Goya's Ghosts

Goya's Ghosts is like the sketchbook Goya might have made with a camera. more

There is so little emotionally or intellectually at stake in most popular entertainment that Goya's Ghosts, Milos Forman's challenging, compelling and wildly uneven film, shoots like a cannonball into the solar plexus. I can't remember when I've been so physically and mentally shattered. more

An oddly structured tale about Francisco Goya and the Spain that he lived and worked in. more

Ghosts is one of Forman's most ambitious and daring films; would that all of its ambitions were fulfilled. more

Far from an embarrassment and a generally fine piece of work. more

Ambitious script is stranded between entertainment and intellectualism, leaving us with a magnificent folly, thoroughly watchable for its visuals but ultimately hollow. more

Though not nearly as perfect as Amadeus and The People vs. Larry Flynt (to cite two of Forman's previous semibiographical efforts), Goya's Ghosts uses the lives of artists and historical figures to show us the best and the worst of our human impulses. more

Captures the essence of the period -- an intriguing, backward era in Spain -- but without the emotional impact that such a film requires. more

Although the period feeling is convincing, Forman doesn't seem to know exactly what he wants to say about this intensely complex era - and that leaves his cast floundering. more

Below-the-line credits are terrific, which only increases an overwhelming sense of disappointment with the film's failed ambitions. more

Milos Forman has a gift for combining fine art subject matter in period pieces that are not only entertaining but also educating. In GOYA'S GHOSTS he not only explores the multifaceted aspects of the great Spanish artist Francisco Goya as a painter of court portraits as well as canvases of dramatic collisions between the factions of people versus military cruelty of 18th and 19th century Spain, but he also dissects the infamous Spanish Inquisition, not only by defining characters who represented the Holy Office and the victims of the 'purging' but also by subtly remarking on the tenor of... more

Milos Forman and Saul Zaentz, who brought us AMADEUS in 1983 have teamed up again to take on another historical artist-type , Francisco de Goya, in a most unusual period drama that is beautifully executed but may leave you scratching your head and wanting more information (especially how to interpret the film!).All of information is there,but if you are not one to seek it you may not enjoy this masterpiece. The title suggests that the purpose of the film is to present the images that haunted the Royal Painter into producing his macabre aqua-tinted etchings called "The Caprichos" in the... more

Amazon Verified Purchase ( What's this? ) In 1975 Milos Forman made One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, winner of 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. In 1984 he brought us Amadeus, winner of 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Now, 23 years later, he brings us Goya's Ghosts, a brand new epic masterpiece on par with his previous critically acclaimed Academy Award winners. The only difference is, Goya's Ghosts not only didn't get a single Oscar nomination, but it was slammed and hated by most critics. I'll make this part of my review short and... more