Original subtitles

ln the last episode.

l wrote to you Monsieur Monet.

Well at least you got my name right?

- Alice Hoschede. - Claude Monet.

The great artist, yes l know.

- Hardly great. - No, you're great.

People just haven't seen it yet.

Jean please.

l say we start a fire.

We paint what want, we sell what we can.

An exhibition of our own.

Oh dear.

This is no ordinary exhibition.

You're right. lt's a disaster.

Go get out.

- Please, Monsieur DENas l... - Now!

You think l should paint like Monet.

Dash them off in a blink of an eye.

You will not make slanderous comments in the press about my private life.

Surrender your impressionist brush.

The colours, lights, this will be my finest painting yet.

- Let's seat again. - Then you, please.

Gentlemen,

to say that in the past we have had our disagreements

would be an understatement.

Yeah.

But l am enough of a realist,

and l hope you are too

to know that if we argue tonight it would create a very bad impression.

We are here tonight to salute a recipient of the LENion d Honneur, yes.

But more important than that,

our tower of strength

our friend, Edouard Manet.

- Edouard Manet. - Edouard Manet.

Thank you DENas for those kind words,

naturally l can't agree with all of them.

lt has always been my ambition

not to repeat today what l did yesterday,

but to respond constantly to every fresh vision, every new voice.

as for the salon, oh why ruin the evening.

Yes, DENas! l now have the LENion d Honneur.

lt would have made my future once,

but now it's too late to make up for twenty years of failure.

- No, not failure. - Never.

The one thing you're not is a failure.

What pleases me more, far more is to see you here tonight.

My friends!

My dear, dear friends!

Our group was about to go it's separate ways.

Whether we liked it or not, it wasn't going to be the same again.

To the future.

- Future. - Future.

So did Manet know

what was wrong?

His misspent youth, one brothel too many.

The disease crept up on him over the years.

Manet was there from the bENinning.

He never described himself as an impressionist, but he was one of us,

so much a part of what we did.

And impressionist masterpiece.

They loved it at the salon.

Edouard Manet.

So the tide was bENinning to turn.

Oh yeah, yeah.

The tide was still against us.

As hard as l swam the current held me back.

l was living in the country with Alice Hoschede,

the wife of my old patron Ernest,

with their six children and my two boys.

Papa, we brought you tea,

Claude?

l owe over two thousand francs in household expenses,

if l stop to eat now we all starve tomorrow.

- l made you tarte de'tan. - Now that's bribery.

Look at me.

l'm gonna write to your husband, Alice.

- l'm gonna give him an ultimatum. - Claude no.

Either he should pay something towards your keep or let you go.

Tongues are so lose they will wag themselves out.

Well the streets of Paris will be littered with tongues.

Maybe l should paint something people will want to buy.

l wanted to capture the impression of a moment,

l was still at the bENinning of my journey.

Oh, l'd say bENinning.

A single life is not long enough to know a single moment.

Cezanne was a pioneer, searching for his own truth.

His one man revolution would take impressionism somewhere very different.

His work was so savage and unfinished looking,

people were outraged, the critics saved

the worst of their venom for him.

Paul Cezanne is a genuine impressionist.

Each one of his paintings more stupefying than the last.

No, we will not have that.

You will find it's pretty tame.

They compared one of my nudes to a corpse.

Well that was fair enough.

How dare they call me an impressionist.

- Cezanne. - You're worse than DENas.

How can you say that your style owes nothing to what we've tried...

Are you blind?

You are an inspiration to me, and you, you are Renoir, but,

but l am doing something completely different.

- We all are. - No!

Not like me!

Not the best company on a good day

and with Cezanne good days were rare.

l heard he didn't even like to be touched.

He found the world a hard place to be in.

So would you. lf you were consistently rejected by a world

that was so blind it couldn't even see your work,

to try and to fail, so continually.

And to be rejected in the end by those you loved the most.

He loved Zola very much.

He and Emile Zola had grown up together in Aix- en- Provence,

the inseparables, they'd call them.

