‘Van Gogh’

Director and ex-painter Maurice Pialat, in this 1991 look at the legend of impoverished painter-sinner-saint Vincent Van Gogh, doesn’t want us to sentimentalize or luxuriate in sensuous imagery. Focusing on a sullen performance by Jacques Dutronc as Vincent (pictured), he shows us the artist as outsider, rejected by a world perpetually ignorant of his depths and passions, rushing full-tilt to a destruction that cannot be avoided. Stunning performances in an extraordinary film that doesn’t reassure you--it keeps resonating in your guts (Cinemax Wednesday at 4:05 a.m.).