User reviews

This movie is very much a mixed bag.. it's a good film. It's nice to watch, the acting is good, the direction is good and the story is engaging. But I feel it doesn't capture the real spirit of the era and the Paris artist community. It focuses too much on the immoral behavior and madness of the artists and leaves out the way these people viewed the world and their concepts of beauty. It's good the film tries to show the grittiness of it all, but there was so much more... i'd really would've liked to see more about what drove modigliani to paint as he did and what exactly drove him to destruction. This film only just touches on that...

it tries too much to please the American audience in their quest for standardized Hollywood stories, but on the other hand it tries to have a certain "artsy" flair that remains just polish because it lacks depth. Add to that some production-decisions that are a bit unfortunate, like the for any European obviously fake accents. They should've taken the original languages (french, Italian, Spanish, German) or English. Not this lame compromise..

Still you gotta see this. Not for an actual representation of modiglianis life or that era, just for it being a good film, dealing with passion, loyalty, madness, love and hate. See it for the atmosphere ,which although not accurate, is beautiful. See it for the good acting and the wonderful chemistry between modi and picasso. It could've been so much more but it is what it is.. good, intelligent entertainment.

I'd give this movie an award for the best imperfect movie I've ever seen or the most impressive movie that has grown on me as I watched it or the movie with the most clichéd ridiculous first hour that gradually picked up its momentum and become a film of rare beauty and incredible power. As the title suggests, this is a film about time and life of one of the most charismatic Artists of the last century, Amedeo Modigliani (1884 - 1920). Last April, I visited a wonderful exhibit of his works in The Phillips Collection at Washington DC that hosted nearly 100 of his paintings, sculptures, and drawings on loan from U.S. and international collections. Modigliani's style is so unique and striking distinguished by strong linear rhythms and simple elongated forms that it takes only seeing couple of his stunning, sensual and aesthetical portraits to never forget him. His name, "Amedeo", has such a beautiful and sad meaning, knowing the story of his short life. "Amedeo" means beloved by God, and he sure was, talented, charming, and charismatic. But as the saying goes, the ones whom the Gods love die young. Modigliani health was very poor, and his life style did not help it. He died from tuberculosis and meningitis when he was 35. His lover, his muse, and the mother of his daughter, 21 year old Jeanne Heubeten who was pregnant with their second child by the time of Amedeo's death, did not want and could not survive him. On the day following Modigliani's death, she threw herself from the window on the fifth floor and killed herself...You may say, "How melodramatic" but life sometimes is more dramatic than any work of art or literature.

The casting of 49 year old Andy Garcia as 35 year old Modigliani seems a little strange but Garcia did his best working with the material. There was a moment in the movie when he addresses someone, "What is the matter with you?" with such obvious Brooklyn accent that I felt like watching "Godfather, part 4 ½". Actually, most of the dialogs in the first hour or so were rather unintentionally funny. It seemed to me that the director tried different approaches to his film. Modigliani came from Italy – we see many times the parade of clowns on the streets of his native Livorno as the recurring image that could've came from Fellini's films. Then, film looked in Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin-Rouge" direction with the songs and music from different epochs (and I said to myself, oh please, no). Davis also compares Modigliani's life with that of another Amadeus, struggling genius – child from 18th century Vienna –the film brought a Mozart / Salieri theme with a successful and rich fellow painter who comparing to Salieri happened to be a very talented Artist himself - Pablo Picasso. So, for the first hour, the film struggled (almost as much as its protagonist) but then, something happened. The film's creator realized that the Artists are interesting not only because of their personal problems, weaknesses, struggles, preferences but first and foremost because of their talents, of their abilities to create, to look at the world like no one before them did, to capture their impressions in the forms and images that even after they are long gone make our hearts beat faster, make us say, "This is beauty, this is poetry, this is perfection". The scenes of incredible power just come one after another, the scenes with few or no words spoken at all. Among them, Picasso's and Modigliani's visit to one of the titans of 19 century, August Renoir in his country mansion. Renoir was shown as the old, wheel chair bound man who had to be spoon –fed by his nurse but who obviously had sharp mind and more wisdom than both Picasso and Modigliani together. Later, there was a long scene showing young painters - Chaim Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, and Amedeo Modigliani working on their paintings for the Grand Prix de Peinture, the yearly art competition at the famed Salon des Artistes. Close to the movie's end comes my favorite scene – the opening of the Salon with the presentation of each painting – there is no rivalry, no competition any more – each work of art shines and every artist is happy to admit the talent and uniqueness of his fellow competitor.