Of course we know how famous Zola became,

one of France's most popular writers.

You're not hunting for your supper anymore, Zola.

No, we sell them cordinaly.

Quite the dirty bourgeois.

l can't help being a success.

Well you were gonna be the painter.

And you wrote me verses.

The inseparables.

What do you do in Aix?

- Do you still swim? - Against the tide mainly.

When the people of Aix are stuck for a laugh, they ask to see my paintings.

Do you let them?

How are your parents?

Still the most disgusting stinking people in the world.

Do they know your secret?

The paternal authority has spent his life

trying to get his accent accepted by the snobs of Aix.

Only to have his son and heir father a child with a peasant.

He cut off my allowance if he found out,

and then we'd be completely reliant on you.

Paul?

Morning father.

Where do you go all the time?

You're away for weeks.

Well l am trying to clarify the relationship between colour and form, father.

Do you think that is a valid occupation for a man approaching forty?

At forty l'd built up a successful business,

your mother and l had two children.

- Any sales? - No.

You're not earning a penny.

Not yet.

Well perhaps, perhaps you're just not good enough.

Perhaps l'm too good.

Perhaps l'm a genius.

One may die with genius, Paul.

One eats with money.

Please let me write to Hoschede.

And say what?

That l love you, and that you love me.

lt won't change anything.

How can he think that he has any hold over you

when he doesn't pay a penny towards any of your keep.

He's choosing to drink his life away, and if you let him

he will drink ours away too.

Don't we have any choices?

l married him, l made my choice, l took him as my husband and

Well he isn't behaving like a husband.

l won't divorce him, Claude you know that, l'm a catholic.

So where does that leave us, wedged between Hoschede

and the church of Rome for the rest of our lives?

lf l thought things were bad they were always worse for Cezanne,

with his secret mistress and their secret child.

Got so many pawn tickets in my purse there's no room for any money.

Well that's just as well.

l'd love a lemonade.

Paul.

lt would help if you sold a painting.

- Paul. - Sit still.

Your father's house looks like it's gonna tip over.

lf it was really like that, all the furniture would slide down one end.

That's the composition.

You should tell your father if you think his house is gonna fall down.

One gust of wind and your inheritance will be a pile of rubble.

What you paint, Paul it's not what other people see.

lt's more than that, Hortense.

- My eye is thinking too. - Well tell it to stop.

l want honesty, honesty is more important than what you see.

So send honesty to the butchers.

Paul!

Manet, you've not been very well?

No, l need to get myself in better shape.

Any news?

l'm quite out of touch here.

lt's been raining again.

All this wind and rain,

it doesn't make the world look so attractive, does it?

l've bENun a few outdoor studies and

l'm afraid l might not be able to finish them.

- Are you in pain? - No, no, pain,

no l'm, l'm feeling much better.

Reassure my friends, won't you?

The syphilis had advanced,

and his lEN had been removed below the knee.

He never spoke about the operation to anyone.

l saw it in his eyes,

those unfinished paintings he so wanted to return to.

lt wasn'tjust the lEN,

his work was being taken away from him, bit by bit.

So much goes unsaid.

- When will you be back? - Depends on how much l paint.

- What, by next Sunday? - l'll write when l get there.

- lt's my birthday. - l know.

But if you're not back for my birthday, l um,

might go and spend it with my husband in Paris.

Why do you want to spend your birthday with Hoschede?

l don't want to spend my birthday alone.

Please don't punish me for not behaving like a husband.

l would very much like to behave like a husband,

but as you never cease reminding me you are married to somebody else.

Sixty francs.

l, l really shake your hand for this, Zola.

Oh and please thank your wife for the bag of rags she sent me

they're always useful in the studio.

You really are a good solid plank.

Yes well l'll take that in the manner it was meant.

Why do you stay in Aix?

Nothing else seems to mean anything.

- Come to Paris. - Make me feel sick.

How can you give an art a new bENinning

if you won't move on from where you started?

Ah, you just want me to paint society.

l want you to paint the world, at least then you might sell.

l'm painting for myself not to amuse other people.

