Loving Vincent

Loving Vincent is a 2017 experimental

animated biographical drama film
about the life of the painter Vincent
van Gogh, and, in particular, about the
circumstances of his death. It is the
first fully painted animated feature
film.[7][8] The film, written and directed
by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh
Welchman, is a Polish-UK co-
production, funded by the Polish Film
Institute, and partially through a
Kickstarter campaign.[9]
 Loving Vincent

Theatrical release poster

Directed by Dorota Kobiela

Hugh Welchman

Produced by Hugh Welchman

Ivan Mactaggart
Sean M. Bobbitt
Written by Dorota Kobiela
Hugh Welchman

Starring Jacek
RobertDehnel
Gulaczyk
Douglas Booth
Jerome Flynn
Saoirse Ronan
Helen McCrory
Chris O'Dowd
John Sessions
Eleanor Tomlinson
Aidan Turner

Music by Clint Mansell

Cinematography Tristan Oliver

 Łukasz Żal
Edited by Dorota Kobiela
Justyna Wierszynska

Production BreakThru Productions

company
Trademark Films

Distributed by Altitude Film

Distribution (UK)
Next Film (Poland)[1]

Release date 12 June 2017

(Annecy)[2]
22 September 2017
(United States)[1]
6 October 2017
(Poland)[3]
 13 October 2017 (United
Kingdom)
Running time 95 minutes[4]

Country Poland
United Kingdom
United States

Language English

Budget $5.5 million[5]

Box office $42.1 million[6]

First conceived as a seven-minute

short film in 2008,[7] Loving Vincent
was realized by Dorota Kobiela, a
painter herself, after studying the
techniques and the artist's story
through his letters.[10]

Each of the film's 65,000 frames is an

oil painting on canvas, created using
the same techniques as Van Gogh by a
team of 125 artists drawn from around
the globe.[8][11] The film premiered at
the 2017 Annecy International
Animated Film Festival.[2] It won Best
Animated Feature Film Award at the
30th European Film Awards in Berlin
and was nominated for Best Animated
Feature at the 90th Academy Awards.

Plot
One year after Vincent van Gogh's
suicide, postman Joseph Roulin asks his
son Armand to deliver Van Gogh's last
letter to his brother, Theo. Roulin finds
the death suspicious, as merely weeks
earlier Van Gogh claimed through
letters that his mood was calm and
normal. Armand reluctantly agrees and
heads for Paris.
Père Tanguy, a Montmartre art
supplier, tells Armand that Theo
actually died six months after Vincent.
He suggests that Armand travel to
Auvers-sur-Oise and look for Dr. Paul
Gachet, who housed Van Gogh after his
release from an asylum, shared his
love for art, and attended the funeral.
Once there, Armand learns that the
doctor is out on business. So he stays
at the same inn that Van Gogh did
during his time in the area. There he
meets the temporary proprietress
Adeline Ravoux, who was fond of Van
Gogh and who was also surprised by
his death. At her suggestion, Armand
visits the local boatman, who informs
him that Van Gogh kept close company
with Dr. Gachet's sheltered daughter,
Marguerite. When Armand visits her,
Marguerite denies and is angered when
Armand implies that Van Gogh's
suicidal mood could have resulted from
an argument with her father.

Throughout the investigation, Armand

begins to suspect a local boy named
René Secretan, who reportedly liked to
torment Van Gogh, was in possession
of a gun, and had often drunkenly
waved it around town. Dr. Mazery, who
examined Van Gogh, also claims that
the shot must have come from a few
feet away, ruling out suicide. When
Armand implicates René, Marguerite
confesses that she was in close, but
not romantic, relations with Van Gogh,
but she does not believe that René
was capable of murder.

Dr. Gachet finally returns and promises

to deliver Armand's letter to Theo's
widow. He admits there was an
argument between them – Van Gogh
accused Gachet of being a coward for
not pursuing his dreams, to which
Gachet angrily accused Van Gogh of
deteriorating Theo's health by overly
depending on his brother. Gachet posits
that this accusation drove Van Gogh to
suicide in order to release Theo from
the burden. After Armand returns
home, postman Roulin later receives
word from Theo's widow, Johanna,
thanking Armand for returning the
letter. Johanna attaches to her letter to
Armand one of Van Gogh's letters to
her – signed, "Your loving Vincent."

Cast

Directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman at

the film's French premiere in Paris, with actor
Pierre Niney who provided the voice of Armand
Roulin in the French version.

