All language subtitles for Episode 1 - Bohemia

[tense music]

[projector clicking]

[fireworks roaring]

[bright, cheerful music]

In 1900, Paris was
capital of the world.

A cosmopolitan crowd filled
the gardens of the Trocadero,

encircling the palace and
pavilions which had been built

for the Exposition Universelle.

Everywhere French innovation,
invention and ingenuity

were being celebrated.

Salons were abuzz
with a literary

and intellectual life whose
influence was felt far and wide.

Foreign painters, sculptors,
writers, poets and musicians

crossed paths here in
Paris, the city of lights,

the freest in the world.

Off the beaten path
and far-removed from
this excitement,

a little village
awoke to the dawning

of a new century: Montmartre.

Its heroes, whose names
were still unknown,

would change the
face of art forever.

A young man climbed
the hill to Montmartre.

He wore a black frock
coat, and a top hat.

He was extremely poor.

The man's name was Max Jacob.

A poet and illustrator, he
had arrived in Paris looking

for creativity, art,
friends, and happiness.

Max Jacob chose Montmartre
for its history.

Not the history of the
Sacre-Coeur Basilica,

a block of white stone
erected to expiate the memory

of the Paris Commune, but
for its raucous cabarets,

outstanding artists,
and the laughter

and singing that
permeated the Butte.

The streets were
rife with history:

the red and black
colors of revolt,

the scathing satires of Aristide
Bruant and Alphonse Allais,

the ghosts of la
Goulue and Rayon d'Or.

[mysterious, haunting music]

One morning in June
1901, the poet stopped

in front of the windows of
a gallery on rue Laffitte.

Fascinated, he discovered
an entirely blue painting

of a couple.

He pushed open the
door, and found himself

in a dusty shop
cluttered with newspapers

and paintings facing the walls.

A man was dozing behind a desk.

His name was Ambroise
Vollard, Cezanne's dealer.

A customer asked him,
"Do you have any Renoirs?

Vollard got up out of his
chair, went to the cellar

and returned with
two works by Renoir.

He propped them against the
wall and returned to his chair

where he immediately
dozed off again.

How much?

200 francs.

170.

220, I said

How do I know it's not a fake?

You don't.

I wasn't there when
Renoir painted it.

[bright, ethereal music]

The customer grumbled something

and left, leaving Max his place.

There's a painting
in the window.

The little picture on the right.

"Picasso," Vollard
replied. "Unsellable."

An hour later, Max rang

at an apartment on
Boulevard Clichy.

He was ushered inside and
offered a seat in the middle

of a group of Spaniards.

None spoke French.

Pablo Picasso was there.

He was a man of small stature,

with broad shoulders
and deep eyes.

[upbeat Spanish music]

Max congratulated him.

The two men shook hands,
slapped backs, and embraced

without being able to understand

a word the other was saying.

So Beethoven served
as a common language.

They played the 7th
symphony on the guitar,

belting out the "Ode to Joy"
at the top of their lungs.

[broom thudding]

At sunrise, Max left
his new friends.

They promised to
see each other again

and to never part ways.

[bells chiming]

[laughing]

[metal clinking]

The day after their
first meeting,

Picasso and his gang
paid the poet a visit.

Max read them his
first published story,

"King Kabul and Gawain
the Kitchen Boy."

"Gawain walked up 50
steps of white marble

between two walls
of green marble.

Princess Julia's servants,
who were all Negros

or Chinamen, bowed
when he appeared,

because he showed them
the King's signature:

Kabul the First, King
of the Balibrigians,

Emperor of the Green Isles."

No one understood a word.

Even so, Picasso
wept with emotion.

He swore to Max, "You are
France's greatest poet."

And Max replied, "And you are
Spain's greatest painter!"

"Spain's? I'm the world's
greatest painter."

Picasso thought so,

but the art dealers
didn't agree.

When he first arrived in Paris,

he had painted like
Toulouse-Lautrec,

in a lively and
good-humored style.

The public liked it.

[gentle, cheerful music]

[audience applauding]

Then he withdrew into blue,
El Greco-inspired monochromes.

The style reflected
the poverty and despair

in which the small
Spanish community

of Montmartre had been living.