So, what do I think of "Modigliani", the movie directed by Mick Davis? I enjoyed it and I would recommend it to others. Andy Garcia, who is not my favorite actor, won me over with his performance in spite of the problems (many) with the script. I've been always interested in the period of post War World 1 Art history when everybody who was anybody tried to be in Paris, the Art Mecca for many generations of Artists and the film's depiction of the Modigliani's contemporaries was interesting and made me want to research more about them. I'd like to see more movies with the actress Elsa Zylberstein who played Jeanne – her melancholic beauty, grace and talent are undeniable and helped to make the movie based on the Artist's life compelling, convincing, and remarkable.

P.S. According to Pablo Picasso's personal physician, the Artist who had survived Modigliani by more than 50 years, whispered his name on his deathbed.

This film must be considered an "Art" film - not a commercial film and you must watch it with different eyes.

Taking that tone - It was throughly enjoying and the sets, costumes and art direction were done extremely well. The casting and acting was excellent and believable but some scenes

were too drawn out. If the editing was a little better we would have a real winner. However I can recommend this film to anyone who loves art and painting. It really portrays the feelings of the artists and how they lived.

Go See It - You'll enjoy it!

I find Modigliani a movie worth to be seen! Some of you might consider it doesn't capture the real "spirit" of that era or that it's being put too much accent on the painter's madness and on his interior drama; but this is Modigliani in Mick Davis's conception, it's a movie not a documentary! The soundtrack is perfectly chosen to amplify the feelings transmitted by the excellent performance of the actors. It is more than a cinematographic production. It is a symbiosis between passion and love, human nature and vices. The memories of Amedeo about his childhood, the reproofs of "Modigliani-the little boy ", the incapacity of resisting to temptations and the permanent psychological pressure given by having such a rivalry have driven him to auto-destruction. It is the destiny of a man who passed away just a moment before tasting success... I consider Modigliani-the movie- art about art.

The story of Modigliani is well-known. However, this film gives it life with a wonderful script, amazing cinematography, and mind-blowing performances by Andy Garcia and Elsa Zylberstein, a little-known French actress. I was glued to the screen from start to finish and have recommended it to everyone. If this film, Garcia, and Zylberstein don't receive Academy Award nominations, there's something wrong with Hollywood... at least more than is already wrong with it.

Run don't walk to the nearest theatre showing "Modigiliani". Forget the mega-publicized studio films being released now (Winter 2004-2005). See it while you can. It's a true find, and one that will stay with you long after you left the theatre.

Colorful and engaging, albeit, self-important lengthy Bio-Pic. Acting values range from screaming to sublime. Artist portrayals are always difficult to convey on the screen, and in this case, a painter, comes across as self-serving, ultimately unsympathetic but full of great art. His oeuvre speaks volumes but his lifestyle, littered with latch key kid lacking, results in some sad and destructive behavioral patterns that he never could outgrow. Backstory handled effectively and the anti-semitic storyline brutally honest but ham-fisted by the script. The debauched artists are overwhelmed by pistols, pity and the tortured artist syndrome. The scenes between the Big M and Pablo Picasso are the most interesting because of the tension created by the actors in each of the scenes; but Diego Rivera is reduced to bows and grunts. Excessive use of blood overstates some of the violence and one of the characters spends all his time yelling, about anything and everything. The "age" of the baby bothered my gal-pal ("M's" lover is seven months pregnant and carrying a three month old in her arms...say what?!) and the bad guys are straw-men with blackjacks to wield. Although there are scenes of "M" studying the bone structure of his subjects and checking out the rain on his window pane his artistic inspiration may be too subtle for the cinema to effectively embrace, without including his bouts with booze and hash. Keep this guy away from mommy's purse, he's a man on binge mission. Of course how do you portray inspiration? That's a puzzle. Too bad, too, because ultimately "M" left me mostly unmoved and wanting to take a trip to The Prado; rather than watch a vain and valiant Andy Garcia doing his Leaving Las Vegas cocktail chug-a-lug tumble down the auteur hole of dipsomania and consumption. Not a pretty slide. Not since Steven Boyd sucked his last gasp in Ben Hur has a character expelled air with such profound pathos. The women are pretty pawns in the directors hand's and the Salon Artist Paint-off "Contender" sequence rivals March Madness in frustration, respect and triumph. The euro trash tune-age is redolent of Cirque Du...and the salon scenes are gaudy but filled to the brim with odd balls and period patches.

