All language subtitles for Episode 6 - Midnight in Paris

[dramatic music]

[slow dramatic music]

In the early '30s,

the rise of fascism in
Europe pushed artists

to become politically engaged.

Aragon pledged his unconditional
allegiance to Moscow,

causing the breakup of
the surrealist group.

After much hesitation

and at the risk of
weakening the only country

capable of opposing
Nazi Germany,

Andre Gide published his
Return from the U.S.S.R.

The Spanish Civil War
broke out in 1936.

Andre Malraux went off
to join the Republicans

against the fascists.

Franco took control of Spain,

while in the distance, the
rumblings of a new conflict

were already disrupting
the stability of the world.

[slow dramatic music]

1939.

Europe was being torn asunder

under the advance of
an invincible army.

Borders were being ripped
apart by the feldgrau fury.

Austria was the first to fall.

Then Czechoslovakia.

And Poland.

The descent into war had begun.

The voice of the
poet Robert Desnos

could still be heard on the
Poste Parisien radio waves.

[man speaking in
foreign language]

[guns firing]
[explosions booming]

[people shouting faintly]

[man speaking in
foreign language]

[bright instrumental music]

Robert Desnos, the
former wakeful sleeper

of the little gang
of Surrealists,

was now interpreting
the dreams of listeners

on his show, "The
Key to Dreams."

But not for long,

because France had
entered the war.

The program came to an
end for lack of enlistees.

Desnos was called
up to other fronts.

The dreams would wait.
[slow dramatic music]

So here we go again,
just like in 1914.

The war that was supposed to
be the war to end all wars

had come back to haunt those
going off to the front.

It was the beginning of the
Phoney War, the Sitzkrieg,

or the sitting war, as
the Germans called it.

Robert Desnos, in
spite of his myopia,

was sent off to
the Maginot Line,

where the French were waiting
for the enemy with confidence,

protected by a barrier that
was thought to be impassable.

Louis Aragon left for
the Belgian border.

Paul Eluard was assigned
to the supply corps.

Andre Gide, who was
over 72 years old,

vacated his Vaneau street
apartment with his little gang.

Dali would soon run from

his provocative-slash-Hitlerian
tendencies

by emigrating to the Americas.

Matisse was already
living on the Riviera.

Andre Breton fled to Marseille,

before jumping on
a boat to New York.

[boat whistle blaring]

Everywhere in Europe,

works of art were being
removed for safekeeping.

In Paris, giant statues were
encased in wooden frames

and taken away in trucks,
loaned by the Comedie Francaise.

[people chattering faintly]

Huge paintings were
hoisted onto trailers.

The Winged Victory
of Samothrace,

the Mona Lisa, porcelain from
Sevres, rare manuscripts,

antique jewelry from
previous centuries,

all of the country's
national treasures

were being moved out.

[slow dramatic music]

[footsteps thudding]
[door clanking]

[trucks and tanks rumbling]

In the spring of 1940,

to the surprise of
French military leaders,

the German army bypassed
the Maginot Line,

pushed through Belgium
and invaded France.

On June the 17th, 1940,

the sun rose over a Paris
shrouded by a veil of mourning.

The German troops had
just entered the city.

At 8:00, the tanks drove
up to Les Invalides.

At noon, the swastika
floated over the Senate.

The war was over.

It had lasted five weeks.

[clock ticking]
[bell tolling]

The next day, all of
the clocks were moved

forward one hour.
[slow dramatic music]

Paris was now on Berlin time.

[people chattering faintly]

[door creaking]

Soon afterwards, in July, 1940,

art and culture were brought

under the heel of the occupiers.

[indistinct hammering]

Jewish artists were banned

from working in music,
film, and theater.

Their names were erased
from the cast and credits.

Declared anti-Nazis were
given the same treatment.

Films made during the
Popular Front administration

were banned.

Certain scenes, played
by Jewish actors

or enemies of the new regime,

were censored and re-shot
with other actors.

Dalio vanished from
"The Curtain Rises,"

Erich von Stroheim
from "Personal Column."

Art galleries were controlled,

the collections of Jewish
dealers were raided

and shipped off to Germany.

Jewish publishing houses,

such as Calmann-Levy and
Fernand Nathan, disappeared.

The Bernhard and then the Otto
lists banned books by Jewish,

Marxist, or anti-German writers.

Freedom of the press
no longer existed.

In a city under
guard, like Paris,

how could one continue
to paint or write?

After being demobilized,

Sergeant Desnos had
returned to Paris.

