While in Paris this summer I was honored to visit the great painter Modigliani’s grave.  I stood before the flat tombstone and observed the ticket stubs, cigarette buds, and etc. that littered his stone.

I didn’t anticipate that over Thanksgiving weekend, while my family went to see that rare treat, a movie we all wanted to see, that there would be more for my eyes than the action sequences.

However, there is a missing Modigliani in the film — Women With A Fan.

But more on this later.  For now, let me say that I embarrassed to note that my first reaction was not concern for the character in the movie who was about to die, but that the painting might get blood on it.  Is this shallow?  Perhaps.

I am just grateful that the movie has returned once again to its art roots, as evidenced in the very first Bond film, Dr. No.  But in that movie it was a Goya painting that had gone missing nearly a year before the film was released.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Or is that “No.”