[eerie pipe organ music]

But Ambroise Vollard
couldn't sell them,

so he wouldn't buy them.

Neither he, nor the others.

Who were the others?

A former clown,
an ex-pastry chef,

and a sideshow wrestler
making a comeback,

all self-styled street
vendors and art merchants.

[bright piano music]

Canvases by Suzanne
Valadon, Maurice Utrillo,

Le Douanier Rousseau and
Picasso found their place

on the curb, between
a rusted iron

and a baby carriage
with no wheels.

Max was with his
friend Pablo when one

of these dealers walked
up to the painter,

"I need you to paint me
a bouquet of flowers.

It's urgent.

I promised it to a customer,
and I have none in stock."

"I don't have any
white," replied Picasso.

"You don't need white,"
the man answered.

"White is so ordinary."

Poetry didn't put
food on the table,

so Max Jacob dabbled
in other fields.

He was a piano teacher,
private tutor, hired-hand,

art critic, street
sweeper, bailiff's clerk,

secretary, apprentice-carpenter,
and even a governess.

Recently, he had been earning
a living fortune-telling:

tarot cards, palm
reading, coffee grinds.

"Don't be stingy,
ladies and gentlemen!"

Ever since they met,
Max Jacob and Picasso

had been inseparable.

To support his new friend,
the poet added another string

to his bow, landing
a job as stock boy

in a department store.

He swept the floor and
delivered purchases,

working to pay for
Picasso's supplies, meals,

and the little room
they now shared.

The place was so small,

they had to take
turns sleeping:,

Max at night while
Pablo painted,

and Pablo during the day
while Max was at work.

After eight months, Max was
fired for general incompetence,

but never stopped championing
his friend's work.

Passing himself off
as a rich collector,

he would knock at the
doors of galleries:

"I want to see
all your Picassos.

He's a great painter, a genius!"

In this way, he hoped
to burnish the image

of his favorite artist, whom
nobody had ever heard of.

[gentle, dreamy music]

One day in 1904, Picasso
brought his friend Max

to a bar near the
Saint-Lazare station.

He wanted to introduce
him to a former bank clerk

he had met several days earlier.

[pencil scraping]

The man Max met was a 24
year-old with a tie, waistcoat

and pocketwatch: a
well-dressed bourgeois.

His name was Wilhelm
Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky.

By his own account, he was the
offspring of a former officer

in the royal army of The
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies,

and the daughter
of a Polish officer

in the Pope's private chambers.

Fancy words for an
unglamorous reality.

Guillaume Apollinaire was a
half-breed and a foreigner.

His father had abandoned him

and his mother a few
years after he was born.

[horn honking]

She had dragged the
small family from hotel

to rented room, from city to
palace, looking for fortune,

luck, and lovers an adventuress
of love, a free-thinker.

This represented the epitome
of libertinage at that time.

Guillaume Apollinaire
spoke five languages.

He was incredibly
cultivated, an immense poet.

He would stroll the streets
of Paris humming a melody

to himself, always the same one,

to which his rhymes and verse
then attached themselves.

[upbeat orchestral music]

[cheerful, upbeat music]

He was a man of many talents.

He founded a review,
"Le festin d'Esope,"

and edited several anthologies,

including one entitled
"Les maîtres de l'amour."

He wrote a short erotic novel

that was distributed
under the table,

"Mirely, or The
Cheap Little Hole."

Finally, this incredible
jack-of-all-trades

was editor-in-chief

of the "Guide to Managing
a Private Income."

He knew nothing about
the stock market

but did a good job pretending.

They brought him to Montmartre.

On the way, he picked up
the newspaper "Le Temps."

"Perfect for colitis,"
he explained to the
horrified vendor,

"You apply it to your
intestines and you're cured."

In short, he was an intellectual

and a practical joker
all rolled up in one.

[cheerful whistling]

He was also a great sensualist.

"You, whose name I don't
know, oh my neighbor

Slender as a honeybee,
oh fairy, appearing

Sometimes at the window
and sometimes slippery

Serpentine, undulating
wickedly, oh neighbor

And yet also sister of blossoms,
oh cluster of wisteria."

