a life of such melodrama that it would have been easy to slip into that.

For another, the program is bookended by a prologue and epilogue pleasantly and reverently explaining the material and sources, and the drama includes appropriate narration by this same presenter when the story radically shifts time and place.

Lastly, beyond the excellent performances and vivid storyline, we have the drawings, sketches, studies, and incredible paintings of Vincent himself, interpolated easily into the narrative, in exquisite high-definition shots. I've never seen Van Gogh's art presented so vividly on film -- it's a real treat.

All in all, I learned a lot, even though I thought I already knew most of Van Gogh's story. And the acting, narration, and artwork were splendid. Highly recommended.

As you can guess I admire Benedict Cumberbatch a lot - already then when he was much less "mainstream", i.e. 5+ years ago, when he gained his fame through playing persons with psychical and/or mental shortages. Van Gogh had the latter as well, and it is still amazing to watch how BC depicts him, so pleasantly even for me without deeper knowledge of art schools and artists' relationships. It is due to his role that I gave 8 points to this film - I did not particularly like the inclusion of documentary presentation (by Alan Yento), and all other actors and their performances were not memorable. The other thing I likes was sticking to the letters and documents available, meaning strong realism and absorbing into the struggling life of (later) famous artists in the 19th century.

A must-see for fans of BC, Van Gogh, and/or realistic dramas about art.