We both used to live in our own shadows, Cezanne,

isn't it about time you stepped out of yours?

And do you remember when l first spoke to you at school?

Well you were the only one that would.

Speaking to you was banned because you were a hopeless dreamer.

lf, if l am a hopeless dreamer now then,

let me work in silence, don't throw me to the ruffians.

Cezanne invited Renoir and myself to visit him in Provence,

with its vivid colours and intense light, it was another world.

lt's like a fairytale around, don't you think?

Honestly you won't know what to paint first.

- Oh l imagine l will. - So bright so much blue.

You'll need plenty of cerulean and ultramarine.

l seldom use ultramarine.

You can use some of mine it's quite good quality.

lt's about the impression that it makes on me, Renoir,

not the impression that it makes on you.

Cezanne says that he's been working hard.

Sounds good.

To avoid the admiration of imbeciles.

Well he sounds happy.

Oh l don't think happy is on his palette.

Um, so is this just linseed oil?

Yes, yes it is.

He pawned his suit for this lot.

An eminently sensible idea, Cezanne.

Or let's hope no one dies within the next few months.

You could eh you put Paul to bed.

lf l move him he'll wake up.

So are you gonna get involved in any more impressionist exhibitions?

ls it impressionism anymore?

No, it's hard to know what we are these days.

DENas hijacked one, then my dealer had a go.

And that was a shambles.

l know anymore exhibitions like that, we'll end up

with the public bored of us and the press still against us.

Even if l had the money to frame them

l wouldn't send them any of my pictures.

Well l'm sure Hortense would agree.

Hortense is only interested in lemonade.

Do you have any lemonade?

No, no they don't no, no.

l think l'm coming to the end of impressionism.

Oh! lmpressionism.

l want something more solid and durable, my own way.

Well l'll be the only one left.

Fed up of being out in the cold.

Do you want a blanket?

Oh l think Renoir was talking figuratively.

Oh, well l'll put another log on the stove anyway.

lt's almost daylight, unbearable,

my eyes hurt terribly.

Must have been in agony for years.

When l last saw him, took him some peonies,

and he straight away started to paint them.

To go, just when you start to find success.

We're all of us successful.

Manet was a great success, and the first day l'll miss him.

As are you.

So this was eighteen eighty three?

Eighteen eighty three.

Um l'm sorry.

Excuse me.

Eighteen eighty three was also the first year we came here.

Didn't know how much part of our lives it would become.

From the train l had seen this rambling farmhouse, and we were lucky,

the rent was low enough that even we could afford it.

Will you allow yourself to enjoy it?

lnstead of running away all the time.

l have to find new subjects.

Well you've got plenty of subjects here.

l've told them to put your things in the main bedroom upstairs.

- And where will you sleep? - l will sleep downstairs.

Okay.

Colouring the cylinder of the sphere.

- An orange. - An apple?

A head.

The world seems very complicated, the trick is to make it simple.

Why does it have to go there?

Because of the biscuit.

To make a picture, you compose.

l'm going to astonish Paris with an apple.

This arrived yesterday.

Do you know who it's for?

lt's addressed for Madame Cezanne must be for mother.

No, no it's not for mother, it's from a father to his daughter,

so let's piece together what we know.

Here is a letter from a Monsieur Fiquet.

Monsieur Fiquet is not a man of letters.

No.

Monsieur Fiquet, is a peasant and his daughter is a peasant girl.

Peasant girl.

Monsieur Fiquet finishes, please remember me to the boy.

Yes, Paul.

He's eleven.

Well perhaps you'd be so good as to see that this gets to its intended reader.

Thank you.

And l shall go away and consider your intended allowance.

Do you feel you had much common ground with Cezanne?

As an impressionist?

We both chased nature,

he wanted to construct it and make it endure.

For me it was the moment.

Just that, chasing the moment that will never come again.

Alice and l had our home.

l knew she wanted me to stay there with her but l couldn't,

l was travelling, always travelling.

Trying to get closer to my subject.

l was a hunter, not a painter, learning to know my quarry.

