Saturday, June 13, 2009

Forrest Goya

Last weekend I saw Goya's Ghost. Stellan Skarsgard as Goya and Javier Boredem as Brother Larenzo, a member of the waning Spanish Inquisition team. Times are changing, just not soon enough. Goya ends up being a bit Forrest Gumpish in that he's at key moments in history and mostly likely doesn't realize it. Brother Larenzo is having his picture painted by Goya, which requires several visits to the studio. When the SI gang try to claim that Goya is distributing damaging caricatures of the church; Brother Larenzo defends him. When the SI gang go on to claim that Goya is painting whores as angels in his church ceiling work; Larzeno convinces them that the church's mission should be to help those very whores. When the SI gang claims that a young daughter of a fairly wealthy merchant, who also had her portrait painted by Goya, is a heretic because she is seen turning her nose up at pork, Larenzo is powerless to help.

There are a few scenes of Goya sketching in his moleskine that are really cool.

Javier made this movie right before No Country for Old Men and I really prefer to see him in this kind of role. He appears to have just walked off of a canvas and onto the movie set.

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