Lust for Life

Throughout Lust for Life, Van Gogh, brilliantly portrayed by Kirk Douglas as a man forever on a knife-edge, struggles to explain himself to his family and to Anthony Quinn's Gauguin. However, Minnelli, with the colours he chooses - which follow those of the paintings - and with his dramatic counterpointing of events in Van Gogh's life with his canvases, undermines all explanations. Read full review

A watchable biopic, backed up with excellent historical research. Read full review

Gorgeous landscapes and paintings provide respite from the film’s overwrought emotion. Read full review

Kirk Douglas gives us a manically impressive Vincent van Gogh in this biopic based on Irving Stone's novel, which was inspired by the painter's letters to his brother Theo. Director Vincente Minnelli brings his own palette to bear on van Gogh's artistic struggle and emotional isolation, yet the plot could do with more of a defined structure. [10 Dec 2016, p.32]

Perhaps just because it is so concerned with fidelity to the facts it's less exciting than one might hope; something seems to be missing (a unifying dramatic idea, perhaps), but it's far from a disgrace, and the performers are never an embarrassment.

Minnelli and star Kirk Douglas give Vincent Van Gogh's famously tortured existence the melodramatic treatment in 1956's Lust For Life, and the result falls closer to high camp than high art. Read full review

This is a slow-moving picture whose only action is in the dialog itself. Basically a faithful portrait of Van Gogh, Lust for Life is nonetheless unexciting. It misses out in conveying the color and entertainment of the original Irving Stone novel. Read full review