seeing and believing

Ce que mes yeux ont vu/what my eyes have seen (2007) has been the best viewing surprise

I've had this holiday season. Laurent de Bartillat has imagined the suspense of a detective story concerning Watteau, one of the most mysterious painters of all times, that succeeds in being aesthetically pleasing and having a intriguing psychological edge.

 

It's a story of fascinating research conducted by art history student (Sylvie Testud) under a stony, if esteemed professor (Jean-Pierre Marielle), which overflows into their lives.  Their wounds and obsessions  permit identification with the art works and give it life in a way that allows new discoveries. The student's interest in a street mime (James Thiérrée) and her theories on the depiction of a mysterious woman seen always from the back will help her to reveal something as yet completely unknown.

The film director, himself schooled in art history, explains how in examining paintings,

"one takes a detail and tries to understand not only why the artist has placed it in the picture, but also what story it tells about him. And the further the research goes, the more one is drawn into the inside of the  painting. As with a police inquiry, it is a matter of working with clues, traces, correspondances,

cross-checks. We try to make details speak exactly like an investigator who tries to make objects witness in the room of a victim." (allociné)

 

Born in Valenciennes in 1784, Watteau's work shows the influence of the great Flemish masters, particuliarly Rubens and the Venitians. Little is known of him and he deliberately kept several ateliers throughout Paris so he could better hide away to work. His own artistic particularities result in a strange quality given through vaporous renderings, sensual palettes and scenes peopled with enigmatic figures. Painter of fêtes galantes, those fashionable outdoor gatherings, Watteau is perhaps most famous for the enchantingly melancholic Le Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère (detail shown above). Other subjects of predilection are Pierrots (clowns) and characters from the commedia dell’arte.

Watteau died of tuberculosis at the age of 37.  He was an innovator in a period of change between Louis XIV and Louis XV, the Regency. His works were later to influence the Impressionists with their light but palpable air and were greatly admired by poets, in particular by Baudelaire and Verlaine.

Original paintings were made for the film by copy artist, Valerio Fascinani.

Sorry, no subtitles here, but you can get a sense of the atmosphere:

Sources: Le Monde, artefix, Musée du Louvre

On the silver screen

The other day I had the pleasure of discovering Mankiewicz' A Letter to Three Wives. The story was intriguing, the dialogues sharply chiseled, the filming original. It's the story of three women who are leaving for an outing when they receive a letter from their mutual friend, Addie Ross. The letter announces that she is about to leave and never return - with one of their husbands. Addie is a sort of Rebeca we never see but whose voice narrates the story, a powerful seductress as much envied by each of the women as she is admired by each of their husbands. The fact that each couple is living through some difficulties increases the women's feelings of insecurity. Whose husband is it?

We see the house that each woman lives in. Deborah lives with Brad in a big house with a colonnaded porch. Addie tells us that Brad, who gave her her first black eye and her first kiss, bought the house before going off to war.



Deborah on her way to pick up Rita for a picnic with the other wives, while the men...?


Rita Phipps ( Ann Sothern) has been waiting for Deborah in front of her home in a neighborhood shared by those on their way up and those on their way down. "Rita is on her way up and wouldn't have it any other way," says the voice of Addie. She rushes back in to say goodbye to the twins, oblivious of her husband, George (Kirk Douglas).

The beautiful Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) is from a shack on the wrong side of the tracks. It shakes and rattles when the train passes by but Lora Mae stays cool and steady for she knows what she wants...

and gets it.

Lora Mae guesses the identity of the beautiful woman in the portrait. We only see the back of the frame.

Rita Phipps is the working woman of the three. An ambitious soap opera writer for the radio, she invites her over-bearing employer for dinner trying to win her favor. Her attempts to put her best face forward naturally include sprucing up home and husband. They purchase expensive Scotch for the occasion, though "Bourbon is a better drink," because it's in fashion with "those showbiz types." Husband is expected to wear his tuxedo and the housekeeper has a new uniform complete with a saucy cap that she detests - all this is designed to impress. George, a school teacher, is indulgent but fairly put off by his wife's attempt at pretence.

Rita: People in the show business, you know what I mean, those kind of

people always drink scotch.

George: Well, I know what you mean, but I wish you wouldn't say it in radio English. "That kind", not "those kind".

Rita: There are men who say "those kind" who earn $100,000 dollars a year.

George: There are men who say "stick 'em up" who earn more.

I don't expect to do either.

There is tension in the air with such a cocktail of personalities. The guests bicker and the oafish boss and her submissive husband won't touch the Scotch though the others find it very necessary to partake. There is a clatter...

when it comes time to dine. Sadie (Thelma Ritter) unveils the dining area by removing a screen Betty had apparently thought a more elegant way to proceed. Ah ha! The ultimate sign of

Rita's pretense!

The cumbersome folding screen practically comes tumbling through the viewing screen,

a struggle ensues,

the cap goes askew.

As Sadie wrestles to put it aside, she sighs wisely saying,
"I tol' ya the screen was a crummy idea. Soup's on!"

Of course, this was a great screen moment for me ! Clever Mankiewicz.
I leave you to you to find out about the rest of the story.

On holiday by mistake

It all sounds so idyllic doesn't it, a weekend escape to the country? For two out-of-work actors in one of the most hilarious films I know, a trip to country is  a way of avoiding their squalid flat and the nasty questioning that too much idle time brings. Withnail and I's two central characters, played by Richard E. Grant (Withnail) and Paul McGann (I), are in desperate need of a break from the grim life of waiting for a role in 1969 London. Of course, being down and out, the only solution is to approach Withnail's fabulous uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths) to persuade him to loan the keys to his country home. Seeing the amber comfort of his London home, their prospects for a comfortable stay seem excellent. From a decorating point of view, this is the story of three homes, of which Monty's is the first.

Next is the aspiring actors shared grey Camden flat - a wreck steeped in personal memorabilia, but not completely devoid of charm, or wouldn't be if Withnail were not such an impractical slob. Their kitchen is the worst of it with unwashed dishes that have stacked up to a scary state with suspected rodent life crawling beneath it. And then there's Danny the dealer friend who has a way of showing up all the time.

So off to the country it is. Only, it would be better not to arrive completely unprepared at night in the pouring rain with Withnail in a railing state of drunkenness.

 This third home is not exactly the idyllic escape they had imagined.  I've rented enough country houses through the years to know they are not always easy to settle in and planning is important in places you go to get away from it all if you want to do simple things like eat.

Things look pretty grim. Simple things like heat, food, and adequate booze are not easy to come by. The country folk are less than welcoming and take them for extraterrestrials. And they might as well be for all they understand of how to do things for themselves where they have landed. "We've gone on holiday by mistake!" they explain, begging for help finding food in the drenched countryside.
But when Monty shows up by surprise, his talent makes all those mundane worries disappear. Suddenly we don't recognize the house. Cold, creaky, and uninhabitable become cottage-y, cozy and warm. The gramophone is cranked up. Food becomes cuisine; thirst is more than quenched with fine wines -but some appetites cannot be satisfied. Withnail has encouraged certain misunderstandings in lovesick Monty.... And as for their acting careers, Monty, too, had once had theatrical aspirations, but he sighs, there's always ''that morning when you wake up and say, 'Alas, I shall never play the Dane.' "