Since someone first decided to tell the story of someone famous on the big screen, biopics have always been audience fodder. According to a poll conducted by National Geographic with data collected from the past 50 years, the majority of actors who have won the award have done so by playing characters that actually lived IRL.
Now, a filmmaking duo might seem like it's treading some well-worn ground by wanting to produce a film about the life of artist Vincent Van Gogh, but there's one twist that makes it stand out from the rest: it's an animated feature made up entirely of Van Gogh paintings.
Titled Loving Vincent, the movie is touted by its directors Dorota Kobiela (who is also a Polish painter) and Hugh Welchman (the producer for Peter and the Wolf, which won an Oscar for best short animated film in 2006) to be the first "painted" full-feature film ever made. According to the the creative pair's Kickstarter page, the idea behind the movie is to honor the seminal Impressionist painter in the very style he painted in.
"What is truly groundbreaking about Loving Vincent is that every frame of the film is an oil painting on canvas, using the very same technique in which Vincent himself painted," the team wrote. "And what makes it a great story to experience is the intriguing, tragic, and inspiring story of Vincent Van Gogh himself."
To create that effect, Kobiela and Welchman took over 120 paintings created by the famous artist, with the plot based on 800 letters Van Gogh himself penned. From the looks of the none-too-shabby cast (Saoirse Ronan, Aidan Turner, Douglas Booth, Helen McCrory, Chris O'Dowd and Jerome Flynn), the story created for the film might jump straight out of the canvas (or screen) and come to life.
Here is a brief official synopsis of the film below.
"Loving Vincent is an investigation delving into the life and controversial death of Vincent Van Gogh, one of the world's most beloved painters, as told through his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through interviews with the characters closest to Vincent and through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death."
Check out the short Van Gogh biopic trailer Loving Vincent in the video clip below.
Source: YouTube
