Crows, blossoms and lust for death—cinema and the myth of van gogh the modern artist

in 1990 a van gogh film festival was organized in Amsterdam. It revealed a range of films which constitute a “difficult genre” as Gertjan Zuilhof called it in his introduction to the catalogue. On concluding his survey of films ranging from documentary to parody and opera, he comments: “A great and intriguing artist such as Vincent van Gogh does not intrinsically make an interesting film; on the contrary, the subject demands better-than-average courage, intelligence and cinematic quality to arrive at an acceptable product; Van Gogh has a lesson to teach the cinema.” ¹