Some days the sea was so blue, others so green.

l couldn't express its intensity, its habits, its passions,

lying in wait for a passing cloud, pouncing on a perfect sky.

lt was a daily battle,

in which l invariably came off the worst.

Painting took me away for weeks at a time.

Alice and l were divided by so much.

But without her, nothing mattered, not even painting.

The critics call my work the cult of ugliness.

Painted by a mad man with the shakes, made by

loading pistols with paint and firing them at the canvas.

Well you're an artist's artist.

Manet called me a bricklayer who paints with a trowel.

l am rolling a rock uphill, Zola.

And either is, l keep on rolling it forever,

or l, l let it roll back on me and crush me.

Go on.

But the thing that keeps me going is the hope that,

the belief that one day l will pick up that boulder with my hands

and hurl it to the stars.

Well what if posterity isn't the impartial judge we think it is.

Well don't say a thing like that.

Suppose the artist's paradise turn out to be as non existent as the Catholics,

and that future generations persist on liking pretty pretty daubing

better than real painting.

Well they must want my paintings, if they're painted well.

That's like saying they'll be happy to be butchered as long as the cuts are neat.

l've started a new novel,

it's the fourteenth in my series about the Rougon Macquart family,

it's about passion and creation,

l'll send you a copy.

Where're you going?

To paint.

Cezanne kept moving, not knowing if he would ever reach his destination.

Zola did what he did best, writing about what he knew,

and the people he knew.

Father l'm late, l know ah, l'm sorry.

My train there, there was an error in the time table.

Could you find some employment for your folk?

How is the boy?

How is he?

He's very well,

he spends most of his time outdoors.

l should like to meet him.

Would you mind?

Not at all.

Well say good morning, Paul.

Say good morning to your grandfather.

Paul.

Cezanne found inspiration in the shape of La Montagne Sainte- Victoire,

just outside Aix.

Like him it thirsted for sun yet fell back to earth.

He said he could occupy himself for months there

without moving from the same place

just by turning slightly to the left or the right.

He painted the mountain sixty times.

From different positions on different days.

No. l told him that there's no future,

absolutely no future in the impressionist eh artists.

But frankly he still keeps going.

- Cheers. - Cheers.

l've actually drawn a likeness of Cezanne that is too mild.

My dear Cezanne doesn't think enough of public opinion.

He despises the most elementary things

language, dress, hygiene.

Here, it arrived.

But none of this would matter if only he had genius.

Why don't you open it?

To Cezanne and his lack of genius.

Here, here.

He suffered all the torments

of the man condemned to roll a rock uphill forever

or to be crushed when it rolls back on him.

- That's me. - lt could be anyone.

No, l said that. He has written about me.

There's an artist and his mistress, who is also his model and their son.

What's wrong with that?

He calls the artist a splendid failure.

Oh, Paul it's just a book.

How can a man talk sensibly about the art of painting.

He doesn't know anything about it.

How dare he say that an artist is finished

because of one bad picture.

Paul.

l have just received your novel which you were kind enough to send me.

l thank you for it and ask that you let me press your hand

in memory of old and better times,

ever yours, your friend from the past.

Cezanne and Zola were never to meet again.

What Zola did in his novel, which is called the masterpiece,

was to say that impressionism was a failure.

Did you think it was based on Cezanne?

We were all in there, bits and pieces of our lives.

The worst thing was it broke Cezanne's heart.

He had married Hortense by that time.

He'd married her not for love

but so that Paul wouldn't have to suffer the stigma of having unmarried parents.

Six months after the wedding, his father died leaving Cezanne and

indeed Hortense a very generous income.

His worries about money, like his feeling for Hortense,

and his friendship with Zola were things of the past.

You'll have to hurry or, or the carriage will leave with all your luggage.

You will come and stay?

You know l don't like Paris.

We've got our own bathroom,

not that, that would interest you.

l think that's always been the difference between us.

Maybe.

Paul.

Be good,

and if you're not, you're forgiven already.