The leading cast is as follows:[12][13][14]

Robert Gulaczyk as Vincent van Gogh
Jochum ten Haaf as Vincent van Gogh
(voice)
Douglas Booth as Armand Roulin
Jerome Flynn as Paul Gachet
Saoirse Ronan as Marguerite Gachet
Helen McCrory as Louise Chevalier
Chris O'Dowd as Postman Joseph Roulin
John Sessions as Père Tanguy
Eleanor Tomlinson as Adeline Ravoux
Aidan Turner as Boatman
Graham Pavey as Mr Ravoux
 Joe Stuckey as Idiot Boy

Production
The filmmakers chose classically
trained painters over traditional
animators because, as Welchman said
later, he wanted to avoid artists with
"personalised styles" and employ
people who were "very pure oil
painters" instead.[15] A total of 125
painters from over 20 countries
travelled to Poland to work on the
project following selection from around
5,000 applicants, many of whom
responded to an online "recruitment
teaser". The number of participants
was greater than originally envisaged,
which meant that due to difficulties in
obtaining funding the task had to be
completed in a correspondingly shorter
period of time.[8][15]

Creation of the film storyboard was

informed by Van Gogh's paintings,
sometimes with only minor alterations
to the latter, but on occasions more
complex transformations involving
changes to the weather or time of day
were carried out.[15] Since artists
typically painted over frames once
they had been photographed, of the
65,000 produced during the course of
the project only 1,000 survived.[15]

The film uses a form of rotoscoping.

Production for the film began with a
live-action cast filming against a green
screen. After filming, editors
composited Van Gogh paintings into
scene backgrounds, and finally cut the
film together as usual. However, once
the actual film was complete, they
shot each individual frame onto a blank
canvas, and artists painted over each
image. In all the project took 6 years to
complete,[8] and in describing the
laborious process involved Welchman
noted that the film's creators had
"definitely without a doubt invented the
slowest form of filmmaking ever
devised in 120 years."[16]

Reception

Box office E…
The movie is considered a box office
success, grossing over an estimated
$42.1 million (in USD) worldwide on a
budget of $5.5 million, with United
States earnings totaling $6.7 million.
The film has most notably grossed $3
million in South Korea, $2.1 million in
Italy and $10.8 million in China.[17]

Critical response E…

On the review aggregator Rotten

Tomatoes, the film has an approval
rating of 85% based on 155 reviews,
with an average rating of 7.3/10. The
website's critical consensus states,
"Loving Vincent 's dazzling visual
achievements make this Van Gogh
biopic well worth seeking out – even if
its narrative is far less effectively
composed."[18] Metacritic reports a
score of 62 out of 100 based on 21
critics, indicating "generally favorable
reviews".[19]

A. O. Scott, writing for The New York

Times, found the visual aspects of the
film to be innovative stating: "the
viewer also becomes accustomed to
the images, and astonishment at the
film's innovative, painstaking technique
begins to fade. But its charm never
quite wears off, for reasons summed
up in the title."[20] Actress Angourie
Rice had similar sentiments, writing in
an essay that “it was such a fascinating
experience to witness the actors’
performances turned into Van Gogh
style paintings. The great thing about
this film is that it also made me
question what the merging of artforms
meant for art, film, and everything in
between.”[21]

Giuseppe Sedia of the Krakow Post

praised the impressive visual style of
the movie. However, he added, "In their
concern to keep the viewers
interested, directors Kobiela and
Welchman have built an over-narrated
and spirit-dampening movie in which
the preponderance of the dialogues
hinders the viewers’ immersion into the
violent beauty and materiality of Van
Gogh’s oeuvre". [22]
Awards and accolades
The film won the "Most Popular
International Feature" award at the
2017 Vancouver International Film
Festival.[23] It was nominated in the
Hollywood Music in Media Awards
2017[24] for Best Original Score in an
Animated Film. It won the Audience
Award at the 2017 Annecy
International Animated Film Festival[25]
and the Golden Goblet for Best
Animation Film at the Shanghai
International Film Festival.[26] It won the
XII Festival de Cine Inédito de Mérida
(FCIM) after obtaining the highest score
among the projected films and also the
highest score obtained in the history of
the event.[27] On 9 December 2017, the
film won Best Animated Feature Film
Award at the 30th European Film
Awards in Berlin.[28] The film also
received Best Animated Feature
nominations at both the Academy
Awards and Golden Globes.
Year Ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Ref.

