The search for meaning is not a search for truth. I've come to this conclusion (which now seems so obvious)
while doing research on Vincente Minnelli's 1956 film, Lust for Life, which
purports to chronicle the life of Vincent Van Gogh. Of course, we're now old hats at knowing bio-pics very rarely stick
to the unadulterated truth. But in 1956? I can't say what audiences thought then. Lust
for Life the film was based on Lust for Life the book, by Irving Stone,
which became a bestseller in its second edition. I haven't read the book, but my guess is this is an example of small
stones casting wide ripples--the compass is off by one degree, but travel eight thousand miles by that compass and you
might find yourself living among "indians," not Indians. See how that
works?
Fictionalize the life of one great man and set the entire genre of film biography going in the wrong direction.
Fans approach these films like they would an ancient, unearthed diary. Vincent Van Gogh in SpectraColor! His secrets
revealed! It's just too tempting a scenario for sentimentalists like myself. Admirers and scholars spend years riddling
out the hidden meaning behind paint strokes; they flap their hands and push their glasses up their collective noses and
say "Ah, yes! The dark colors here, in the background--they symbolize his pain, his heartache!" Because art
means so much more when there's an actual living, breathing, tortured soul behind it. And who's more tortured than Van
Gogh?
So, why make a film about a real-life tortured soul, only cut out all the really tortured parts? Why
gloss over the whores, the absinthe addiction, the permanent midnight? Van Gogh's mania and suicidal tendencies are
well known; his agonies are legendary. The fact is, peering into a fictional man's soul is far less fascinating than
fictionalizing a real man's soul. As film historian Dr. Drew Casper explains in the DVD commentary track, Lust for Life was made in a time when "consensus and conformity were
valued," yet the American male, returning home from war, was "unsure." Casper wagers that much of the
success of the film can be attributed to its making this "dialectic [...] its heartbeat." America needed a
portrait of its agony, and Hollywood served up an amputated Starry, Starry Night. The details might be off, but
emotionally, it was a perfect fit.