Go on.

l wrote to my old impressionist friends.

We had to lay Zola's masterpiece to rest.

We could not allow our names, and Manet's memory,

to be equated with failure forever.

Right there's something that l need to ask you both.

He wants us to buy ten of his paintings for a hundred francs.

- l need twenty thousand. - Francs?

And l'm not gonna give you anything in return.

All that fresh air's gone to his head.

l'm thinking of purchasing Manet's Olympia for the state

and l need twenty thousand francs.

- What's in it for you? - Sorry how much?

- Twenty thousand. - Right.

So Monet is thinking this is my chance to go down

in history as the true leader of the impressionist movement.

l'm thinking about Madame Manet.

l'll think about Madame Manet when and if she asks me to.

lmpressionism will get a boost also.

- Also, Monet will get a boost. - No.

- Yes. - Yes.

Come on, start me off what do you say?

No.

- Renoir? - No.

ln the end Renoir and DENas gave their contributions

and l raised enough money to buy Olympia.

ln 1907 it was hung in the home of French art, the Louvre.

For once l was closer to home. l'd found some haystacks,

and started with two canvasses, one for gray and one for sunny.

Alice, the light's changing.

As the light changed on the haystack

the whole subject was transformed

and the light kept changing through the day, through different days.

How can anyone say that a landscape

even exists when it changes so constantly.

You'll have to be quick.

And l only worked on each canvas in it's light.

Seizing just the right moment at a stroke.

The light's fading.

Or that moment will be lost.

You look like a conductor.

Like a conductor holding a baton, one, two, three, one, two, three

one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three

one, two, three, one, two, three

Fifteen pictures of the same thing and they all sold in three days.

Something had changed.

The world it seemed was bENinning to see things my way.

A Haystack, a haystack was as much of a subject as a vase of flowers.

And if the finish wasn't smooth, no comment.

lt was the bENinning of what became known as my series paintings.

l painted poplar trees along the bank of the river.

l went to Rouen to paint the cathedral.

l couldn't sleep for nightmares

that the cathedral was coming down on top of me.

lt was blue, or pink, or yellow.

l must have done thirty paintings there.

l thought l'd be in Rouen forever.

l think Alice thought so too.

She stayed on in Giverny.

Our situation, it really couldn't go on,

our being together and not really being together.

and l'll tell you something else that happened.

Hoschede died.

Alice, l've decided.

l'm not going to work away any more.

l know l should wait, and l'm sorry.

At last there are no obstacles in our path, and,

l don't mean to call Ernest an obstacle.

l don't want to distress you.

Alice, are you listening to me?

Yes, yes.

All my life l have travelled, looking for something.

l thought that l find it in seeing different things, but it's here.

lt's here.

lt's in seeing the same things every day.

l shall grow sick of you.

- Will you? - Well l hope not.

We were married in July eighteen ninety two, here in Giverny.

l had made enough money to buy the house.

Alice loved it here.

How l miss her.

Early in nineteen ten, she felt very weak.

Leukaemia.

ln the spring there was a remission and l,

l, you cling to the hope.

My dear companion.

She died on the nineteenth of May.

Cling to your palette, they told me.

Hardly picked up a brush for three years.

Still Cezanne struggled on alone.

The very last of us to be recognised by the world.

Morning.

lt's a mess there's too many lose strands, there's no centre.

lt's escaping. Errant hand.

Good day.

l have to tell you that l'm extremely busy,

and will be for the rest of my life.

You're not very easy to find.

Perhaps l don't want to be found.

Every artist wants to be found.

What are you working on?

- lt's a painting. - Please don't,

please don't shout at me. l'm Ambroise Vollard.

l'm an art dealer,

l want to present an exhibition of your work.

Can't you think of better ways to waste your money?

People should see your work, or you'll die forgotten,

l'll organise it all.

l noticed your rather spectacular collection of Japanese prints.

Ah a great admirer.

Did they inspire you for this garden?

No. l wasn't inspired,

there's no point in being inspired if you don't get any help.