[slow dramatic music]

He went back to working
as a journalist.

He took advantage of the cracks

in the system that
the Germans had left

during the first weeks
of the Occupation,

to slip a few banana
peels under their feet.

He had no qualms about attacking
collaborationist writers,

beginning with
Louis-Ferdinand Celine.

Who, in turn, retorted, "Why
doesn't Mr. Desnos shout out

"what he really feels in his
heart and which is killing him

"because he's holding it in?

"'Death to Celine and
long live the Jews!'

"Mr. Desnos, it seems to me,

"is leading a
philo-kike campaign."

Desnos soon became a
victim of censorship

and the far-right press.

He sold anonymous drawings to
the newspaper "Aujourd'hui,"

in order to survive.

It was barely enough to get by.

For the last 10 years,

Robert Desnos had been living
in Saint Germain des Pres

with Youki,
[gentle orchestral music]

pink snow in Japanese,

who had once been married
to the painter Foujita.

[door clanking]
[footsteps thudding]

She would sit and smoke
under the big portrait

that Foujita had made of
her a few years earlier.

On the floor, were abstract
or surrealist paintings

waiting to be hung.

[cat meows]

[people chattering faintly]

[man whistling]

Every day, Robert Desnos
would go to a small restaurant

on Rue des Grands Augustins
called the Catalan.

It wasn't to eat, he
couldn't afford it.

[people chattering faintly]
[people laughing]

He came to get the leftovers
from meals, for Youki's cat.

He would open the door

and belt out his usual battle
cry, "They're screwed!"

Then he would go from table
to table, greet people,

tell jokes, retrieve a paper
bag of scraps, and return home.

[gentle orchestral music]

The Catalan was
Picasso's headquarters.

He too would go there every day.

Dora Maar or a few
friends would be invited

to share a meal of good,
rare, and expensive food

from the black market.

The Occupation was gentler
here than in other places.

Picasso's works were
exhibited all over the world,

everywhere except
in occupied Europe.

In Paris, some of them
were packed into a room

at the Jeu de Paume Museum,

where the Germans had
put away the paintings

of artists considered
to be degenerate.

Braque, Cezanne, Dali,
Gauguin, Matisse,

Manet, Monet,
Renoir, and Soutine

were all are prohibited
from displaying

or exhibiting their works.

Many artists decided
to leave Paris.

Picasso chose to stay,
[slow dramatic music]

his fame and his
Spanish citizenship,

which made him
neutral, protected him.

[coal rustling]

[bell tolling]

[people chattering faintly]

He would give
postcards of Guernica

to the Germans who
came to see his work.

When one of them asked
him, "Did you do that?"

He replied, "No, it
was you who did it."

Picasso was extremely critical

of anyone who associated
with the occupier

or who visited Hitler's Germany.

His door was closed for good

to those former companions
from the Bateau Lavoir,

who now rubbed shoulders
with the Nazis,

Vlaminck, Derain, Van Dongen.

[door knocking]
[door creaks]

Almost everyone
else was welcome,

and almost all of the time.

Jean Cocteau was a
very frequent visitor

to Picasso's studio on
Grands-Augustins Street.

He would be accompanied
by Jean Marais.

One was a slender, if
not emaciated, gentleman

in his 50s, elegant to a tee,

with forearms encased
in tight cuffs

that left his wrists
free to pirouette

around the delicacies
of the world.

The other, 25 years younger,

was as beautiful
as a living statue.

[gentle orchestral music]

They had known each
other since 1937.

One day that year,

Jean Marais went to
the Hotel de Castille,

where the poet was living.

Cocteau was looking for an actor
for his play "Oedipus Rex."

A strange smell wafted
through the hotel room,

which contained a number
of peculiar objects,

a silver platter, jade
rings, an oil lamp,

pipes with long stems.

Cocteau was lying on the bed.

He was inhaling the
opium with long breaths.

In spite of the drug-induced
haze of the surroundings,

Jean Marais read the first
act of the play with brio.

The second act was
done a little later.

When Jean Marais came
back for the final act,

Cocteau fell into his arms

and confessed to
him, "I love you."

And the curtain down came
on the bed of the poet

and his gorgeous catch.

Cocteau never read
the newspapers.

He preferred to stay away
from the affairs of the world.

As for his political views,

the tragedy, in
those terrible times,

was that he had no
political views.

[people chattering faintly]
[people laughing]

During the Occupation, Jean
Cocteau kept himself busy.

He wasn't the only one and
certainly not the worst.

