Total Eclipse

Qn Agnieszka Holland's "Total Eclipse," David Thewlis and Leonardo DiCaprio do the tortured artist thing as love-struck poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. And yes, they kiss. We take our cultural references f rom the here and now. Living in a snapshot culture, the provenance of our artistic traditions grows shorter and shorter. But the work of Arthur Rimbaud, a 19th-century French poet, continúes to inspire artists and young people. "He wasn't afraid to go to the fire," says Agnieszka Holland, "and his poetry changed the face of the culture." The part of Rimbaud went to Leonardo DiCaprio, and David Thewlis was cast as Verlaine. Much has been made of the love affair between the two poets. "It was very strong and very destructive at the same time," says Holland, who didn't shy from portraying it as such in the movie. But although the love scènes promise to be quite powerful, the film is finally concerned with something else that joined Rimbaud and Verlaine. "The movie's about what it is to be an artist," says Thewlis, "the struggle and the passion."