Very Cool!!!

one of my absolute favorites!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The last years of Modigliani's life in Paris 1919,this famous italian-french painter not match with greatest like Cezanne and Van Gogh but their paintings are so expensives nowadays which put him at high ground,the movie cover a few last years,he already condemned to die due the alcoolism,stayed some time in Nice near the sea to try to recover,back in Paris died still young 36 years old,sad end to true genius,neglected by many,today is honored...but too late!!!Great casting Lili Palmer.Anouk Aimée,Lino Ventura and Gérard Philipe as Modigliani.Resume:First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.25

the temptation to see the film as one about Gerard Philipe is not small. and, in a way, it could be the basic motif for admire it. because it seems be a film for his admirers. a last word, testimony /legacy of great art. the close up, the dialogues, the reactions of Amedeo Modigliani are easy to define the last years of his interpreter. because, except that, "Les amants de Montparnasse" gives the same picture of damned artist, ignored by his contemporaries, single against the love story, fragile, vulnerable, strange. of course, a good recipes for public success. but, maybe, not the best. and this does it a homage to an unique French actor. and the beginning of the end of an age of cinema.

The Grim Reaper casts a long shadow over this film depicting the final declining months of Amedeo Modigliani - one of the giants of 20th Century art - who in January 1920 died in Paris in poverty of tubercular meningitis aged just 35. The original director Max Ophuls had died suddenly at the age of 54, and both his replacement as director and the film's star were dead within two years of its completion.Had Ophuls lived we would now be contemplating a very different film - probably in colour and alive with his trademark dolly shots. Having already shown the seamier side of the Belle Époque in 'Casque d'Or', Jacques Becker wasn't about to romanticise Parisian life after The Great War. In addition to making drastic changes to Henri Jeanson's script - which led to rows - Becker (who had just made his two worst films, both in colour, which put him off making a third), instead of lifting the soul by concentrating on the art as posterity's triumph over the life, as had 'Lust for Life', takes us on a bleak, monochromatic tour of the lower depths of Modigliani's cramped and thwarted mortal existence; his mental and physical decline reflected in Paul Misraki's sinister score.The film already carries an on-screen disclaimer that it takes liberties with historical fact; and good as they both are as the two doomed lovers, it's hard to believe the ethereal Gerard Philipe as the sort of brute who could possibly strike a woman, while Anouk Aimee looks more like a chic fifties left bank existentialist than a vulnerable little waif. A vibrant Lili Palmer, however, is spot on as Modigliani's bohemian ex-lover. Representing the art trade, Lino Ventura looks as if he's barged in from the set of 'Touchez Pas au Grisbi'; and the final shot of him greedily rifling through Modigliani's artistic legacy is not for the faint-hearted.

I am convinced that only those people can really appreciate this movie whose title is either "Modigliani", "Les Amants De Montparnasse" or "Montparnasse 19", who are aware that the last year of life of the Italian-French painter Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) who died with 36 years, was played by Gérard Philipe, who was lethally sick during the shooting of this movie and died shortly after its release, 1959, with 36 years - on one of the two diseases that Modigliano had himself and exactly in his age. Further, this movie was directed by Jacques Becker - after the sudden death of Max Ophüls. Becker, too, died only 2 years after this movie. Since it is clear that Philipe knew that his days were counted and since one can assume that also Becker knew about his own few remaining months, this movie, suddenly, does not look like kitsch anymore. I just would like to mention that famous scene, where "Modi" says: "Jeanne, on the other side, there will be eternal joy, isn't that so, Jeanne?". Philipe's tears are probably real. In another famous scene, where Modi is going to be humiliated by an American billionaire, he quotes Van Gogh: "I have to drink a lot to get that splendid yellow back that I found last summer". These words could be Philipe's own words. Fassbinder who dedicated his movie "Despair" amongst two others to Van Gogh called this phenomenon "A Trip Into The Light".It is a famous as well as sad fact that his contemporaries put as many obstacles as they could in the way of Jacques Becker, so that he was able to realize only a good dozen of movies. Today, half a century after Becker's death, "Modigliani" is still not available. The only American VHS edition is long out of print, and one pays horrendous prices for a copy. And the worst: not even in France, this film is available, neither as VHS nor DVD. So you must go through a lot pain, if you want to watch this masterpiece. But it is worth, I assure you.