When it came to women, he'd
prepare a plan of attack,

persist, find another
angle, begin again,

and when things didn't
work out, he'd despair.

You might say he
was unlucky in love.

But he would find consolation
at the dinner table.

[military drumming]

His belt loosened a notch,

he would await the
starting signal,

and dive headfirst into the
menu of dishes and wines.

[intense midtempo music]

His favorite partners were two
painters he met on a train:

Maurice Vlaminck
and Andre Derain.

With them, the rule was simple,

they'd walk into a restaurant,

and try to eat
everything on the menu.

And when they had finished,
they'd begin again.

The first to be full
would pay the check.

The band was coming together,
but still needed a home.

It was Picasso who found it.

A former piano factory built
in 1860 that had been turned

into an artist's residence
thanks to the wooden panels

dividing up the space.

One had to enter
through the top floor

and then descend down dark
corridors that were scorching

in the summer, icy
cold in the winter.

[door creaking]

On the second floor
there was running water,

but nowhere else.

And there was only one toilet.

Picasso was enchanted.

He looked avidly at
this strange structure

which resembled no other,

and dubbed it the
Trapper's House.

But Max Jacob had another idea.

The house was reminiscent of
those flat-bottomed barges

used to scrub
laundry in the Seine.

He gave it a name which would
become known the world over:

the Bateau-Lavoir.

[gentle, peaceful music]

Picasso moved into
the very top floor.

On the door of his workshop
he wrote these words in chalk,

inspired by the names of
certain Parisian cafes:

[speaking in foreign language]

His apartment consisted
of a tiny bedroom

with rotting wooden floors,
and a room furnished

with a mattress and
an old iron stove.

An odor of black tobacco,
gas and linseed oil

hung in the air.

There was also a trained
white mouse, and Frika,

a friendly mutt.

There was clutter everywhere,
except on the bed.

There languorously reclined
a tall 23-year-old brunette

of exquisite grace, whom
the painter contemplated

with all the powerful
magnetism of his dark eyes.

Her name was Fernande Olivier.

She was his great love.

She had replaced the
women from the brothels

and several others
who had come and gone.

Picasso was crazy about her.

He, the Andalusian, still
rough around the edges,

who spoke broken
French, on the arm

of this slightly
bourgeois woman,

with her fancy
clothes and perfume.

He was jealous, too.

He wanted to lock the beautiful
Fernande away in his tower,

to prevent her
from ever leaving.

He preferred doing all the
chores and errands himself

rather than risk her trading
glances with someone else.

[playful music]

He forbade her from
posing for anyone else.

The day he discovered
that Kees van Dongen

had painted her half-naked,
with one breast fully exposed,

she immediately
got slapped for it.

[slapping]

The Dutch painter,
Kees van Dongen,

lived a few floors below.

In the tradition of Utrillo
and Toulouse-Lautrec,

he painted life in Montmartre,

prostitutes pounding the
pavement, the shopkeepers

of the Place du
Tertre, and the dancers

of the Moulin de la Galette.

The big and beefy Andre
Derain, also a regular

at the Bateau Lavoir,
was very hands-on.

According to his models,
he would sometimes sit them

on his knee, with one
hand on their waists

and a paintbrush in the other.

Seeing wasn't enough,
he also needed to touch.

His friend Maurice de
Vlaminck was an instinctive,

passionate painter
with a big mouth.

He hated not only schools and
academies, but also museums,

cemeteries, and churches.

He believed in violent anarchism
and championed its colors.

The third strongman of
the band was a Norman born

in Argenteuil, Georges Braque.

[bright accordion music]

Calm, solid and
lumbering like a bear,

Braque impressed
the girls he danced

with at the Moulin
de la Galette.

When he took the omnibus
which crossed the Seine

to the Left Bank, he would
climb to the top deck and sing,

accompanying himself
on the accordion.

When he arrived at
the Bateau-Lavoir,

Braque was wearing blue
coveralls and a hat jammed

over his head. The others,
inspired by the idea,

tried to outdo him.

In keeping with his
painting of the period,

Derain opted for loud
colors, a green suit,

red waistcoat, yellow shoes.