Dorota
30th European Film [29]
Best Animated Feature Film Kobiela, Hugh Won
Awards
Welchman

Shanghai Dorota
International Film Best Animation Film Kobiela, Hugh Won [30]
2017
Festival Welchman

Hollywood Music in [24]

Best Original Score Clint Mansell Nominated
Media Awards 2017

Florida Film Critics Loving [31][32]

Best Animated Film Nominated
Circle Vincent

2018 Vilnius International Loving [33]

The Audience Award Won
Film Festival Vincent

75th Golden Globe [34]

Best Animated Feature Film Nominated
Awards
Dorota
St. Louis Film Critics [35]
Best Animated Feature Kobiela and Nominated
Association
Hugh
Washington, D.C. Welchman
[36]
Area Film Critics Best Animated Feature Nominated
Association Awards

22nd Satellite [37]

Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature Nominated
Awards Loving
Boston Society of Vincent
[38][39]
Best Animated Film 2nd Place
Film Critics

Dorota
23rd Critics' Choice Kobiela and [40]
Best Animated Feature Nominated
Awards Hugh
Welchman

90th Academy Best Animated Feature Dorota Nominated

Awards Kobiela, Hugh
Welchman
and Ivan
Mactaggart

Hugh
Welchman
Best Animated Feature — Independent Nominated
and Ivan
Mactaggart

Outstanding Achievement for Music in an

Clint Mansell Nominated [41]
45th Annie Awards Animated Feature Production

Dorota
Kobiela, Hugh
Outstanding Achievement for Writing in
Welchman Nominated
an Animated Feature Production
and Jacek
Dehnel

Dorota
71st British Kobiela, Hugh
[42]
Academy Film Best Animated Film Welchman Nominated
Awards and Ivan
Mactaggart

Dorota
Kobiela, Hugh
St. Louis Film Critics [35]
Best Animated Feature Welchman Nominated
Association
and Ivan
Mactaggart

Dorota
Kobiela, Hugh
Alliance of Women [43]
Best Animated Film Welchman Won
Film Journalists
and Ivan
Mactaggart

Georgia Film Critics Best Animated Film Dorota Nominated [44]

 Association Kobiela, Hugh
Welchman
and Ivan
Mactaggart

Production Design in an Animated Matthew [45]

