At Eternity's Gate

An impressionist portrait of the final years of Vincent Van Gogh in Arles, France. Dafoe is a fine wine actor as his performances later in his career just get better and better. The film is an attempt to allow the audience to see the world as Vincent did and I think it succeeds.

The acting, script, and costuming were all excellent, but the filming techniques were super annoying. The overly shaky, hand-held camera thing was way over done. In addition, whenever the audience is meant to sense Van Gogh's unease & unraveling, the bottom half of the screen is blurred. This occurs way too often & seems both lazy & contrived. I'm a big Willem Dafoe fan though & he was great as per usual.

Now, I think I know what you tried to say to me How you suffered for your sanity How you tried to set them free They would not listen, they're not listening still Perhaps they never will

Love this guy very much. Deeply touching and visually perfect.

I don't think some viewers understand the purpose of this film. It doesn't have a plot in the traditional sense, and it's not meant to have one. It is a biographical experience through Van Gogh's eyes, through his love of nature, through his fear of being left alone with his hauntings, through his illness, and through the pain and beauty that was his mind. It's a gorgeously melancholic, artistic, vibrant journey of a troubled genius that is to be experienced, not a story with a point other than the vividness and tragedy of his life. His affliction is part of what make him and his painting so meaningful and prolific. I thought the film was excellent at portraying Vincent, not necessarily a biopic.

There aren't any new revelations about Van Gogh here, but Schnabel's attempts to take us inside the man's mind do yield some beautiful sequences. And despite being way too old for the part, Dafoe is great.

Not one for me. I will say that Willem Dafoe is terrific, undoubtedly. His performance in 'At Eternity's Gate' was honestly the only part of this 2018 release that kept my interest piqued. The support cast don't do anything wrong but don't really illuminate the film for me either. It has its heart in the right place, but as a film I didn't enjoy it. The main thing that bothered me was the camera work all around, just absolutely needless shaky cam that adds zero to what's going on onscreen - it even distracts from the main event, for me at least. It is noted that, away from that, visibly the film does look neat. I am admittedly not into art ('twas my least favourite subject at school, in fact), though even so I expected more from this. I am happy for Dafoe that this was positively received as his showing merits high praise, but it won't be one I'll be revisiting any time soon personally.

A great companion to ‘Loving Vincent' and virtually on par with it (although Loving Vincent would have to be the winner for me with it's dazzling painted animation). William Dafoe is fantastic as the fragile broken soul we know as Van Gogh. He looks the part as well although it's more Dafoe's performance that pulls it off than a resemblance as the actor is a lot older than Van Gogh would have been. I'd recommend to fans of Van Gogh who haven't seen either film to watch both back to back.

I was looking forward to seeing what Julian Schnabel did since I hadn't followed him since Basquiat. I wanted to love it, but I only liked it. Some effects work brilliantly. The story-line was nothing new because it's been the standard accepted story for ages. But how about the possibilities of what really happened during that time in Van Gogh's life since the advent of the net? Here's an example " Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear when tempers flared with Paul Gauguin, the artist with whom he had been working for a while in Arles. Van Gogh's illness began to reveal itself." That's a theory that was possibly touched upon in the flick. Another one goes Paul accidentally cut off Vincent's ear so it wasn't self inflicted. I think Schnabel could have shown 2 or 3 alternate possibilities for the truth in separate scenes. If only for the sake of the gift to the prostitute. Was she even a prostitute? There's more to the story but the film doesn't explore this enough. As a revolutionary, mind expanding, possibility opening masterpiece, it's not a very subversive approach. Very PG-13.

Benoît Delhomme is the worst cinematographer in film history