Vlaminck sported a tweed
jacket and bowler hat

decorated with a
bluejay feather.

Picasso chose rope sandals,
a cap, and overalls

of the kind worn by zinc miners,

which had faded after
too many washings.

Max Jacob appeared in
either a magician's costume,

silk cape, collapsible
gibus hat, and monocle,

or the traditional
garb of Brittany,

a duffle coat with frogging.

As for Apollinaire,
he was never seen

without his suit,
tie and waistcoat.

The band would wander
the streets of Montmartre

dressed to the nines, and
cut across the vineyards

after dark to finish the
evening at The Lapin agile.

[cheerful whistling]

[dogs barking]

This was Pere Frede's
establishment.

[speaking in foreign language]

He had bought the
Cabaret des Assassins

from the illustrator and poet
of the Commune, Andre Gill.

[singing in foreign language]

All of Montmartre
came to the Lapin.

On weekends, regulars mixed
with bourgeois Parisians

who came to slum it
in this joint full

of women and artists.

Over drinks and music,
Picasso and his friends

met the other fixtures
of Montmartre:

the writers Francis Carco,
Roland Dorgeles, and Mac Orlan,

and the actors Harry
Baur and Charles Dullin

who gave passionate
poetry readings.

They listened to Guillaume
Apollinaire recite his poems.

"My handsome gypsy, my lover

Listen to the clocks that chime

We love each other desperately

We think we are unseen

But we were poorly hidden

For the clocks see
us from their towers

And tell the world."

An unexpected visitor
stood near the hearth.

This artist was not at
all like the others.

He had a greyish complexion,
long hair, walked on four legs

and didn't talk, but brayed.

He was Aliboron, the
Pere Frede's donkey.

[dog barking]

One day, a couple of pranksters
attached a paintbrush

to its tail, dipped
it in a pot of paint

and placed an empty
canvas behind the animal.

That was how "The Sun Falling
Asleep Over the Adriatic"

came to be painted by the
four-legged artist Boronali,

an anagram of Aliboron.

A new movement,
excessivism, was born.

Imagine the scandal when
the work was presented

at the Salon des Independents.

[donkey braying]

At sunrise, the most loyal
members of the Bateau-Lavoir

would leave the Pere Frede

and scatter into the
neighboring buildings.

There, they would swipe bottles
of milk from the doorsteps

of bourgeois homes.

Most would return
to the Bateau Lavoir

and go straight to bed, but a
few would visit the brothels

which were still
opened at that hour.

They would all meet
again the next day,

after a few hours of sleep.

[upbeat music]

[women laughing]

The band's favorite
outing brought them

to Boulevard Rochechouart on
the outskirts of Montmartre,

where the Medrano Circus
has pitched its tent.

[audience applauding]
[audience cheering]

[audience laughs]

The painters befriended
the clowns there,

Grock first among them.

Apollinaire wrote:

"The strollers in the plain

walk the length of gardens

before the doors of grey inns

through villages
without churches,

and the children gone before

the others follow dreaming,

each fruit tree resigns itself

When they signal from afar.

They have burdens
round or square drums

and golden tambourines.

Apes and bears, wise animals

gather coins as they progress."

[man speaking drowned
out by applauding]

Picasso answered the poet's
rhymes with painting.

Influenced by his
friends from the circus,

he put the Blue
Period behind him

and embraced the cheerful colors
of fraternity and romance.

He painted "Maternity," which
ushered in his Rose Period.

[bright, gentle music]

With the beautiful
Fernande at his side,

Picasso strolled the
streets of sunny Bohemia.

However, a cloud hung over their
lives at the Bateau Lavoir:

Fernande Olivier could
not have children.

The sense of loss was so
painful that she finally went

to the orphanage on rue
Caulaincourt and brought home

a little girl of about ten.

They called her Raymonde.

For a few weeks, the
little girl commanded all

of their attention.

Picasso, the good artist-father,

did a portrait of
her in India ink.

[child laughing]

Max Jacob grew attached to her

and would take her on
walks through Montmartre.

The painter Utrillo would
pretend to be a locomotive

and go choo-chooing by.

[train whistling]
[train chugging]

But after a while,
mommy and daddy Picasso

seemed to prefer it when
the little girl was out.

