Total Eclipse

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Total Eclipse

65% Liked It
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Total Eclipse

David Thewlis, Dominique Blanc, Leonardo DiCaprio, Romane Bohringer

This biographical account of the tempestuous, taboo-shattering love affair between two 19th century French poets--Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis) and Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio)--didn't do much a...( read more  read more... )t the box office when it was released in 1995. But after the success of Titanic, it became somewhat infamous when Playgirl magazine announced its intention to publish nude pictures of DiCaprio taken from the film. (Nobody much seemed to care that Thewlis, who also starred in Mike Leigh's Naked, also appears nude in Total Eclipse.) The truth is, the nudity in question only lasts for a few frames, but it's certainly in character for the young wild-man Rimbaud.

Directed by Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa, The Secret Garden), Total Eclipse begins in 1870 when the newly married Verlaine is 24 and Rimbaud is 17. The volatile combination of their reckless passions, idiosyncratic talents, and obnoxious egos is a recipe for disaster--and l'amour fou--culminating in a two-year prison term for Verlaine who was convicted of sodomy. DiCaprio's work in this film (as well as This Boy's Life, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, and The Basketball Diaries) proves he is a serious actor who's interested in risky, challenging work--not just the matinee idol he became in the wake of Titanic. --Jim Emerson

Id: 9275453

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Recent Reviews

Total Eclipse Recent Reviews
  • evillincoln
    May 17, 2007
    evillincoln
    worst sex scenes I've ever seen.
  • KLFilmmaker
    September 21, 2006
    KLFilmmaker
    Weird, early DiCaprio. Blink and you'll miss his dinky.
  • cinnamontree
    January 1, 2010
    cinnamontree
    Nice try but quite a crappy result. I missed more depth and now that they've made a movie about Rimbaud and Verlaine I doubt they'll make another anytime soon. That just makes me so mad because Rimbaud seemed such a complex character.
  • kommzumirfolks
    October 28, 2009
    kommzumirfolks
    Conheça a história. Sério.
  • Phonex
    October 3, 2009
    Phonex
    Verlaine returned to Paris in August 1871, and, in September, he received the first letter from Arthur Rimbaud. By 1872, he had lost interest in Mathilde, and effectively abandoned her and their son, preferring the company of his new lover.[2] Rimbaud and Verlaine's stormy affair...( read more) took them to London in 1872. In July 1873 in a drunken, jealous rage, he fired two shots with a pistol at Rimbaud, wounding his left wrist, though not seriously injuring the poet. As an indirect result of this incident, Verlaine was arrested and imprisoned at Mons, where he underwent a conversion to Roman Catholicism, which again influenced his work and provoked Rimbaud's sharp criticism.

    The poems collected in Romances sans paroles (1874) were written between 1872 and 1873, inspired by Verlaine's nostalgically colored recollections of his life with Mathilde on the one hand and impressionistic sketches of his on-again off-again year-long escapade with Rimbaud on the other. Romances sans paroles was published while Verlaine was imprisoned. Following his release from prison, Verlaine again traveled to England, where he worked for some years as a teacher and produced another successful collection, Sagesse. He returned to France in 1877 and, while teaching English at a school in Rethel, fell in love with one of his pupils, Lucien Létinois and who inspired Verlaine to write further poems. Verlaine was devastated when Létinois died of typhus in 1883.
  • idaidun
    September 22, 2009
    idaidun
    Just struggled to manage this to be less rude for particular disappointments. I rate this because it's a biographical movie about Rimbaud (one of my long love obsession) just to unfulfilled my expectation. A noble attempt, but lack of depth. Arthur Rimbaud, a genius of eternal yo...( read more)uth was portrayed in superficial, simplistic, offensive attitude. Thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio I could capture little of beautiful scenes. Oh, and wrong soundtrack.
  • michaelcorleone
    September 17, 2009
    michaelcorleone
    As far as my expectations go, this film meets them completely. That being said, it suffers from boundless problems that even I can't ignore. Directorially speaking, it's muddled and several of the scenes are painfully staged. However, as a depiction of a destructive relationship,...( read more) this is an effective and disturbing piece. The story itself is fascinating, occupied by despicable but intriguingly unpredictable characters. What makes this such a personal favorite for me is the acting. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers a reckless, ferociously energized performance which is always interesting to watch. His emotional devotion is well-studied and impressive. David Thewlis is every bit as good, delivering what may be his most precisely drawn performance aside from Naked. So, if you want to see some really original screen acting in the confines of a flawed picture, give this one an open-minded viewing. If you're one of those people who hates DiCaprio because of the way he looks or some other shallow reason, don't watch it because you won't get anything out of it.
  • pinkbrownies
    August 23, 2009
    pinkbrownies
    reaalllly want to see it
  • stormyweather980
    August 15, 2009
    stormyweather980
    I must've been pretty darn bored the day I decided to watch this, and must've been willing to watch just about any movie. It's based on a true story, which is usually a good thing, but I don't agree with the homo or bisexual lifestyle and that's what this is about....but there's ...( read more)some good movies about that, but still, this isn't one of them. I just found the story boring (I'm not into art anyway), and I'm sure it's mainly the ladies and a few old perverts that would really want to watch "Total Eclipse" and that just to see Leonardo Dicaprio naked.
  • Tsukaira
    July 23, 2009
    Tsukaira
    Watching abusive unhealthy relationships makes me incredibly sad and uncomfortable. This movie was an all around downer. It did however, teach me what Absinthe was.
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