Montparnasse Revisited: Who Was Modigliani?
(VHS)
In 1917, an outraged police chief ordered five oil paintings, all nudes, removed from a Paris art gallery. It was the only one-man exhibition Modigliani ever held. Two years later, the controversial Italian painter was dead at the age of 35, and the legends began to grow. Who Was Modigliani? delves into the conflicting views of Modigliani's all-too-brief life in Paris. Being painted by Modigliani, says one former model, was "like having one's soul laid bare." His paintings, which seem to caress female figures, reflect Modigliani's love of women. Modigliani's daughter Jeanne and Russian sculptress Chana Orloff testify that Modigliani drank himself to death, and that his inconsolable mistress, Jeanne's mother, killed herself just days later. From this moving account of a defiant genius, a highly romantic, tragic figure emerges.