She took up more
space than the dog

and the white mouse combined.

She was noisy.

She scribbled on the paintings.

Picasso could no
longer sleep part

of the day and work at night.

Nothing was the same.

Things got so bad that, three
months after adopting her,

Fernande asked Max
Jacob for a big favor.

Could he return the little
girl to the orphanage?

Naturally, Max agreed.

[bell chiming]

"The child took my hand

and I protected her from
misfortune," he wrote.

[water burbling]

With her departure
came a new arrival.

The child had gone, but
a young woman appeared.

She was a 20-year-old painter

by the name of Marie Laurencin.

Picasso pushed her into
Apollinaire's arms,

and he never let go.

[upbeat music]

They moved in together.

But their domestic life seemed

to reawaken the poet's
bourgeois obsessions,

starting with his
waistcoat and pocket watch.

When he entertained, guests
were forbidden to make a mess,

sit on the bed, or eat
without permission.

Guillaume watched over
his muse's every move.

He was demanding, tyrannical,
and as jealous as Picasso.

In short, they were not
easy men to live with.

[peaceful music]

Regardless, Fernande Olivier

and Marie Laurencin
didn't get along.

The young painter did
a portrait of Fernande,

which she wasn't crazy about.

[cup clinking]

Marie Laurencin's bourgeois
manners don't go over well

at the Bateau-Lavoir.

Her greatest talent was thought

to be her ability to jump
rope: her favorite pastime.

But they couldn't let
Guillaume find out

that they badmouthed
her behind his back.

One day, Max Jacob
composed a little ditty:

[upbeat music]

[singing in foreign language]

When Apollinaire found
out about the song,

he flew into a rage
and excommunicated Max.

Go and stand in the corner!

[dreamy, peaceful music]

One spring morning, Max was
on his way to rue Ravignan.

When he came within view
of the Bateau-Lavoir,

an extraordinary spectacle
stopped him dead in his tracks.

A horse-drawn cab
was parked out front,

chock full of paintings
which the poet

recognized immediately
as Picassos.

As Ambroise Vollard drove away,

Max rushed down into the
bowels of the Bateau-Lavoir.

He thanked all the Gods
in heaven for coming

to the aid of his
venerated friend.

Vollard, it turned
out, had bought the lot

for two thousand golden francs.

Two thousand gold francs!

That evening the Champagne
flowed at the Bateau Lavoir.

The following day, Picasso
brought himself a wallet

that he slipped into the
inner pocket of his vest,

which he fastened
with a safety pin.

Watch out thieves!

In that year of 1906, Vollard
wasn't the only dealer

to have paid Picasso a visit.

A few months earlier, the
young collector Andre Level

had knocked at the door
of the Bateau Lavoir.

He told such a generous story
that everyone was overcome

with respect for
this art aficionado.

Lacking the means to acquire
contemporary art by himself,

the young man had gotten
together with a few friends

to found an association,
La Peau de l'ours,

which bought art
for the community.

Ten years later, the
works would be resold.

A share of the profits would
go back to the painters.

How could one not be
tempted by such an idea?

All the more so since
the friends of the
association decided

to buy several
paintings by Picasso.

Another time, Max Jacob
ran into two new visitors

in the depths of
the Bateau-Lavoir.

Two flamboyant
American collectors,
Gertrude and Leo Stein.

The woman was massive
as a lumberjack,

with leather sandals
and short-cropped hair.

She was as elegant as an ox

and had the handshake
of a bodyguard.

The man was very stiff, strict,

and appeared almost delicate
at his sister's side.

The Steins discovered
Picasso at Clovis Sagot's,

a clown and pastry
chef turned art seller.

Standing before the proposed
work, Gertrude looked dubious.

"Is it the legs that bother
you?" the merchant asked.

"The feet."

"Then cut them off!"

They did no such thing.

Leo Stein finally
bought the 1905 painting

"Young Girl with a Basket
of Flowers" for 500 francs.

Then he convinced his
sister to accompany him

to the home of this
Spanish painter

neither had heard of until now.

Picasso and Gertrude
became fast friends.