He was even a saint, compared
to the clique of writers

sympathetic to the far right,
[slow dramatic music]

Celine, Rebatet, Sachs,
or Drieu la Rochelle,

who blatantly called for the
extermination of the Jews,

the Communists and
the Freemasons.

But still, Cocteau
was a socialite

who was invited to chic salons,

in which collaborators
puffed themselves up

and deployed their wit.

Those who came to these
banquets, were actors,

theater people,

and fashionable ladies.
[speaking in foreign language]

They could be found
at the Moulin Rouge,

at the Opera, in the cabarets,
and music halls of Paris.

[people chattering faintly]
[people laughing]

They flocked to
the Tour d'Argent,

which continued to serve
its famous pressed duck.

Amidst the swish of
evening gowns and tailcoats

coming out of the
Casino de Paris,

which was off limits
to dogs and Jews,

the joyful night-lifers
might occasionally

run into a dark figure
walking along the walls,

trying to be invisible.

It was Chaim Soutine.

He was wanted by the
Gestapo as a Jew,

a stateless person and
a degenerate artist.

In the street,

he would turn the rim of
his hat down over his eyes,

hoping one would recognize him.

[people chattering faintly]

[man breathing heavily]

He was sick.
[dogs barking]

He was reduced to eating nothing
but potato mush and soups.

He was excruciatingly thin.

The ulcers he had suffered
from in the early days,

when he would wait
for Modigliani

in the back of the
Rotonde, had not healed.

He was living in hiding,

with his new mistress,
Marie-Berthe Aurenche,

who had been Max
Ernst's second wife.

Then, one terrible day in 1942,

the concierge denounced him.

Soutine fled to Touraine.

Marie-Berthe dragged
him from hotel to hotel,

until they found a secluded
house to move into,

a tiny refuge of hope.

[birds chirping]
[doors creaking]

[slow dramatic music]
[bell tolling]

[people chattering faintly]
[baby crying]

[bell ringing]

World War I had
wiped out Montmartre.

World War II drove the artists
away from Montparnasse.

Their new stomping ground was
now Saint-Germain-des-Pres.

The Cafe de Flore had replaced
the Closerie des Lilas,

the Dome and the Rotonde.

Inside, it was warm.

[gentle orchestral music]

The black market flourished
discreetly between its tables.

And it was a pleasant
place to work.

Friends would come by.

In case of an alert, the metro
was just a few steps away.

Some people even
had the privilege

of turning the Cafe de Flore
into their personal office.

The pipe smoker sitting
near the stove, for example.

Jean-Paul Sartre.

He would arrive around
nine in the morning.

A waiter would immediately
serve him his coffee.

He would pull a sheaf of
papers out of his briefcase

and start to write.

From time to time, he
would dive under the table,

looking for cigarette butts,

that he would break up
into the bowl of his pipe.

He often exchanged a
few friendly gestures

with a woman who was writing

at a table nearby,
Simone de Beauvoir.

Sartre had been taken
prisoner by the Germans

at the end of the Phoney War.

One day in March, 1941,

he showed up at
the Cafe de Flore

and found Simone de Beauvoir.

He had just returned
from captivity.

The Occupation seemed
worse than war to him.

War was the result of a refusal,
which it then perpetuated.

The Occupation prohibited people

from acting and thinking.

"His New Ethics," wrote
Simone de Beauvoir,

"Based on the notion
of authenticity,

"and which he sought
to put into practice,

"required that human beings
assume their situation

"and the only way to do so

"was to transcend
it through action."

[man speaking in
foreign language]

How? By joining the Resistance.

[people chattering faintly]

He founded a Resistance
movement, "Socialism
and Liberty,"

that included a group of
fifty writers and professors.

They wrote leaflets
and typed up programs

that were passed out
in the academic halls

of the Ecole Normale.

[typewriter clacking]
[people chattering faintly]

But it wasn't enough.

Simone and Jean-Paul decided
to build up the network

in the free zone,
in Southern France.

[gentle orchestral music]

There, they would surely
find people animated

by the spirit of resistance.

To begin with, the two
great intellectual activists

of the '30s were down there,

the two Andres,
Gide and Malraux.

Early in the summer of
1941, they got two bicycles,

took the train to
Montceau-les-Mines

and secretly crossed
the demarcation line.

Then they rode, on the first
day, for 40 kilometers.

Sartre was in front.

Simone had a hard time
pedaling up the slopes.

Occasionally, they would fall.

At night, they were exhausted.

They stopped at a hotel.

Slept the sleep of athletes.

Left early the next morning.

