Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)
Directed by Peter Webber
This film, adapted from a work of fiction by author Tracy Chevalier, tells a story about the events surrounding the creation of the painting "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. A young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works.
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And if Webber hasnât quite given us a study of painter and muse to rival the explosive agony of, say, Jacques Rivetteâs La Belle Noiseuse, he does spin a slight but considerably enchanting tale of impossible romance and artistic discovery.
Its story of romantic repression and artistic inspiration is somewhat trite, especially in comparison to a superior film about painting like Jacques Rivette�s La Belle Noiseuse.
Each frame is an exquisite composition by Portuguese cinematographer Eduardo Serra, who made the 2004 Oscar ballot for this movie and was nominated previously for "The Wings of the Dove."
Delft, Holland never looked so luxurious, even on a frosty wintry day, as it does in Girl With a Pearl Earring, one of the most beautifully mounted films of the year, thanks in large part to the stunning cinematography by Eduardo (The Wings of the Dove and What Dreams May Come) Serra and vibrant production design by Ben Van Os, who helped create the cold-to-the touch look of last year's Max, Menno Meyjes's debut that created a disturbing portrait of a pre-dictator Hitler as a young artist.
By reproducing Vermeer's own aesthetic, with its odd combination of close, compassionate detail and rigid, highly deterministic, and sometimes surreptitious sightlines, Webber and his brilliant cinematographer Eduardo Serra ( The Wings of the Dove , Unbreakable ) are able to communicate all of these shifting balances and advantages without much recourse to dialogue.
Every shot in the film looks like it was taken right out of a painting from Delft, Holland circa 1665 thanks to Director of Photography Eduardo Serra (“The Wings of the Dove”) and Production Designer Ben Van Os (“The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover”).
Colin Firth plays the tempestuous painter like a muted Heathcliff still prowling the moors in "Wuthering Heights."
Scarlett Johansson (Ghost World, The Man Who Wasn’t There) stars as Griet, a 17 year old girl who becomes a maid in the house of Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth).
In this EARRING, many of the best moments are due to the formidable abilities of Johanssen, whose tremulous, textured turn adds to her string of impressive performances in Lost In Translation, The Man Who Wasn't There, and Ghost World, making her arguably the most interesting actress of her (very young) generation.
A much more obviously intriguing performer than Firth, Johannson has nonetheless had a bothersome proclivity lately toward films that are rather complacent and over-confident about their sophistication (see Lost in Translation , Ghost World , The Man Who Wasn't There ).
She was the alluring object of desire for Billy Bob Thornton in the Coen Brothers’ “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”
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Peter Webber's Girl with a Pearl Earring, based on a best-selling piece of speculative fiction by Tracy Chevalier, feels like it's committing an act of infidelity with its widescreen dimensions: Steven Spielberg famously forewent Panavision for Jurassic Park "because dinosaurs are tall;" Vermeer's work is invariably vertical, but Webber seems less concerned with placing us inside a context than with anamorphically distinguishing the film from an episode of "Masterpiece Theatre"--and underscoring his transition to features after years of directing television and plays.
It's an urbane take on the Reader's Digest articles ("I am Jack's medulla oblongata") spoofed by Fight Club (1999).
Delft, Holland never looked so luxurious, even on a frosty wintry day, as it does in Girl With a Pearl Earring, one of the most beautifully mounted films of the year, thanks in large part to the stunning cinematography by Eduardo (The Wings of the Dove and What Dreams May Come) Serra and vibrant production design by Ben Van Os, who helped create the cold-to-the touch look of last year's Max, Menno Meyjes's debut that created a disturbing portrait of a pre-dictator Hitler as a young artist.
She boldly asks Vermeer for help and he unexpectedly searches the house, finding the comb under the pillow of his daughter Cornelia (Alakina Mann, "The Others"), a girl who sees much and says little.
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Delft, Holland never looked so luxurious, even on a frosty wintry day, as it does in Girl With a Pearl Earring, one of the most beautifully mounted films of the year, thanks in large part to the stunning cinematography by Eduardo (The Wings of the Dove and What Dreams May Come) Serra and vibrant production design by Ben Van Os, who helped create the cold-to-the touch look of last year's Max, Menno Meyjes's debut that created a disturbing portrait of a pre-dictator Hitler as a young artist.