Fascinated by her physique,
the Spaniard asked

to paint the American
woman's portrait.

He wanted her to
look like Ingres'

"The Portrait of
Monsieur Bertin,"

seated, massive, definitive.

[thunder roaring]

[somber music]

[chimes tinkling]

But after 85 sittings,
Picasso finally gave up.

"I don't see you anymore
when I look at you,"

he confessed to his model.

He decided to leave Montmartre

where inspiration was lacking.

[train honking]
[train chugging]

He went to Gosol, a Catalonian
village nestled high

in the Pyrenees, not
far from Andorra.

One could get to it on
a mule, and once there,

the rest of the world vanished.

There was nothing but
nature all around,

the yellows and auburns
of the mountains,

the purity of a life
untouched by the modern world.

The inhabitants,
friendly and hospitable,

were for the most
part smugglers.

This was exactly
what Picasso needed.

[dog barking]
[sheep bleating]

In this barren landscape,
he honed his style.

He looked for what Gauguin
had found in Tahiti:

a purity, a form of
primitivism, a novelty.

At first, he painted
in the style of Ingres,

whose Turkish Bath
had fascinated him

t the Autumn Salon in 1905.

The result, "La toilette," was
an extremely classical work.

Next he combined several
sources of inspiration,

from Iberian statues from
before the Roman conquest,

seen at the Louvre, to
the exaggerated features

and oversized eyes of the
12th century Virgin of Gosol.

[somber choral music]

Picasso searched and
experimented, looking inward.

He painted "Nude with
Joined Hands" in 1906.

It represented Fernande naked

against a rose-colored
background, with her hair tied

in a bun and hands clasped.

The face was darker than
the body, the gaze averted,

the eyes without sockets were
long and expressionless slits.

[eerie droning music]

[train honking]
[train chugging]

Back in Paris, where
he had returned

after a typhoid epidemic
broke out in Gosol,

Picasso stood in front

of the unfinished portrait
of Gertrude Stein.

[chaotic orchestral music]

Without laying eyes
on his model again,

he painted the head he had
been unable to represent,

as if in a single stroke.

It was the sketch of a mask.

A new art form was taking
its first steps: cubism.

Every Saturday, the
Steins would entertain

in the workshop adjacent to
their house on rue de Fleurus.

One entered a vast room,
which contained varnished

Italian renaissance furniture,
and walls without an inch

of bare space left on them.

They were completely
covered with the works

of Gauguin, Delacroix, El
Greco, Manet, Braque, Vallotton,

Cezanne, Renoir,
Matisse, Picasso:

the two Americans'
personal favorites.

Once a week, painters,
writers and poets would come

to the Steins' to eat and
drink to their heart's delight.

[silverware clinking]

When Picasso would
show up, surrounded

by the beefy Apollinaire
and the three strongmen

of the band, Braque, Derain,
and Vlaminck, Gertrude Stein

could not help
thinking of Napoleon

escorted by his grenadiers.

[military drum music]

But Napoleon was not happy,

he glared at his portrait of
Stein hanging on the wall.

The lady of the house
had had it varnished.

A visitor came over
and looked at it:

"Is that Gertrude Stein?"

"Yes."

"It doesn't look like her.

"No matter, she will
end up looking like it."

Meanwhile, Braque was
furious: one of his works,

placed above the
hearth, was blackening

under the steady
assault of smoke.

A flock of freeloaders
stood in a circle

around the lady of the house.

Gertrude Stein sat in
front of her portrait

like Saint Louis under his
tree and gazed at Matisse

and Picasso with curiosity.

Matisse and Picasso
could be compared,

the image came from one of them,

to the North and South Poles.

The former had kept a
stiffness perfectly suited

to the bailiff's clerk
he was in his youth.

He was serious, he didn't laugh.

His family consisted
not of friends,

but of his wife and daughter.

He rarely entertained.

Picasso was the bohemian,

while Matisse represented
an elegant brand of poverty.

Food was equally scarce
at either man's abode,

but in Matisse's home
appearances were kept up.

Madam knew how to
prepare a beef stew.

She was completely devoted
to her husband's cause.

One day, Gertrude Stein saw
a magnificent fruit basket

sitting on the table, but
was forbidden to touch it.