They often stopped at inns,

where Sartre would
take a few notes.

It was easier than
putting up a tent,

camping has never been

one of the strong
points of philosophers.

They went down to Marseille
and then to Grasse,

where Andre Gide
was expecting them.

Gide had taken refuge down
on the Mediterranean coast,

followed by his
friends and family.

He had believed,
for a few weeks,

that Petain would be a
bulwark against Hitler.

He refused to write
for the "NRF,"

the literary journal that
was now under the diktat

of Drieu la Rochelle.

At 72, he didn't feel
he had the strength

to do anything more.

That's what he told
Simone and Jean-Paul.

In exactly 20 minutes.

It was his way of
turning them down.

After Gide, they set
their sights on Malraux.

Simone and Jean-Paul
expected more from him.

After the defeat of the
Spanish Republicans,

he had acted on
behalf of the refugees

interned in French camps.

In 1940, he had been
transferred to the tank corps

in Provins as a lowly soldier,

he who had once been a colonel

in the Spanish Republican army.

In June, 1940, he had escaped.

In short, he was a hero.

Simone and Jean-Paul
rode their bicycles

down to Cap d'Ail, near
Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

Malraux received
them in the villa

where he could enjoy the
fresh air and the sun

with Josette Clotis
and their newborn baby.

They admired the sea from
the deck chairs on the lawn

and talked a little
about literature

before sitting down to lunch.

John-Paul waited
until the dessert

to ask the critical question,
"What about the war?"

Malraux had already
had several visitors

come to ask him
the same question,

would he be willing to
join a Resistance movement

that was embryonic,
but growing day by day?

He had explained his point
of view to all of them

and given them the same answer

that he gave to
his present guests,

"It was no use going
against the Germans."

He had seen them
at work in Spain.

One could not fight unarmed

against the slaughterers
of Guernica.

[gentle orchestral music]

It was time to go home.

Beauvoir and Sartre
would go on to pursue

a lifetime of
political engagement,

but for now, they had had the
door slammed in their face

by those whose place they
would soon be taking.

They returned to Paris by train.

Traveling in the
other direction,

was a man who was going
down to Marseille.

It was the poet, Rene Char.

He was in a compartment
next to a woman

who offered him a cigarette.

He took it.

She handed the packet
to the man next to her,

a German officer.

Char immediately gave the
cigarette back to him,

got up, and left
the compartment.

From his surrealist years,

Rene Char had developed a
taste for saying things clearly

and for acting decisively.

He was absolutely intransigent.

Some writers did not
resist the Occupier.

Many published their
writings or had their plays

performed in front of
assemblies of Nazi luminaries.

[speaking in foreign language]

A few, like Vercors,
Francois Mauriac,

and Jean Guehenno,
published in secret

with the "Editions de
Minuit" publishing house

or in underground periodicals.

Others, like Rene Char, took
a position and stuck to it

for the entire duration of the
war, they refused to publish.

Anything at all.

Those who, like Char,
laid down the pen

to attack the Germans
with guns and rifles,

were exceedingly rare.

In the spring of 1941,
[gentle orchestral music]

the poet took refuge in Cereste,

a small village in the
mountains around Apt,

in the Lower Alps.

From there, he began
weaving his network,

by going out to the
surrounding villages.

He was a warlord, a
soldier in the Secret Army.

[gun firing]

Armed with his two Colts,

he went into cafes where the
Germans might be lurking.

He set up ambushes.

He scouted out the areas

that would be receiving
weapons from London.

He picked them up
and distributed them.

He shot traitors.

[gun fires]

He also wrote, he
"Was a poet at war.

[gun firing]

"We must overcome
our rage and disgust,

"we must make sure they
are shared by others

"in order to raise up
and extend our action

"like a moral code."

He was in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue,
his hometown,

when he heard the
extraordinary news

that would change the
course of the war.

On June the 22nd, 1941,

at three in the morning,
[slow dramatic music]

Hitler launched his
Operation Barbarossa,

[plane engines rumbling]

from Finland to the Black Sea,

three million Wehrmacht
soldiers set out

to take on the Soviet Union.

[guns firing]

Along a front that was
nearly 2,500 kilometers long,

190 divisions backed by
5,000 airplanes and 500 tanks

crossed the border and
headed into the steppe.

[engines rumbling]
[men shouting]

The war was entering
a new phase.

[warning siren wailing]

On that day, June
the 22nd, 1941,

the news was celebrated in
the Desnos home in Paris.

The guests raised their glasses
to the forthcoming victory.

