Van Gogh Naked Childhood

Pialat's Van Gogh looks at the last months of the painter's life. Naked Childhood, the director's first film, was admired by Francois Truffaut, whose The 400 Blows it recalls.

Second feature start time: 10 pm. Pialat paints a biographical portrait of Vincent Van Gogh that differs radically from how others have rendered the artist on film. Set during the final months of the painter's life, the film contrasts his inability to sustain human intimacy with a passionate search for meaning in the art he's compelled to produce. (1991; 168 mins.)

Pialat's first feature, Naked Childhood, tells the story of a rebellious nine-year-old boy shunted from foster home to foster home until finding security in the home of a loving elderly couple. As Jean-Pierre Gorin noted, "We are made to experience what is at the core of the foster child's life...the zig and the zag of disconnection and thwarted emotions." (1968; 82 mins.)

The Maurice Pialat retrospective was organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of French Cultural Services (New York) and the Bureau du Cinema, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris.

at the bookshop

Back issues of the May/June 2004 issue of Film Comment, featuring an extensive midsection on Pialat, are available in the Wexner Center Bookshop.


support credits

Season support provided by the Rohauer Collection Foundation and the Corporate Annual Fund of the Wexner Center Foundation.

Contemporary films, international films, and visiting filmmakers presented with support from the Ohio Arts Council.