Vincent van Gogh, portrayed by Willem Dafoe
Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in the town of Groot-Zundert, Netherlands. At the age of 16, van Gogh joined the art dealer firm Goupil and Cie. He was fired seven years later for his poor attitude, which modern-day psychologists commonly attribute to an undiagnosed mental illness.
After spending a couple years as an evangelist, van Gogh devoted himself to art. He spent some time living in Paris with his brother before moving to the countryside, settling in Arles, France in 1888.
At his brother's prompting, van Gogh invited his friend Paul Gauguin to visit him in Arles. Gauguin's brash, self-absorbed personality clashed with van Gogh's humbleness. The two got into violent arguments, the most explosive of which ended with van Gogh threatening Gauguin with a razor. Fearing for his life, Gauguin fled to Paris, and Van Gogh cut off part of his earlobe in a fit of despair.
After Gauguin left, van Gogh committed himself to a mental asylum in Saint Remy-de Providence, where he painted what is arguably his most well-known painting, The Starry Night (1889). The following year, van Gogh was released into the care of Dr. Paul Gachet, a heart specialist and amateur artist whom van Gogh considered a kindred spirit.
In June of 1890, van Gogh experienced a relapse. Following an intense argument with Gachet on July 27, he wandered into a field and walked out with a bullet in his chest. He died two days later.
Accounts of how van Gogh received the fatal wound differ: some believe it was self-inflicted, others think the artist was murdered. In their 2011 biography Van Gogh: The Life, Pulitzer Prize-winning scholars Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith propose that van Gogh was accidentally shot by a friend's 16-year-old brother.
Julian Schnabel, the director of At Eternity's Gate, always had Willem Dafoe in mind to play van Gogh. "I never thought of using another actor,” Schnabel stated in an interview with Esquire. “There’s nobody else who could have done what he did.”
Schnabel, who is respected in the art community for his neo-expressionist "plate paintings," taught Dafoe how to paint to prepare him for playing van Gogh. "It was a transformative experience,” Dafoe told The Hollywood Reporter. "It gave me an understanding — or an imagination, anyway, not an understanding — but an imagination about what van Gogh was talking about and what he was expressing through his painting. I'm not an expert on van Gogh, but I have a deep feeling for his paintings."
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