Tag: Victor Hugo

Van Gogh’s Literary Influences

“Books and reality and art are the same kind of thing for me.”
– Vincent Van Gogh

In 1888, Vincent Van Gogh sold The Red Vineyard, a vibrant field of color abuzz with laborers, to an intimate supporter of the hungry artist for today’s equivalent of $2000. These days, a single painting by Van Gogh More

In 1888, Vincent Van Gogh sold The Red Vineyard, a vibrant field of color abuzz with laborers, to an intimate supporter of the hungry artist for today’s equivalent of $2000. These days, a single painting by Van Gogh can go for as much $66m at Sotheby’s, and Van Gogh™ is a billion dollar industry. And the topper is that The Red Vineyard, if sold today, probably would be the single most expensive painting ever bought, not because it was the most popular artist’s best, but because it’s the only one he ever sold in his lifetime. (Wow.)

Over the decades there have been a number of film accounts of Van Gogh’s work and life, from Stanley Kubrick’s Kirk Douglas-driven Technicolor slave revolt from Black-and-White, to the more recent BBC biopic, Painted with Words, starring Benedict Cumberbatch with a script derived solely from Van Gogh’s written words. Continue reading “Van Gogh’s Literary Influences” →

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Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1939) — (Movie Clip) King of Fools

The mob (led by Edmond O’Brien as Gringoire) is totally into naming Quasimodo (Charles Laughton) the King of Fools until dour Frollo (Cedric Hardwicke) intervenes in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1939.

Watch at TCM: Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1939) — (Movie Clip) King of Fools

Victor Hugo à gros traits

From September 13, 2018 to January 6, 2019, the Maison Victor Hugo presents an exhibition an exhibition around the public image of Victor Hugo through the style of caricature. The poet’s fame and political commitment made him a favorite subject of the caricaturists of his time who often sketched him rather roughly and sometimes even ferociously. Among these renowned designers, it will be possible to find prestigious signatures such as Daumier, Doré, Cham, Gill, Lepetit, Nadar  [ … ]

Continue at : Victor Hugo à gros traits

“Sanctuary!”

The “Sanctuary!” scene from the classic 1939 version of Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo and Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda.

“Hunchback” was the only movie screened at the very first Cannes Film Festival, as the remainder of the festival was cancelled when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939. The bell-ringing scene was Laughton’s response to impending war. The actor later said he rang the bells actually wanting “to arouse the (real) world, to stop that terrible butchery!”

“It is absurd to speak of Laughton’s Quasimodo as a great performance, as if that were some quantifiable assessment. It is acting at its greatest; it is Laughton at his greatest; it is a cornerstone of this century’s dramatic achievement; it is a yardstick for all acting.”
– SIMON CALLOW, NY Times 1988