All language subtitles for Van_Gogh__Alain_Resnais__1948_

This film attempts to retrace

solely through his paintings

the life and spiritual adventure

of one of the greatest modern painters.

The genius and importance

of VINCENT VAN GOGH

are today universally recognized.

And yet, VAN GOGH had to struggle
and work hopelessly

in the face of poverty and total
indifference

in his attempt to reach the
absolute truth he glimpsed.

Commentary read by CLAUDE DAUPHIN

Music by JACQUES BESSE

I feel as though I am always travelling
towards some unknown destination.

Vincent van Gogh
(letter to his brother)

December, 1883

The cold weighs down on the
swampy plain.

At the end of the road, in Nuenen,

a little Flemish village,

a few poor houses huddle
together against the cold.

A man knocks on the door

of his father's vicarage.

Vincent Van Gogh,

son of Theodore Van Gogh,

pastor of Nuenen, had returned.

He was a preacher

but he preached badly,

The violence of his faith frightened
even the faithful.

It was in the process of trying

to find a way to express his love
for mankind

that he discovered himself to be
a painter.

For him, his native land

became a picture book.

He sought to bear witness through
his painting

to the miserable poverty of the peasants.

He observed objects and people intently,

with the same love.

But he soon grew tired of painting

this sad and silent country.

Other horizons called out to him.

Leaving Nuenen one November evening,

Van Gogh, alone,

set out to meet his destiny.

Paris welcomed him.

An immense city,

filled with hope and promises

where he was finally able to exercise
his intense curiosity.

A small apartment on rue Victor Massé,

a new palette, new paints

and some new books to read.

In the streets and cafés of Montmartre

he met other artists,

Lautrec, Seurat, Gauguin.

Everywhere, new men in search of

a new kind of art.

But on some solitary evenings

the egoism of the big city
weighed on him.

He dreamed of other, deeper joys,

of a different light.

The Japanese prints in P. Tanguy's store
haunted him.

Just as he had fled Holland's marshes

he now abandoned the grey skies of Paris

fleeing towards the sun.

This time it was no dream, no
Japanese print.

The sun burned, and the flowers waited
to be picked.

Provence, the end of his journey.

In the countryside of Arles, along
the roads,

Van Gogh watched everything with
growing enthusiasm

The colors vibrated in the overheated air.

People and things seem to merge

in the dazzling sun.

Each evening, he returned in a fever

to his solitary room.

Sometimes neighbors or friends

came to pose for him.

Under the veil of a false calm

he painted without quarter, with no care
for himself.

One day, Van Gogh felt the true appearance
of things suddenly escape him.

On Christmas night, the tension broke.

In a fit of madness

Van Gogh sliced off his own ear.

The doors of the asylum
closed behind him.

A garden surrounded by walls

an unaccustomed silence

a nerve-wracking peace and quiet.

A nature where every single thing
becomes an omen

He must paint, however,

even if only the hospital rooms.

To always continue to paint

even when imprisoned by yourself

and by others...

The doctor announced that Van
Gogh's condition was improving.

and they open the doors of the asylum.

He escaped.

Nature slapped him in the face

I must paint, paint the song of the
world

The world turns so quickly, how can
I capture it?

You can't play with fire and not get
burned

and they don't call them SUNflowers for nothing.

Having reached the pinnacle of his art,

Van Gogh, victorious, stopped,

frozen with vertigo.

Worn out, he took refuge

in Isle de France, at Auvers-sur-Oise.

The quiet thatch houses resembled
those of his childhood village

but the same old fire burned again in him.

To finally be able to give in to this
long-sought peace

He had long since given up everything,

except his work.

After barely six years of non-stop work,

on July 27, 1890,

too young to know his glory, but sure
of its coming,

in the middle of a field, in front of his easel

Van Gogh shot himself in the heart.