Vigo (1998)

Adrian Brody as The Pianist (2002), Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer (2023), Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln (2012), Denzel Washington as Malcolm X (1992), George C. Scott as Patton (1970), Jamie Foxx as Ray (2004), John Hurt as The Elephant Man (1980), Johnny Depp as Ed Wood (1994), Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Philip Seymour Hoffman as Capote (2005), Sir Anthony Hopkins as Nixon (1995), Sir Ben Kingsley as Gandhi (1982), and Tom Hulce as Amadeus (1984). Some of the most insightful portrayals on screen come in the form of biopics. The same can be said of James Frain as Vigo (1998). Also known as Vigo: Passion for Life, Julien Temple’s film profiles Jean Vigo, the French filmmaker who helped create poetic realism in cinema during the 1930s and inspired the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early ’60s. Despite his professional achievements, Vigo struggled with censors and suffered in his personal life before passing away at the age of 29. When his anarchist father (Jim Carter) died in prison, 12-year-old Vigo (Dean Cook) was sent to a horrible boarding school which he later documented in Zéro de Conduite (1933). As a young adult, he was treated in a sanatorium where he met his Polish wife Lydu Lozinska (Romane Bohringer). While in bed with his bride, Vigo receives a camera as a wedding gift in the flick and we receive a nice shot of James’s junk and butt when he gets out of bed to accept it. Cut and print!