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EAR RING

Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Vincente Minnelli's

Lust for Life (1956)

It wasn't too cheesy. Kirk Douglas did OK as Vincent.

How can you put a whole life into two hours?

What you can do is show rather than tell and this film does that extraordinarily well.

The paintings and the places he painted are the film's backdrop. The entire production is painterly.

I really liked that aspect of it.

I went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and there is no comparison between any print or reproduction you have seen and the actual work. Of course.

But, the film is lively and has motion and power in a way that even these reproductions come alive in a different way.

I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5. It is lousy drama. Besides, we all know the story.