It was clear to everyone that
a second front in the East,

combined with the
strength of the Red Army,

would eventually force
Germany to its knees.

The Barbarossa plan would be
the undoing of the Great Reich.

[whistle blaring]

[footsteps thudding]

[windows creaking]

In compliance with
passive defense measures,

the blackout
curtains were drawn,

and candles were used for light.

[people chattering faintly]
[people laughing]

A few bottles that had
been carefully preserved

from the prewar days,

to celebrate such an
event, were uncorked.

[cat meows]

The games, the
automatic writing,

the waking dreams that had

once brought the
surrealists together

were now things of the past,

but Eluard and Desnos,

who had never
excommunicated each other,

[gentle orchestral music]
celebrated hope,

with the spirit of
their youthful days.

[glasses clanking]

"Evening has folded its
wings over Paris in despair.

"Our lamp supports the night
as a captive does freedom."

Most of their friends left a
few minutes before the curfew.

Those who lived too far away

or who missed the last
subway slept there.

As for Robert, he
went up into the loft

he had built over his library.

[cat meows]

Amongst the privacy
of his books,

he put together a few
confidential documents

he had taken from the
newspaper "Aujourd'hui,"

diagrams, troop movements,

the addresses of senior
German officials.

He would pass them
on the next day,

to members of his network,

who had ties with the
Intelligence Service.

So every night
before going to bed,

Robert Desnos became
a Poet Resistant,

but no one knew it.

[people chattering faintly]

In Paris, opposition to the
Occupation was quite rare.

In the world of art,
culture and entertainment,

many were simply neither-nor,

they neither collaborated
nor resisted.

They put up with
what was going on,

with a little discomfort
for the most well-off,

with some annoyance for those
who were less well-seated,

caught between a rock and
a hard place for the rest.

Jean Cocteau hovered,

not between collaboration
or resistance,

but rather between
the Vichy government

and the German administration.

In 1941, when his play
"The Typewriter" was banned

by the French censors,
[slow dramatic music]

Cocteau turned to the
Occupiers for help.

[typewriters clacking]
[people chattering faintly]

The Germans overturned
the French decision.

When the play opened, there
were violent reprisals.

Alain Laubreaux, a
leading theater critic

at the paper "Je suis partout,"

slandered Cocteau and
Marais in vulgar terms.

Unfortunately for Laubreaux,

one evening he was
dining in a restaurant

on Boulevard des Batignolles,

where Cocteau and Marais
were regular customers.

The actor went up to
the pen-pusher and said,

"If you confirm that you're
Laubreaux, I'll spit on you."

[man spits]
Laubreaux confirmed

who he was, and Marais spit.

They flew at each other.

The journalist was
roundly thrashed.

In his friends' eyes,

Cocteau was seen as
a shrewd tactician.

He was attacked by those who
insulted him before the war,

defended by the friendly
and distinguished

set of Germans who considered
themselves Francophiles

and were open to dialogue
with the occupied.

Yet Cocteau did
not lack courage.

During the Occupation,
he defended the poet

and imprisoned
thief, Jean Genet.

As well as, alas, Arno Breker,

an official sculptor
sponsored by the Reich

and a friend of Hitler's,

who had an exhibition at
the Orangerie in May, 1942.

The event, which was
organized by Laval,

attracted the who's who of
the collaborationist crowd.

In the pro-collaboration
press, Cocteau wrote,

"I salute you Breker.

"I salute you from the
high homeland of the poets.

"I salute you, because
in the high homeland

"where we are compatriots,
you speak to me of France."

In reaction, perhaps, to
the monumental statuary

that was being
exhibited everywhere,

Picasso took up sculpture again.

[slow engaging music]

While Maurice
Vlaminck was writing

in the newspaper "Comoedia",

that Picasso was "Guilty of
having led French painting

"into the deadliest
of impasses,"

enormous figures were emerging

under the studio's wooden arch.

An imposing bust of Dora Maar
sat on a wooden pedestal.

"Man with a Lamb"
was created in 1943,

a clay sculpture standing
over two-meters high,

erected with the help
of his friend, Eluard.

The huge, peaceful
Mediterranean shepherd

watched over the
studio like a sentinel,

fending off the many attacks
that were aimed at Picasso.

Although Picasso
suffered less than others

from the hardships
of the Occupation,

war was a constant
theme in his work.

His still-lifes revealed
the concerns of the time,

hunger, cold,
restrictions, constraints.

"Painting is not made for
decorating apartments.

"It's an offensive and
defensive instrument

"of war against the enemy,"
Picasso would later say.

