Doctor Who: 20 Most Satisfying Moments
6. Tell Me Why I Mattered
From Vincent and The Doctor: 5 June 2010.
Richard Curtis, the writer of this little speech has a fine track record of writing scripts calculated to involve you emotionally. In this one he brings in one of his favourite actors to deliver a devastating piece of rhetoric:Dr Black: Well... big question, but to me, van Gogh is the finest painter of them all; certainly the most popular great painter of all time: The most beloved; his command of colour; the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world... no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind that strange wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived. Doctor: Oh, Vincent, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, is it too much? Vincent: No, they are tears of joy! Thank you sir, thank you! Sorry about the beard.Naturally this all needed setting up first, coming as it does at the end of an episode that some found lacked punch. I did not see it that way. It is quite a deep piece overall in which the writer sets out to objectify the demon in Vincent Van Gogh's life through a monster invisible to all but him. Vincent was a haunted genius, but the fact is none of us really knows how that is so. We are not Vincent Van Gogh and we have absolutely no power to live his life in his shoes. That's what is clever about what Curtis does here. He enables us to get a flavour of what it is like to be underestimated and ignored when you are even more in touch with your surroundings than those in your orbit. And then in the final act he summarises perfectly everything that Van Gogh represents. We're no closer to understanding the genius himself, but we know after this speech that what Dr Black said is somehow absolutely correct at a very personal level and we want to jump for joy that someone, finally, has fought Vincent's corner.