A curious case of miscasting undermines Goya’s Ghosts, a sprawling vision of Spanish history through the eyes of macabre painter Francisco Goya. For his title artist, a born-and-bred Spaniard, director Milos Forman tapped Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard, then added Natalie Portman as a young Spanish woman who is swallowed up by the Inquisition and, as the topper, Randy Quaid as Spain’s King Carlos IV. The result is a bewildering melange of accents, faces and acting styles. At least Spanish actor Javier Bardem, on hand as a devious monk, lends some semblance of authenticity. With his drooping face and black eyes, Bardem looks like he was plucked from one of Goya’s later paintings, in which the sagging figures appeared to be in the midst of decomposition.
