“In Lust for Life we hear Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh storm against the Parisian salon painters of his day. As a director, Minnelli could not have been unaware that he himself--especially in his CinemaScope pictures--was as closely analogous to the salon painters as one could be. Minnelli gloried in artifice and studio-made reality. He was especially adept at handling the shape of the CinemaScope screen--its resemblance to a 2-car garage being particularly felicitous. Nonetheless, Minnelli saw himself as affinitive to Van Gogh, not by lifestyle or philosophy, but by a similar state of mind: a touchy realm of nervous emotionalism distinguishes both of them. Oddly enough, Minnelli, who is a painter, also has a peculiar obsession with the color yellow (although I think that this holds true for all the other colors as well).” Jerry Hiler