Has the film a USA distributor? And for who is the pic targeted? The Hitch and Robots crowds will have a hard time pronouncing the title let along paying ten bucks to walk through the doors of the local multiplex to catch this one. Wait till DVD, rent it; and then go to an art gallery.

I was lucky to see this movie in Paris where this movie was first

released in the cinemas. I was really impressed by the brilliant

performances of Andy Garcia and Elsa Zylberstein and the rest of the cast. Andy Garcia is a VERY versatile and extremely talented actor. We may already know this story is about the last years' of life of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani and set in Paris in 1919. However this movie has a new approach and new ideas and it is not an ordinary biography movie. The spirit of Paris in that period comes alive in this movie. Everyone who involved in this movie worked with passion and passion is actually a main theme of this movie.

I totally enjoyed seeing this movie and I hope that this movie will be released widely and many people will be able to see it. We are all surrounded by those big blockbuster movies nowadays and it is so nice to see Modigliani, a real gem.

It is a good biographical movie, even if it is obviously overdramatized. Andy Garcia again plays a charismatic , yet having abuse problems, which makes me wonder how he is in real life. Anyway, he did a great role.

Worth mentioning, the movie was shot in Romania, with a lot of Romanian actors. It was funny hearing "Ionel, Ionelule" sung in French, since it was all supposed to be happening in Paris.

Now, about the movie. It showed an overly emotional world of artists, highly competitive, yet in owe of one another. Being a rather technical, introverted guy, I cannot sympathize with any of the characters. They all did really stupid things for reasons I didn't understand. Yet the movie was definitely a good movie, although I guess it would have a greater impact on women and artists.

It is, after all, a drama, so don't expect a nice little film with a happy ending.

I really liked the movie. it is beautifully shot and the acting is great and that also counts for the beautiful story of this painter. Sure, if you are not into 'art' movies this wont be something for you but if you like a movie that is not a Hollywood blockbuster and if you like Garcia, i'm sure that you will like the movie. Andy Garcia is far most the only 'star' in the movie but that gives the movie a certain amount of credibility. If there would have been to many A listers, the movie wouldn't have worked like it does now. Although the movie is set in the 1920-1930's there is also a modern part (the scene where everyone is painting their masterworks for the exibition with some lounge music on the background is gorgeous!). So if you want to see a true actor's movie check it out!

Kudos to those involved with this project which allows movie-goers to understand a little more about the private life and time of Amadeu Modigliani. And special thanks to the private funders, whose support of independent productions make movies with meaning possible -- and in this case, turned a relatively obscure dream into a wonderful reality!

This period piece is beautifully done. The acting is superb, as well as the cinematography, editing, music and writing. And did I mention the acting? Wow! Andy Garcia was brilliant, along with excellent performances by Elsa Zylberstein (as Jean Hébuterne), Omid Djalili (as Picasso) and cameo by the Romanian actor who played Renoir.

Thank you for this beautiful work which, I'm sure, will be appreciated for years to come!

His paintings are regarded as Mannerist because they are filled with grace, poise and accentuated by an unusual elongation of faces, anfractuous necks and soft gentle flowing postures of the subject. He produced some 350 paintings and sculptures during his very short life. Amedeo Modigliani was a prolific artist. None of his work however, was received well during his lifetime. But they are auctioned or sold for millions today. He was a contemporary of Picasso and ironically, was painted by Picasso. But his life was an epitome of tragedy. This movie is based on few real events as well as a fictional account about his rivalry with Picasso. Although the script writing is somewhat pedagogical and it fails to capture the emotions, but Andy Garcia pulls it off well and is very convincing. Production design captures the zeitgeist of the early part of 20th century. A great watch.

Modigliani (2004)

Wow, somebody besides Modigliani was smoking hashish when making this thing. It's incoherent, it takes fictional liberties that border on infantile (never mind trying to create an interesting story), and the acting and writing (basics, yes?) are strained and patched together. Stephen Holden is right, this is a movie about how not to make a movie about a famous artist.