[sirens wailing]
[slow dramatic music]

In November, 1942, the
Spanish painter's dark colors

seemed to take over
the entire country.

On November 11th, in reaction
to the Allied landings

in North Africa, the Germans
crossed the demarcation line.

The Southern zone
no longer existed.

Everyone who had fled
and sought refuge

under the precarious cover
of the supposedly free zone

was now looking for
somewhere else to live.

One night, the publisher,
Pierre Seghers,

received a phone call
from Elsa Triolet,

who had been laying low
in the Southern zone

for the last few
months with Aragon.

She was panic-stricken.

What should they do?

Where could they hide?

Louis Aragon seemed as
distraught as she was.

And yet, at 42, he
had left for the front

with the same verve and
courage as when he was 20.

[bell tolling]

A few months before the
beginning of the war,

he and Elsa had got married.

In the wedding basket,
there were three jewels:

love, literature, and Stalin.

[car engine whirring]
[gentle orchestral music]

Pierre Seghers drove his friends
to Villeneuve-les-Avignon.

From there, they
went to Dieulefit,

then continued for
a few kilometers,

until they reached a ruined
house cut off from the world,

which was only
accessible on foot.

[bell ringing]

They named their
new refuge Heaven.

[slow dramatic music]

They would live there
alone for some time,

in absolute secrecy.

The house had only one room.

That is where they would write,

Elsa Triolet, "The White Horse,"

Louis Aragon, "Aurelien."

The few neighbors
they had knew them

as Elisabeth Marie and
Lucien Louis Andrieu.

No one knew that
the poet had created

the National Committee of
Writers for the Southern zone.

They would occasionally
take a break and go to Lyon,

the capital of the
French Resistance effort.

Aragon had created an
underground distribution system

via which the journal, "Poetes
Casques," "Poets in Helmets,"

published by Pierre Seghers,
could be circulated.

Many rebel writers wrote for
it, all under pseudonyms.

Elsa and Louis sometimes
traveled to Paris.

[train wheels clacking]
[train whistle blaring]

10 years after leaving the group

in the wake of the
Kharkov Congress,

they would go to
meet Paul Eluard,

their old friend from the days

of the great surrealist battles.

[brakes squealing]

Paul and Nush met Louis and Elsa

at the Gare de
Lyon train station.

[whistle blaring]

They went to celebrate
their renewed friendship

in a restaurant, in
the 5th arrondissement.

What was important now,
was to unite their efforts,

in order resist the
Occupiers together.

Rather than talk about
their differences,

the two men emphasized the
things they had in common.

They were both hiding out

under the cover of
false identities.

They had broken off
with Andre Breton,

who had left for America.

Both of them were
leading figures

in the Writers' Committee,
one in the Southern zone,

the other in the Northern zone.

They were both members of the
underground Communist Party,

and thus subject to
the death penalty.

[ominous music]

Like Aragon and Elsa Triolet,

Paul Eluard had not stopped
publishing his works.

He was willing to submit
them to the official censors,

but he also published
in underground journals.

In the summer of 1941, he
had written a poem for Nush.

Then he realized that the only
word that he had in his mind

was the word, liberty.

He published, undercover,

a collection entitled
"Poesie et verite," in 1942,

[bright orchestral music]

"Poetry and Truth," which
opens with this poem,

thousands of copies were
dropped over France,

from the planes of
the Royal Air Force.

"On my notebooks from school.

"On my desk and the trees.

"On the sand, on the snow.

"I write your name.

"On every page I read.

"On every blank page.

"Stone blood paper or ashes.

"I write your name.

"On the golden images.

"On the weapons of warriors.

"On the crowns of kings.

"I write your name."

[waves crashing]

[birds chirping]
[water burbling]

On May the 27th, 1943, people
strolling in the Tuileries

noticed a column of
acrid black smoke

swirling over the gardens.

They might have
thought it was a fire.

[fire crackling]
Fire!

It was an auto-da-fe
of paintings

that had been removed
by the Germans,

to be burned in
the inner courtyard

of the Jeu de Paume Museum,

in a corner of the Tuileries,

along the Place de la Concorde.

[people chattering faintly]

After breaking the frames
and slashing the works

by artists deemed
to be degenerate,

they had piled them up
and set them on fire.

[fire crackling]
[slow dramatic music]

And so, in the mild twilight
of the month of May,

500 paintings were
going up in smoke,

works by artists as vile,
corrupt, and perverted

as Kisling, Paul Klee, Fernand
Leger, Francis Picabia,

Max Ernst, Juan Miro,
Suzanne Valadon,

Pablo Picasso,
and Chaim Soutine.

