For his role in the 1956 film, Lust for Life, Kirk Douglas won the Golden Globe award for best motion picture actor and was nominated for an Oscar as best actor in a leading role. In this film biography, Douglas played Vincent Van Gogh, a great but hyper-neurotic artist. Van Gogh is keenly aware that his neurosis is chronic, and this knowledge only intensifies the neurosis. Two episodes in the film relate to David Middleton's splendid collection of poems, The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy. In the first, Van Gogh, friendless, seeks consolation in drawing, meticulously imitating works of Millet. Van Gogh's early drawings shown in the background of his shabby room are copies of Millet's, in particular peasants engaging in the primordial tasks of rural life. Yet, in spite of the drudgery of their existence, Van Gogh understood that Millet saw in these peasants' subtle gestures a certain quietude of soul attributable to their sense that they are inextricably and inescapably linked in some mysterious way to the nature of things. Toil is their way of life, but they do not despair.
