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I am an art lover and have extensive knowledge of it from college and traveling the world to see it. I have seen the Girl With A Pearl Earing in Holland. When I was in Amsterdam for a week I made a special trip to the Hague for a day to see the art there. So to me the movie was an incredible delight. It was as if they made Vermeer's (and others from that time) paintings come to life. That is the attention to not only period detail of dress and food etc but also the colors and lighting and shadow of the paintings. If you really know his work well you will see that they have cleverly taken a number of his other paintings (or something quite similer) and made them quick scenes or shots in the movie. How many times have you stood in front of a masterpiece of art whether it be by Vermeer or Renoir or Monet and imagined yourself stepping inside and inhabiting that world? Well, now you can!

This movie also showed me that Scarlett can really act. I havent seen much of her other work besides Ghost World and LiT but in this movie she plays very convincingly a completely different person than Charlotte or any other contemporary type of character.

One of the things I really liked about the movie was that they didnt really show the painting. Instead the camera lingers and slowly closes in on Scarlett posing for the painting in what I found to be one of the most stirring moments of the film.

Damn, I think I need to run out and see this movie again!

The DVD includes a music video. Like so many "movie-related" music videos, it has nothing to do with the movie...except that the musician looks at a print of the painting, and as he plays Scarlett appears out of thin air. (She's dressed in a a sort of period costume, but it's not the costume of a 17th century Dutch maid.)

The musician ignores her...he can't see her. She has no lines but lots of perplexed and pouty looks, which she's clearly good at. (That's all I remember of her from Ghost World -- perplexed pouty looks.

I agree Girl With a Pearl Earring is wonderful visually, Vermeer's paintings come to life.
To anyone who has the DVD - is there much discussion on the cinematography and art design? Does anyone know of a website with some in depth discussion of these for this movie?
I found the story to be a bit of a bodice-ripper but it's not too bad. Absolutely worth watching if you are an art-lover.

The DVD includes an "Anatomy of a Scene" featurette that was developed for the Sundance Channel. It discusses the big dinner scene.

just saw Girl with a pearl earring on DVD...i thought it was a great movie (but not as good as LiT of course)...scarlett was amazing in it - she did so little talking (must had like 20 lines!) but still did a great job of acting through her facial expressions/demeanor...i read somewhere that this was from a novel, and the novel was a fictional story based on the painting, is this true?

"[quote:5fb046d85f="jml98"]just saw Girl with a pearl earring on DVD...i thought it was a great movie (but not as good as LiT of course)...scarlett was amazing in it - she did so little talking (must had like 20 lines!) but still did a great job of acting through her facial expressions/demeanor...i read somewhere that this was from a novel, and the novel was a fictional story based on the painting, is this true?[/quote:5fb046d85f]

Yup it is."

jml98 wrote:just saw Girl with a pearl earring on DVD...i thought it was a great movie (but not as good as LiT of course)...scarlett was amazing in it - she did so little talking (must had like 20 lines!) but still did a great job of acting through her facial expressions/demeanor...i read somewhere that this was from a novel, and the novel was a fictional story based on the painting, is this true?

very nice movie. You're right, she had very little lines throughout the movie but I think her face and body expressions, just like in some scenes in LiT, more than made up for it.

I read the book a while back, and it was so intense that I decided not to see the movie.

the film was great, but i thought that the book was alot more atmospheric.

watching the film again after reading the book made the film better i think since you can subconciously fill in all the background bits

This movie is so amazing. It is very slow paced but at the same time there is a lot of expressions and fisical movements to express the feelings of the character. Scarlett did a very good job. She is a very talented actress.