[birds chirping]

Soutine was in hiding, in
a small house near Chinon.

Three months after his
works were destroyed

in the Tuileries Gardens,

he was in agony,
[melancholy orchestral music]

suffering from a
perforated stomach.

He was taken to the
hospital in Chinon.

He begged the doctors
to operate on him,

but Marie-Berthe refused.

She wanted to him to be treated
by a specialist in Paris.

She hired an ambulance.

They went back to
their secluded house

to get some paintings.

He burned a few of them.

[fire crackling]

24 hours later, when Soutine
finally got to Paris,

after evading roadblocks
and police checks,

his stomach was in shreds.

He was operated on, on
August the 7th, 1943.

He died on the 9th,
at six in the morning.

He was buried a few days later,

in the cemetery in Montparnasse,

in a burial plot belonging
to the Aurenche family.

But not under his star.

Paradoxically, it is a
cross that watches over him.

And that is not the
only irregularity.

The date of birth is also wrong.

And his name is misspelled.

Picasso was at the funeral.

As well as Max Jacob, who
had come out of his retreat,

in the abbey of
Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire,

near Orleans, to be there.

Even though he had
converted to Catholicism,

even though he taught catechism
to children in the village,

Max still wore the yellow star.

Whether in Paris
or in Saint-Benoit,

he could not go into
cafes or public places

that were off-limits to Jews.

He was not allowed
to publish anything.

His writer's royalties
were confiscated.

Max Jacob placed some small
stones on the tombstone,

as was the tradition, and
then went back to St-Benoit.

That was where he felt safe.
[indistinct chanting]

He was taken care of
there, he didn't go hungry.

He lived by selling
his manuscripts,

which he constantly recopied.

He no longer had
any of the paintings

that his painter
friends had given him.

One by one, his family
members had been arrested.

Some had been tortured,
all were deported.

"I am slowly becoming convinced

"that they will soon be shooting
all of the Jews en masse,"

he wrote, at a time when
anti-Semitic massacres

were still widely unknown.

[people chattering faintly]

During the night of
July the 9th, 1943,

the Allies landed in Sicily.

Mussolini was removed
from power and arrested.

On September the 8th,

Italy signed an armistice
with the Allies.

[slow dramatic music]
Meanwhile, in Paris,

Jean-Paul Sartre was having
his play, "The Flies,"

performed for an audience
of German officers.

[audience applauding]

At the dress rehearsal, he
had met a writer whose works,

"The Stranger" and
"The Myth of Sisyphus,"

had been published by Gallimard.

His name was Albert Camus.

The biggest difference between

the members of Sartre's family

and this stranger, who
had come from Algeria,

was their background.
[people chattering faintly]

Political engagement had
been a meaningful part

of Camus' life for a long time.

In Algeria, before the war,

he had been active in
defending the rights

of the Muslim population.

When he came to France
as a journalist,

he became editor of the
newspaper, "Combat," the voice

of the United Movements of
Resistance organization.

Provided with false papers,

Albert Camus had set up the
underground newspaper's meetings

in the back of a
concierge's lodge.

He asked Beauvoir and Sartre
if they wanted to join them.

They agreed and
then disappeared.

By his own admission, Sartre,
during the Occupation,

was more of a
writer who resisted

than a Resistant who wrote.
[slow dramatic music]

[thunder rumbling]
[phone ringing]

On the morning of
February the 22nd, 1944,

the phone rang in
the Desnos apartment.

Robert answered it.

On the line, a friend warned him

that the Germans were coming.

They had just arrested two
members of his Resistance group.

Youki implored him, "Go
and hide somewhere!"

The poet refused.

He was afraid the Germans would
arrest Youki in his place.

But he was confident.

He had cleared his library
of all the prohibited books

and documents it contained
[door knocking]

a month earlier.

The Germans arrived. They
searched the apartment.

Desnos went pale when
they came upon a paper

in the binding of a book
he had forgotten to hide.

There were names on it, and
the first, was that of Aragon.

Aragon, the wanted,
outlawed Poet Resistant.

Desnos tried to defend himself,

"It's a list of art critics."

[slow dramatic music]

"Get dressed. Bring
warm clothing.

"Where you're going, the
nights are long and cold."

Robert Desnos took
his Parker pen

out of the inside
pocket of his jacket

and handed it to Youki, saying,

"Keep it for me, darling.
I'll come back and get it."