Andy Garcia? I can see how people find him handsome, and Modigliani was a lady's man, for sure, so that much works. But he isn't an actor with either subtlety or fire, mostly just self-consciousness. His girlfriend, Jeanne, who was supposed to be 19 when the artist met her, is played with surprising unevenness by the usually talented Elsa Zylberstein, who was almost twice that age, 36. (She does have a naturally long face, which fits the elongated look of the artist's many portraits.) And then there is an even worse fit, the man playing the short fiery Spaniard named Picasso, an Iranian-British comedian name Omid Djalili. He neither looks nor acts like Picasso, who was filmed and photographed so much we know quite exactly what he was like.

So what is it about this film that makes sense? Nothing. There is snow in one direction and not in the the other. There is the foolish brandishing of guns, glasses smashed to the floor, hallucinations that play cheap cinematic games, an invented rivalry between Picasso and Modigliani as if they were the only two artists of note in town (this is Paris, 1917, remember). Oh, and speaking of that, where's the war? You know, World War I. Ha.

So, Modigliani impregnates this young Catholic student, Jeanne, and shows raging compassion and neglect in almost the same scene. He loves poverty and seems to never really paint--except when he gives up halfway through and destroys the thing in a fit. (This is only partly true--he drew and painted like mad, but not destructively.) The light is often nice, his T.B. is neatly invisible until the dramatic final bow, and Paris never looked so tawdry and small. It's a shame, because it could at least have been brimming with atmosphere. Or, taking it another direction, the movie could have leapt into complete fantasy like Derek Jarman's "Caravaggio" or the inventive (and more accurate) "Goya in Bordeaux."

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Anyone, not with all the better artist films out there. As a final note, even if you like everything I didn't, you'll have to keep track of the many side characters (artists who come and go like Max Jacobs, Diego Rivera, and Utrillo), and the put up with a pastiched together simultaneous scene of several of these painters all making their works for the competition, feverishly painting as club music plays in the soundtrack as if it were a high school football tournament.

Good luck. The death mask at the end? That's for real. And the final tragic suicide, as well. The truth of Modigliani is far more intense than this frivolous thing.

It took a while for me to get into it, but by the end I really liked it a lot. It could have been more consistent and seamless--the casting was so-so. In the first part of the movie the intensity of the characters didn't come across, but as the movie progressed, especially near the end, their emotions were more convincing and believable. The music was possibly the most passionate and moving part of the whole thing -- I hope a sound track is released. I liked the sets, the costumes and filming was pretty good. The subject matter was of particular interest to me as I am an artist. It's probably not for everyone and definitely not for those who like formula, action films.

For many motifs I see this film as special. For atmosphere, for Romanian actors performances, for an inspired portrait of Modigliani. And for the nuances of battle against Picasso . Short, a real interesting biopic.

I enjoyed this film for the atmospheric scenes of bohemian Paris just after WWI. I did not take the recreation any more seriously than the time travel series on TV where the characters find themselves in the Paris of the 20's and run into Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, cocteau et al every time they set foot in a bar or turn a corner. Before the film began there was a statement that it was fiction based on real people and events; therefore those who complain about it not being an accurate biography of Modigliani have missed the point - no one ever said it was! My main problem with the film was Andy Garcia, who was around 15 years too old, too well fed and nowhere near as handsome as the real Modigliani. He simply did not have the Italian charm combined with dazzling good looks which would have been catnip to women. Not only was Garcia too old for the part, he can't act, and his haircut hanging in greasy strands over his face would turn off any woman.

Another jarring note was that as baby Jeanne was born a few days after the end of WW1 and has not yet been baptised, something the Catholics do within few weeks of the birth, we must assume that the Modi and Jeane meet up again in 1918; however, there is no sign of Paris recovering from the terrible devastation of the war. Modigliani died two years later in 1920 and the film would have us believe that the intervening two years were one long party. From where did the starving artists get the money to buy their booze, let alone drugs? Finally, the structure of a little boy, Amadeo as a child? acting as his conscience was irritating and should have been scrapped. I would enjoy watching an accurate biography of Modigliani should someone care to make one.

Andy Garcia gives an award winning performance as Italian Jewish artist, Amedeo Modigliani, in this film about his tragic life. He was madly in love with a French Catholic woman, Jeanne, whose father made it impossible for them to be together. Regardless, Jeanne would sacrifice custody of their own daughter in order to be with him. She just couldn't live without him. The supporting cast is quite good with Miriam Margolyes OBE playing Gertrude Stein (where was Alice B. Toklas?) in this film. The film was filmed on location in Paris. Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and other famed artists of that period were also portrayed but my main problem with this film was the lack of clarity in this film. It's a worthy effort but it could have done a little better.