It was reserved for
the artist's work.

The heat had been turned
off in the apartment,

so that the fruit
wouldn't spoil.

Matisse painted his
still-life bundled in a coat,

his hands covered
in woolen mittens.

[somber music]

That said, Matisse wasn't
only the North Pole.

He liked to make a splash, too.

At the Autumn Salon of 1905,
Matisse, along with Vlaminck,

Derain and a few others,

had created an
unforgettable scandal.

Their works, which threw
richly vibrant colors

in the faces of more than a
few conservative visitors,

provoked giggles and outrage.

Their works were grouped
into a single room

that the art critic Louis
Vauxcelles, who was very popular

but totally hostile
to modern art

called the wild beasts'
cage, "the cage aux fauves."

And that's how Fauvism was born.

The scandal was so great that
the President of the Republic

refused to inaugurate the event.

The press had a field day.

The Figaro spoke of a can

of paint thrown at
the public's head.

A year later, at the
Salon des Independants,

Matisse exhibited only one work.

It would become legendary:

"The Joy of Life."

The painting was monumental,

both in terms of
size and originality.

It reflected a mixture of
the primitivism the artist

had discovered in Collioure
and in African statuettes,

a Gauguinesque distortion
of body shapes,

and a dreamlike
poetry reminiscent

of Mallarme's
"Afternoon of the Faun."

[laughing]
[whistling]

The critics went to town.

Joining in the laughter
and derision of those

who turned their backs
on it, they spoke

of transcendental ramblings,
of an empty canvas.

They attacked the
juxtaposition of colors,

the anatomical distortions,
and the lines which were felt

to be either too delicate
or not delicate enough.

[whistling]

The following year,
Matisse sinned again.

This time with the 1907 Blue
Nude, Souvenir of Biskra,

inspired by a journey the
painter made to Algeria.

The critics were again
unmoved by these bizarre forms

and iridescent blue skin.

Louis Vauxcelles admitted that
he just didn't comprehend it.

Others described the
artist as a double-dealer,

his painting as a
universe of ugliness.

That year, Matisse found
himself at the forefront

of the avant-guard.

He was the most scandalous
of innovators, a fauve.

And while this fauve was
preparing to set up his academy

at the Couvent des Oiseaux,
Picasso was at work.

Amidst the disorder
of the Bateau-Lavoir,

he pursued his own experiments.

As Max Jacob looked
on in bafflement,

he drew forms and figures

that recalled prehistoric
cave paintings.

He painted
"Self-portrait" in 1906.

Then "Self-portrait
with Palette."

In 1907, he began
several female busts,

notably "Bust of a
Woman or a Sailor."

He prepared his
response to Matisse.

He sharpened his knives.

Like many others, he had been
rattled by his rival's work.

But he thought that those

who called Matisse's painting
revolutionary were mistaken.

It was a high point in
art, but in classical art.

This was also the
view that Kandinsky,

a master of abstraction,
held at about the same time.

In Matisse he saw one
of the great masters

of modern painting,
a genius of color,

but a visceral impressionist
who hadn't yet broken

with conventional
conceptions of beauty.

[dramatic music]

In the autumn of 1907,
Picasso invited Matisse

to visit him at
the Bateau-Lavoir.

Matisse brought a portrait he
had painted of his daughter,

Marguerite, as a gift.

Picasso thanked him and
showed him his own works.

Matisse immediately understood
what and whom his host

had been directing
his violence against.

It was against art that
had been called modern,

in other words, against
himself, Matisse.

When he made his way back down
the steeply sloping streets

of the Butte Montmartre, he
stopped in front of a wall

on which a phrase has
been hastily painted.

Matisse will drive you mad.

He wasn't mad, he was furious.

And he would have
been even more so,

had he known what mission
Picasso had assigned

the musketeers of his
band: to go to the bazaar

on the rue des Abbesses
and buy Eureka-brand darts

with plastic tips.

That evening, at place
Ravignan, the Spanish painter

lined up his troops.

Darts in hand, they
stood facing the portrait

of little Miss Matisse.

They took turns firing.

The duel had begun.

[sword clanging]