For the local people an artist is just a comedian

who wore hats, someone to use.

You know they tried to chop down the poplars

and they charged me a toll to cross the fields to paint,

dismantled the haystacks.

And when l wanted to make my pond,

- What was here before? - A marsh.

Alice.

l had been searching the world for what lay at my feet.

Alice.

l stopped hunting nature and invited her in.

l diverted the stream and planted every known variety of water lily in the pond

and they flourished.

l set up my easel in front of this body of water

that contains in it all the elements of a universe,

changing constantly under our very eyes.

lt's become an obsession.

After all his reservations Cezanne did agree to Vollard

holding an exhibition of his work.

How many more have you got?

- A hundred and fifty two. - A hundred and fifty two!

l, l don't know if l can manage them all.

What?

- l mean at the gallery. - Well you must.

l'll think of something.

lt's gonna be splendid.

Thank you, thank you.

Ah, wonderful.

Wonderful.

Put those there.

Thank you so much.

That's not quite a hundred and fifty two.

Well the big ones are in the other room.

How rarely do you come across a true painter,

one who knows how to balance tones?

Do you have any idea how impossible it is for me

to make collectors, even friends of the impressionists

understand how precious Cezanne's work is.

So still, so alive.

- And one L'Estaque. - Ah the wild majesty of L'Estaque.

- This 'Still Life' is mine. - What? l saw it first.

l have my money out first.

'Still life' for Monsieur DENas

painting of irreproachable perfection.

You must be pleased with what we sold at the exhibition.

You're perfectly safe. l prepared it myself so...

so you won't fall so long as you stay still.

l'll be still as a statue.

- As an apple. - As an apple.

Please, do not speak.

Shut that dog up!

Cezanne.

You clumsy fool, l told you to stay still.

That's enough for today.

No, you wait.

The exhibition.

- Did Zola come? - No.

Alright. The idiot.

lf only he had...

know that l'm bowling Paris over with my masterpieces.

Forgive me.

lf only Cezanne had genius, Zola...

many critics thought that Zola's book was about Cezanne but

time will pass and people will understand that Zola's book was just story.

People.

Cezanne.

l so wanted Cezanne to join us at Giverny that day.

l was worried he'd be too shy to come.

Want to meet you, celebrated sculptor Auguste Rodin is here.

l wanted him to know he did have admirers and true friends.

No, that's my hat, that's my hand. Thank you.

Thank you for shaking my hand sir.

Shall we?

Oh yes, Renoir is celebrating the birth of his second son.

lt seems that family life is finally suiting him after all these years.

They've called him Jean.

Yes it's lovely.

Many of us here have been following you for years Cezanne

and we know why the younger artists look to you for guidance,

those who were so quick to condemn you will find themselves astonished.

A new era of art is opening.

Well, it is the promised land then they certainly won't let me in.

Cezanne, you have shown us the future.

- Bravo. - Bravo.

What Cezanne achieved will be appreciated.

Not too late for Picasso and Matisse and the others he influenced,

but too late for Cezanne.

He laid the foundations for a new century,

for a new generation of modern painters.

He died oh, must be fifteen years ago,

wishing, like all of us, that he had more time.

We're not revolutionaries anymore,

we're a tradition.

Can you believe it, a room of our own at the great exhibition.

lf l could have twenty more years to work,

l would create things that would endure.

At least we're still alive, hey.

To the greatest living painter.

To myself.

- To myself. - To myself.

To Bazille.

To Manet.

Manet.

DENas struggled on into his eighties.

He found new passions, sculpture and photography.

His work has endured and has become even more popular.

Renoir was famous all around the world

and fated as a society portraitist, much to his delight.

He died last year.

December nineteen nineteen, took part of my life with him.

lt's nearly finished.

You seem to be getting closer and closer to your subject.

Most likely what l'm attempting is beyond my powers.

Most likely l shall die without knowing.

Monet has outlived them all.

Now he is a hero.

One of the most successful painters who ever lived,

the father of impressionism.

We have his paintings

and his garden, the fleeting moments,

an impression of life.