Even people who don't know much about art can tell you something about Amedeo Modigliani, the dissolute wild man of Montparnasse, wolfishly handsome, penniless, tubercular, drinking his way toward an early grave while sweeping up his superabundance of lovers, the last of them Jeanne Hebuterne, the art-school student who was carrying his child when he died and who would take her own life the next day. It's no surprise that there's a movie of his life on the way, starring Andy Garcia. The surprise is that it took so long.
The lure of Modigliani's pinwheeling life may help to explain...