[train wheels clacking]

Robert Desnos would be
interned at Compiegne,

then sent to the Floha
work camp in Saxony.

He would be deported
to Auschwitz,

then to Buchenwald
and Flossenburg.

He wrote poems that he
hid in a small tin box.

He managed to send a letter
to Youki for her birthday.

[somber piano music]

"I wish I could give you
100,000 light cigarettes,

"twelve dresses by
fashion designers,

"the apartment in Rue
de Seine, an automobile,

"the little house in
the forest of Compiegne

"and a little
threepenny bouquet.

"While I'm gone, always buy
flowers, I'll pay you back.

"And the rest, I promise,
will come later."

[engine whirring rapidly]

A few days after Robert
Desnos was arrested,

a black Citroen
stopped at the door

of the Abbey de Saint-Benoit.

[bell tolling]

[footsteps marching]

Three Gestapo agents had
come to get Max Jacob.

[man coughing]

[man sneezes]

[man sniffling]

They had a hard time
taking him away.

The villagers had been alerted

and had gathered in
front of the Abbey,

to try to save him, in vain.

[car engine firing]

In the car, just as
the door was closing,

Max whispered, "Warn
Picasso in Paris."

[door slams]
[car engine revving]

[bright orchestral music]
[men laughing]

Picasso, a door into his life

from the old Bateau-Lavoir days.

Those were happy times.

On the way back, after
visiting his friend,

Max would stop at
the night pharmacy

in the Saint Lazare
train station,

to buy a bottle of ether.

At home, he would shut
himself in and inhale,

all the while talking to
God and the Virgin Mary.

The pharmaceutical vapors
would whisk him away

on small white clouds that were
so comfortable to relax on.

How far away those days were.

So many dreams for the
present-day nightmare.

Max was taken to the
military prison in Orleans,

and locked up in a cell.

He wrote letters to
his friends in Paris,

begging them to save him.

He signed them, "Max
Jacob, man of letters."

[slow dramatic music]

On February the 28th, they
shoved him into a truck

and took him to the
Orleans' station.

He was sent off to
the camp in Drancy,

where he was detained, not
as Catholic, but as a Jew.

He caught cold and
developed a cough.

In Paris, Jean Cocteau was
doing everything he could.

He made calls,
circulated a petition.

Max was overcome by fever.

He was taken to the infirmary.

[indistinct rustling]
[people chattering faintly]

His friends finally
obtained the release order

they had been hoping for.

But when they arrived in
Drancy, it was too late.

On March the 5th, 1944,
Max Jacob succumbed

to violent attack of
bronchial pneumonia.

[people shouting faintly]
[water splashing]

On the 6th of June, 1944,
the Allies landed at dawn,

on the beaches of Normandy.
[slow engaging music]

A man leapt from
one of the barges.

He was in water up to his waist.

He held his hands up high in
order to protect his cameras.

For an hour and a half, while
the bullets were flying,

Robert Capa took pictures
of the D-day landing.

He had followed the Allied
forces through Sicily and Italy.

Then he went to
Bayeux, Cherbourg,
and Mont Saint-Michel.

He was capturing the war for
the American magazine, "Life."

He followed General Leclerc's
2nd Armored Division by car

and entered Paris
on August the 25th.

[people cheering]

He photographed the
Germans withdrawing,

the euphoria of the civilians.

[people chattering faintly]
[people cheering]

General de Gaulle being
welcomed as a liberator.

[people singing in
foreign language]

The first tanks to enter Paris

bore Spanish names,

Guernica, Madrid, Guadalajara.

[slow dramatic music]
Coincidence or destiny?

Those who had been the last
to leave a devastated Spain,

were the first to enter
a liberated Paris,

along with Robert Capa.

Paris had been liberated,
but the war was not over.

It would take another
year for Germany

to finally surrender,
on May the 7th, 1945.

[ominous music]

On that day, the Red Cross

entered the Terezin
concentration camp
in Czechoslovakia.

A Czech nurse found
Robert Desnos' name

on a list of survivors.

He was very weak.

He had contracted typhus and
was admitted to the infirmary.

On June the 8th, 1945,
the eyes of the poet,

who was known as the Waking
Dreamer, would close forever.

[somber music]
[chimes clinking]

And Guillaume Apollinaire,
master of dreams and reveries,

would sing.
[bright piano music]

"I picked this sprig of heather.

"Autumn has died,
you must remember.

"We shall not see
each other ever.

"I'm waiting, and
you must remember.

"Time's perfume is
a sprig of heather."

[slow engaging music]