Two Geniuses

He wanted to show what it means to be an artist, Julian Schnabel, the allrounder states about his Van Gogh movie At Eternity’s Gate. Did he manage to do so? A visit at the set

It was actually clear that this wouldn’t be a normal visit here in Arles, where the shooting of At Eternity’s Gate is taking place. Rather an adventurous one, just like the director in place: Julian Schnabel. A man who preferably wears silk pajamas and became a superstar of the art world by creating legendary works out of broken plates, a man who lives in a former perfume factory in West Village, which he had rebuilt into a pink-colored ten-floor Venetian palazzo and who’s megalomania and impressiveness are expressed through his XXL-paintings which he paints on curtains and twelve meter canvases and which sell for millions at auction. A now 67-year-old multitalented man who decided to turn to directing in the 90s and created visual masterpieces, like his 2007 movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly about a man who after an accident is only capable of moving one eyelid and like this tells the story of his life.