News

“There’s no more face or landscape worth painting here,” says Paul Gauguin (Vincent Cassel) in Paris just before he leaves for Oceania in French writer-director Edouard Deluc’s Gauguin (Gauguin: Voyage de Tahiti). Indeed, a lot of the post-Impressionist painter’s most famous works were still ahead of him and Deluc at least avoids trying to give an overview of the artist’s entire life, instead concentrating on just his first voyage to French Polynesia, which occurred between 1891 and 1893.

But even so, the strikingly shot feature, a veritable shallow-focus feast, tries to explore a vast array of topics, including but certainly...

We got the chance to speak with Runoff Writer/Director Kimberly Levin, who explains some of Runoff's taut formal elements and untangles the creative ties between her transition from Biochemist to theater director, and now filmmaker.

"...I can say without hesitation that if you want to be able to say you were there when a great American filmmaker's career kicked off, you need to see "Runoff."

-Matt Zoller Seitz (RogerEbert.com)

Fortunately for me, I can say I was there at the advent. I was struck by this debut. It came out of left field and seemed too dense and shrewd in form to be cultivated by fresh talent. Runoff is a febrile farmland drama shot on location in Kentucky (though its rustic world building suggests any rural landscape). It stars Joanne Kelly as Betty, a female character a billion times more empowering than any scantily-clad female super-hero...

An 1892 painting of two Tahitian women by Paul Gauguin has sold to a group of state museums in Qatar for a record-breaking price of nearly $300 million. That sum breaks the previous record, for Paul Cezanne's "The Card Players," also purchased by Qatar for about $250 million three years ago. The painting, "Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?)," depicts two Tahitian women, and had previously been owned by Sotheby's retiree Rudolf Staechelin, manager of the Staechelin Family Trust, a collection of at least 20 major Post-Impressionist works that Staechelin's father amassed during World War I. Staechelin, who lives in Basel, Switzerland, did...

An 1892 painting of two Tahitian women by Paul Gauguin has sold to a group of state museums in Qatar for a record-breaking price of nearly $300 million. That sum breaks the previous record, for Paul Cezanne's "The Card Players," also purchased by Qatar for about $250 million three years ago. The painting, "Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?)," depicts two Tahitian women, and had previously been owned by Sotheby's retiree Rudolf Staechelin, manager of the Staechelin Family Trust, a collection of at least 20 major Post-Impressionist works that Staechelin's father amassed during World War I. Staechelin, who lives in Basel, Switzerland, did...

A Paul Gauguin still life stolen from a wealthy collector's home in Britain decades ago has been recovered after hanging for 40 years in a Sicilian autoworker's kitchen. The worker bought the painting along with one of lesser value by another French artist, Pierre Bonnard, for about $100 at a 1975 Italian state railway auction of unclaimed lost items, said Maj. Massimiliano Quagliarella of the paramilitary Carabinieri art theft squad. Italian authorities on Wednesday estimated the still life's worth in a range from 10 million euros to 30 million euros ($14 million to $40 million). "The painting, showing fruit, seemed to fit in with dining room decor,...

Complex and avant-garde French film director best known for Night and Fog and Last Year in Marienbad

Alain Resnais, who has died aged 91, was a director of elegance and distinction who, despite generally working from the screenplays of other writers, established an auteurist reputation. His films were singular, instantly recognisable by their style as well as through recurring themes and preoccupations. Primary concerns were war, sexual relationships and the more abstract notions of memory and time. His characters were invariably adult (children were excluded as having no detailed past) middle-class professionals. His style was complex, notably in the editing and often – though not always – dominated by tracking shots and multilayered sound.

He surrounded himself with actors, musicians and writers of enormous talent and the result was a somewhat elitist body of work with little concern for realism or the socially or intellectually deprived. Even overtly political works, Night and Fog,...

Getty Natalie Portman with her best actress Oscar for “Black Swan.”

Natalie Portman on “Black Swan” dance double controversy; Paul Gauguin returns to museum; Grammys cut number of award categories…

Natalie Portman on ‘Black Swan’ Dance Double Controversy: Natalie Portman refuses to weigh in on the controversy surrounding her dancing for her Oscar-winning role in the “Black Swan.” Portman’s dance double, Sarah Lane, she she did most of the dancing for the film, but the filmmakers say that Portman did.

There's a double helping of the Dane, Wall Street returns, Wallace and Gromit take up presenting – and Robyn goes for broke. Our critics pick this autumn's hottest shows

Theatre

Hamlet

Prepare for the latest battle of the princes. John Simm is first in the field at the Sheffield Crucible; then Rory Kinnear enters the running in a Nicholas Hytner production for the National Theatre. It's not, of course, a contest – but comparisons will be inevitable. Crucible, Sheffield (0114-249 6000), from 16 September; and Olivier, London SE1 (020-7452 3000), from 7 October.

The Thrill of it All

Forced Entertainment continues the British experimental tradition with an evening of vaudevillian capers, Japanese lounge music and tarnished sequins. Nuffield, Lancaster (01524 594151), 12-13 October. Then touring.

Tribes

Nina Raine follows her impressive debut play, Rabbits, with a drama about an unconventional family that has its own private language and rules. At its centre is Billy, who is deaf and...

Vincente Minnelli's celebration of the life of Vincent van Gogh is well-researched and enjoyable, even if it gives the best lines to Paul Gauguin

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Entertainment grade: B–

History grade: A–

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch artist. He achieved little fame during his life, struggled with mental illness and lived in poverty.

Since his death, he has been lauded as one of the greatest painters of all time.

Family

After a foray into missionary work at a Belgian coal mine which, while interesting enough and mostly true, feels like it is going in an entirely different direction from the rest of the film, Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) finally takes up art about 20 minutes into the runtime. He lives in his parents' shed and spends all day wearing a manky sheepskin jerkin and drawing things he can't sell, while they drop clanging hints about how he should get a real job.

Can Martin Scorsese pull off a horror movie? Is Glasgow the new Venice? And what's Ricky Gervais up to in Reading? Our critics pick next year's hottest tickets

Film

Cemetery Junction

Having conquered Hollywood, Ricky Gervais is coming home. With his long-time collaborator Stephen Merchant, he has set out to create a British film in the tradition of Billy Liar and the Likely Lads – and of course his own masterpiece The Office – about three blokes working for the Prudential insurance company in Gervais's hometown of Reading. Released on 7 April.

A Single Man

The smart money says Colin Firth will be bringing home a certain gold, bald-headed statuette for his performance as a bereaved gay man in Los Angeles. Based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, the movie – fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut – follows one day in the life of Firth's literature academic as he confronts his own mortality. Released on 12 February.