The oldest woman who ever lived, Jeanne Louise Calment, appears as herself in this film. She died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days.
Jeanne Louise Calment appeared in the film because she was the last surviving person in real life to have actually met Vincent van Gogh.
One of three 1990's releases that had Vincent Van Gogh as character, with the other two films being Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990) and Robert Altman's Vincent & Theo (1990). That same year, Van Gogh's famous "Portrait of Dr. Paul Gachet" was sold by $83 million, becoming his most expensive work of all time.