The best way to describe this film is as a costume drama like so many done from Jane Austen novels, but using different costumes and a different period. It has that same inherent artificiality which we are asked to accept. Rather disappointing in this case, since we are dealing with a vital and complex artist who could have been presented in a far more realistic and disturbing way. Some of the portrayals are downright strange. "Renoir" looks very like the real-life figure, but, despite how absolutely French - even Parisian - he was is given an almost Italian accent here. And a chameleon. (Don't ask.) Gertrude Stein is portrayed as a hearty vulgar woman more like a bordello madam or frontier bar owner than the heir to a major fortune and a relatively out lesbian unafraid to appear masculine. Cocteau does not have to be portrayed as a preening queen, but surely some hint of his being an elegant gay man of his period should come through? Elsa Zylberstein is truly lovely, and may be a revelation to American viewers who do not know her considerable body of work in France, but she shows little of the ambivalent, probably unhealthy, energy of her real-life model. The rather contrived competition with Picasso is more silly than anything else. And I kept seeing Andy Garcia more than any character. It is surprising to prefer a rather romanticized version of the same story, but having seen "Les Amants de Montparnasse" decades ago, I find that a more powerful rendition of this one.

Surprisingly a very good movie. It started out a little shaky and I wasn't sure about the plot, but the patient movie watcher in me was eventually rewarded, The second half of this movie is the payoff. Andy Garcia was really good, I've never been a fan but he caught my attention portraying the likeable tragic artist. Elsa Zylberstein was very good as his wife but Omid Djalili's performance as Pablo Picasso and his relationship with Modi was a bit confusing. I still very much enjoyed it and think it's worth watching if you love movies about artist.

MODIGLIANI is a difficult movie to review. It has some very strong features such as the cinematography that captures the artsy feeling of Paris 1919 and, despite excesses, manages to create some visuals of hallucinations and the wild madness of painters painting canvasses; a rather complex peak into the lives of several of the more revolutionary artists of the time; and a substantial feeling for the interchange between artist and model. The main problem with the film is a script that is banal, limited in historical validity, and concentrating on a single rather silly motif of a painters' competition.

Amedeo Modigliani (1884 - 1920) was a Sephardic Jew from Italy who moved to the mecca of Paris to create his brilliant portraits and sculptures of nudes and extended neck women and girls. His genius lay in his unifying the spiritual Eastern iconography (tribal art and Judaism) of his heritage with the Christian (read Catholic) traditions of the artists with whom he associated which resulted in his creations of the female nude from a feminist cultural perspective. What this film delivers is a rather annoying portrait of a young consumptive artist who drank and drugged himself to death at a moment in his career when renown was just beginning. The reasons for his place in art history are merely hinted all for the sake of the Hollywood biopic.

Andy Garcia plays Modigliani with a modicum of élan and a plethora of bad traits. The lovely model Jeanne Hébuterne (Elsa Zylberstein) who was the subject not only of his portraits but the mother of his illegitimate child and his live-in paramour is a bit long in the tooth on suffering, though despite the fact that Zylberstien is hampered by both a weak script and limited acting, she does have an uncanny resemblance to Jeanne. The artists with whom 'Modi' works include a strangely miscast Picasso (Omid Djalili), Chaim Soutine (Stevan Rimkus), Maurice Utrillo (Hippolyte Girardot), Diego Rivera (Dan Astileanu), Zborowski (Louis Hilyer), and the strangely non-effeminate Jean Cocteau (Peter Capaldi)! Dealer Max Jacob (Udo Kier) and Gertrude Stein (Miriam Margolyes!) are thrown in with the harlequins and 'Modi's' child spirit Dedo (Frederico Ambrosino) for atmosphere. The storyline is one that could have easily been told in the requisite time frame but MODIGLIANI taxes the viewers' attention for over two hours.

