Modigliani (2004)

4% of critics liked it
(24 reviews)
80% of users liked it
(4,582 ratings)

A gifted artist wages a personal war against his demons as well as a world that refuses to accept his creative vision in this biographical drama based on the true story of Amedeo Modigliani. Modigliani (Andy Garcia) was an Italian Jew who was living in Paris in the 1910s, when the city's bohemian… More A gifted artist wages a personal war against his demons as well as a world that refuses to accept his creative vision in this biographical drama based on the true story of Amedeo Modigliani. Modigliani (Andy Garcia) was an Italian Jew who was living in Paris in the 1910s, when the city's bohemian community was in full flower. While Modigliani was a uniquely gifted painter and sculptor, his friend and rival Pablo Picasso (Omid Djalili) had already found fame and fortune; Modigliani's work had yet to reach a significant audience beyond the city's creative inner circle. Though Modigliani stubbornly refused to compromise his vision for the sake of sales, he was alternately troubled and enraged by the lack of acceptance for his art, and was known to buffer his bruised ego with alcohol and opium, which made his often unpredictable and sometimes violent behavior all the more volatile. Modigliani also had a mistress, Jeanne Hebuterne (Elsa Zylberstein), who had been disowned by her wealthy family for falling in love with a Jew and having his child out of wedlock. When Hebuterne discovered she was pregnant again, Modigliani faced pressure to marry her, and had to face the practical question of how to support his offspring. Modigliani's fate rested upon winning an annual art competition in Paris, which would have given him a needed influx of cash, leaving him understandably enraged when Picasso also chose to enter a work in the contest. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: R, 2 hr. 6 min.
Directed By: Mick Davis
Written By: Mick Davis
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Sep 24, 2004 Wide
On DVD: Sep 27, 2005
Studio: Innovation Film Group

Critic Reviews

Rex Reed, New York Observer
A film of vitality, with imagery as haunting and romantic as it is intense.
Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger
Modigliani is slow, shamefully cliched and disjointed as a cubist portrait.
Kyle Smith, New York Post
Thanks to writer-director Mick Davis, the film, like its subject, dies young.
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News
It's hard to take this oddball movie seriously, right down to the undisguised streetwise-American accent of Andy Garcia as the Italian Jew Amedeo Modigliani.
Stephen Holden, New York Times
The best and maybe the only use to be made of the catastrophic screen biography Modigliani is to serve as a textbook outline of how not to film the life of a legendary artist.
R. Emmet Sweeney, Village Voice
Sadly, instead of situating the l'amour fou in the artistic ferment of the period (1917-1920), Davis twists the period to fit the story.
Raven Snook, Time Out New York
Instead of trying to provide insight into this genius's debilitating madness, Davis prefers to wallow in incoherent and clichéd misery, punctuated by poetically oblique imagery.
Jeffrey Gantz, Boston Phoenix
Just another artistic sacrifice to life's ironies, cruelties, and bad filmmakers.
Gary Goldstein, Reel.com
...drenched in atmosphere and beautifully composed...but not particularly moving or absorbing.
Tony Whitt, Now Playing Magazine
Be prepared to get out the hankies.
Brett Buckalew, FilmStew.com
Fundamentally crippled by the casting of Andy Garcia in the kind of leading role that demands someone with a more volcanic, larger-than-life presence to fill it.
Luke Y. Thompson, New Times
No one expected a documentary, but serious art-history students may feel let down.
Ken Fox, TV Guide's Movie Guide
The real-life Modigliani did indeed live a short, tragic life, but this factually inaccurate, plodding film makes it feel twice as long.
Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
It ain't pretty but you have a choisa: See Modigliani or rent Derek Jarman's Caravaggio instead.
Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
Director Mick Davis shows little if any imagination in presenting the troubled genius or the remarkable Montparnasse art scene of the World War I era, and that's the real bummer.
Kim Morgan, L.A. Weekly
Mick Davis' prosaic art biopic Modigliani is a tiresome, hammy and ultimately annoying portrait of the artist as a young drunk.

Read all 16 critic reviews

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Cast

Andy Garcia
as Amedeo Modigliani
Elsa Zylberstein
as Jeanne Hebuterne
Hippolyte Girardot
as Utrillo

Omid Djalili
as Pablo Picasso
Eva Herzigova
as Olga
Udo Kier

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