Art Directors Guild Nominated
Feature Button

Golden Eagle Loving

Best Foreign Language Film Won
Award (Russia) Vincent

References
1. "LOVING VINCENT IS RELEASED IN
POLAND, CANADA AND VIETNAM" .
Loving Vincent. Archived from the
original on 10 February 2018. Retrieved
19 November 2017.
2. Mayorga, Emilio (14 June 2017). " 'Loving
Vincent' Gets Standing Ovation at
Annecy" . Variety. Retrieved
7 September 2017.
3. "Loving Vincent" . Altitude. Retrieved
18 August 2017.
4. "LOVING VINCENT (12A)" . British Board
of Film Classification. Retrieved
30 August 2017.
5. "Van Gogh, a new film and a tantalising
question: was Vincent murdered?" .
The Daily Telegraph. 27 June 2016.
Retrieved 3 July 2017.
6. "Loving Vincent (2017)" . The Numbers.
Retrieved 21 April 2018.
7. Macdonald, Fiona (16 October 2017).
"Loving Vincent: The film made entirely
of oil paintings" . BBC. Retrieved
21 October 2017.
8. "Łukasz Żal – Lumière Award and
Honorary Fellowship". The RPS Journal.
Vol. 159 no. 9. Bristol: Royal
Photographic Society. September 2019.
pp. 614–620. ISSN 1468-8670 .
9. "Watch the Mesmerizing Trailer for a
Movie About Van Gogh Fully Animated
From Oil Paintings" . Slate. 29 February
2016. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
10. "An interview with 'Loving Vincent'
director Dorota Kobiela" . The Daily
Californian. 28 September 2017.
Retrieved 17 January 2018.
11. "How do you paint 65,000 pictures like
Van Gogh?" . BBC. 29 October 2016.
Retrieved 2 December 2016.
12. Waring, Olivia (2016) This animated Van
Gogh movie rendered entirely in paint
looks unbelievably stunning ; Metro
87.1M, 23 March 2016. Retrieved 4
August 2016.
13. ‘Loving Vincent’ Starring Vincent van
Gogh ; Fashion Industry Broadcast FIB,
4 April 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
14. Loving Vincent (2016) Full Cast &
Crew ; IMDb. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
15. Vollenbroek, Tunde. " 'Loving Vincent': 6
Facts About The First Oil Painted
Animated Feature" . Cartoon Brew.
Retrieved 26 October 2017.
16. " "Loving Vincent" Van Gogh: How the
world's first hand-painted film was
made" . CBS News. 21 October 2017.
Retrieved 10 August 2018.
17. Hopewell, John. " 'Loving Vincent'
Passes $20 Million at Worldwide Box
Office" . Variety. Retrieved
11 December 2017.
18. "Loving Vincent (2017)" . Rotten
Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved
12 January 2019.
19. "Loving Vincent Reviews" . Metacritic.
CBS Interactive. Retrieved
14 November 2017.
20. A. O. Scott. Film Review. The New York
Times. 21 September 2017.
21. Angourie (20 January 2018). "Loving
Vincent" . wordpress.com.
22. Sedia, Giuseppe (15 October 2017).
"Loving Vincent (2017)" . Krakow Post.
Retrieved 11 December 2018.
23. "Indian Horse Wins Coveted VIFF Super
Channel People's Choice Award"
(Press release). Greater Vancouver
International Film Festival Society. 13
October 2017. Retrieved 15 October
2017.
24. Pond, Steve (26 October 2017).
"Hollywood Music in Media Awards
Announces Nominees in Film, TV, &
Video Game Music" . Shoot Online.
Retrieved 26 October 2017.
25. CITIA, ©. "Home > Festival > Awards >
Film index Award winner" .
www.annecy.org.
26. "Winners Of 20th Golden Goblet
Awards" . siff.com. Archived from the
original on 29 October 2017. Retrieved
2 November 2017.
27. 20Minutos (25 November 2017).
" 'Loving Vincent' gana el XII Festival de
Cine Inédito de Mérida con la mayor
puntuación de la historia del
certamen" . 20minutos.es - Últimas
Noticias.
28. "THE 30TH EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS:
WINNERS" . Retrieved 10 December
2017.
29. "European Film Awards Nominations:
'The Square', 'Loveless', 'On Body And
Soul' & More" . Deadline.
30. "LOVING VINCENT WINS BEST
ANIMATION AT SHANGHAI FILM
FESTIVAL" . Retrieved 10 March 2019.
31. " 'The Shape of Water' Leads 2017
Florida Film Critics Awards
Nominations" . Florida Film Critics
Awards. 23 December 2017. Retrieved
20 December 2017.
32. " 'Dunkirk' Wins Top Prizes in 2017
Florida Film Critics Awards" . Florida
Film Critics Awards. 23 December
2017. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
33. "Audience Choice Awards 2018" .
Vilnius International Film Festival. April
2018. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
34. "Golden Globes Winners: Complete
List" . Variety. 7 January 2018.
Archived from the original on 8
January 2018. Retrieved 8 January
2018.
35. Amidi, Amid (12 December 2017).
"Annual StLFCA Awards" . Sf. Louis
Film Association. Retrieved
12 December 2017.
36. Brown, Tracy (7 December 2017). "The
2017 WAFCA Awards" . Washington
D.C. Film Critics Association. Retrieved
6 December 2017.
37. Pond, Steve (28 November 2017).
" 'Dunkirk,' 'The Shape of Water' Lead
Satellite Award Nominations" .
TheWrap. Retrieved 29 November
2017.
38. "Boston Society of Film Critics - Current
Winners" . Boston Society of Film
Critics. 10 December 2017. Archived
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Retrieved 10 December 2017.
39. "Boston Society of Film Critics - Past
Award Winners" . Boston Society of
Film Critics. 10 December 2017.
Archived from the original on 11
December 2013. Retrieved
10 December 2017.
40. "Critics' Choice Awards: 'The Shape of
Water' Leads With 14 Nominations" .
The Hollywood Reporter. 6 December
2017. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
41. Hipes, Patrick (4 December 2017).
"Annie Awards: Disney/Pixar's 'Coco'
Tops Nominations" . Deadline
Hollywood. Retrieved 4 December
2017.
42. Tartaglione, Nancy (9 January 2018).
" 'The Shape Of Water' Leads BAFTA
Film Awards Nominations – Full List" .
Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved
9 January 2018.
43. "2017 AWFJ EDA Award Nominees" .
Alliance of Women Film Journalists. 3
January 2018. Archived from the
original on 3 January 2018. Retrieved
3 January 2018.
44. "2017 Awards" . Georgia Film Critics
Association. 8 January 2018. Retrieved
8 January 2018.
45. "Art Directors Guild Awards: 'Dunkirk,'
'Shape of Water,' 'Blade Runner 2049'
Among Nominees" . The Hollywood
Reporter. 9 January 2017. Retrieved
9 January 2017.
External links
Official website
Loving Vincent on IMDb
Loving Vincent at Rotten Tomatoes
Loving Vincent Painters

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"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Loving_Vincent&oldid=978607353"

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