So aside from a visually exciting experience there is really very little to be learned from this liquor and opium soaked consumptive noisy melodrama that could have been about any one of the artists involved in the story. The genius of Modigliani is barely tapped. Grady Harp

"Do you know what love is? Real love? So deeply you'd condemn yourself to eternity in hell? I do and I have." So began Jeanne Hebuterne's narration of the story of her lover, artist Amedeo Modigliani. Few movies with obvious addicts at their center excite, but this one does - because of the ease with which we can relate to the codependent, Hebuterne (played endearingly by Elsa Zylberstein), who is drawn imperceptibly into the abyss. It's a classic tale of the seeming incomprehensibility of misbehaviors keeping close people off balance, making it easy to induce them to do things they would never in their right minds consider.

Initially, Modigliani (played by Andy Garcia in a terrific role) is outwardly eccentric, exciting and charming. The visceral appeal and seduction proves impossible for Hebuterne to resist and she falls in love with Modigliani almost at first sight. Happy though he may initially appear, he increasingly becomes consumed by remorse when able to see what the aftermath of his misbehaviors has wrought. When his contemporary Pablo Picasso asks after an encounter, "Why do you hate me so much?" Modigliani responds, "I love you Pablo. It is myself I hate." Alternating fighting with charm and insanity with excitement, self-derision becomes evident: he tells Hebuterne, "I have nothing for you. I am nothing." When she responds, "So you'll just run away?" he bluntly states, "That's what I do best." And so it goes, with Modigliani apparently growing to believe that irresponsible behaviors comprise his real self, which he loathes during moments of lucidity, while Hebuterne sees through to the real Modigliani, who is brilliant and, likely, caring without the drug.

Yet it isn't Hebuterne who tells him to stop drinking entirely; even Picasso suggests he "drink in moderation," which, as a person with alcoholism, he cannot do in the long run. It is Modigliani and Hebuterne's young son who tells him, "If you keep drinking, you'll kill us both." Although it seems an insightful observation for a child, other addiction experts (I say "other," because I've authored four books on the subject) have pointed out that child-victims see the potential for annihilation far more clearly than do others, including the spouse who is blinded by alcoholic charm and the decency they see underneath the muck of addiction. While Modigliani's binges are so apparent that everyone around him is aware of the problem, the cure - complete cessation - eludes.

His most destructive behaviors generally involve periodic abandonment of his wife and child for opium and booze. However, knowing we cannot predict how destructive an addict may become or when (one of the themes of my first book, "Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse"), we should not be surprised when at one point Modigliani is put into a straitjacket. Nor should we be shocked when he shows up four days late to paint a portrait of a benefactor, although desperately in need of funds. Later, pleading for money so he can see a doctor, a friend asks him to promise he will not drink it away. Despite his doctor's admonition that if he continues to drink and smoke opium he will not live another year, his lungs already at half capacity due to having had tuberculosis as a child, his thirst for the drugs is insatiable. In typical alcoholic fashion, when told to stop drinking and to concentrate on painting, the egomaniac created by the alcoholism responds that no one can tell him what to do.

Some critics object that the movie is confusing, alternating back and forth in time with numerous flashbacks and what may be hallucinations; but this is analogous to the life of the alcoholic, who leads a confused Jekyll and Hyde existence. While Modigliani isn't violent toward his family, the psychological abandonment conveys the experience of many victims: verbal and emotional abuse does more damage and lasts far longer, perhaps because it's easier to leave physically and detach emotionally from a violent addict. This could explain the classically tragic end. Because alcoholism provides the most certain tragedy, tragedy makes good cinema and the conflicting effect on the codependent is, for once, accurately portrayed, this is one of the best of the overtly alcoholic genre.

This is not a documentary. If you (unlike myself) are a versed art Historian, you may well have issues with some of Davis's choices regarding his portrayal of famous Art personalities. If, however, you simply enjoy a subtly crafted film that works by layering image, sound and metaphor, then this film is for you. It doesn't set out to clunkily 'explain' artistic motivations ( a wise choice from Mike Davis,-for who can ever really claim to know 'why' an artist does what he/she does) but rather presents an ethereal collage of colour, sound and minimal script and allows the audience to draw its own conclusions about the life and motivations of Modigliani and those surrounding him. Garcia does a credible job of bringing Modigliani's addict soul to the screen and for all his faults, is an eminently watchable actor throughout the 2hrs of screen time. Elsa Sylberstein is hauntingly beautiful (is somewhat challenged in the accent department), and the film's soundtrack (Operatica derived) perfect. A thoroughly enjoyable decadence,-best enjoyed with a bottle of red and some great chocolate.