RODIN (2017)

Rodin wasn’t the film I expected. I’m not sure what I expected for a film about an older French sculptor. Hell, I realized that I forgot Camille Claudel was kinda about him too. Anyways, the film is painfully French. It’s not enough that he has a lifelong romantic partner, but he also keeps a mistress. The mistress is more of a student that wastes a decade of her life putting  up with his advances. Eventually, she becomes big enough to escape him. The rest of the movie is the old guy sulking. The Cohen Collection is finding films that would have never appeared on my radar. While I like to think of myself as cultured, it’s easy to miss World Cinema in favor of YouTube deep dives. However, there is something about seeing history and oddball creative personalities come together in a film. The sculptor would’ve been around the same age and era as Van Gogh at this point in time. It’s just that this artist was a little more mature and took his pain out in different ways. The portrait of an Artist as a conflict soul is trite at times. I just enjoy seeing creative types being shown as flawed and not saintly.

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