************ *******************
"The work we speak of is unique and defies comparison. Its genesis is uncontrollable. It escapes the laws that ordinarily govern the painting, although she meets the most extreme requirements. Seraphine, with the most modest, some flowers, leaves, trees, water running, created by means that are daring his personal conquest, a grand work. "
Wilhelm Uhde, 1945.
Interview with Martin Provost:
What is the origin of your meeting with Seraphine Louis?
One day a friend producer for France Culture said in a rather cryptic: "Martin, you should interest you to Seraphine Louis ..." Not knowing the character, I did not understand what she was coming, but She added: "Look, you'll understand why." On the Internet, I found very little information, only a few biographical details, tables confusing. Enough to arouse my curiosity. I started to enter the world very special Seraphine.
He soon got became clear that there was something strong, poignant, and food for movies ... This initial impression has only strengthened, it has become an obsession when later I read everything there was to read, including the thesis Seraphine Francoise Cloarec, psychoanalyst, who has known Anne-Marie Uhde (sister of Wilhelm Uhde, the discoverer of Seraphina) it has letters and many documents. His work has been my main source.
In the genesis of your movie, there is also another meeting absolutely crucial, that Yolande Moreau.
Yes, the meeting with Yolanda was really decisive. I never made the film without her. The very writing of the screenplay, before going in search of producers, has been nourished by his presence at my side. By coincidence we both lived in the countryside, two miles from each other. So we quickly encountered. I told him the story of Seraphine and she said yes. Very simply. Later I found in the library Kandinsky's only one portrait known to Seraphina, executed in pencil by one of its neighbors. The resemblance was more than striking. Yolande Moreau was. When I showed him the portrait, she was speechless at first then she added, nonchalantly: "It's not flattering, but that's me!" Then we talked a lot about Seraphina of what she faced, her childhood imagined ...
And then on the shelf, there was a sort of miracle, a true encounter between character and actress. Yolanda does not play, she plays Seraphine. She managed to print the image, as and when the film, a poetic and emotionally intense and more valuable it is still in detention. Our work has always been to remain precisely on the wire, not to indulge in the ease, sentimentality, the hysteria in the cinema is often associated with the representation of madness. A subtract rather than add and then to be end to end, faithful to our common vision of the character: its challenging, its weaknesses, her courage, in short, everything that we were impressed and moved from Seraphine.
After these two meetings, you write your script. It is also, and again, the story of an encounter ...
The danger for a scenario based on a real person is to stay in the anecdotal, the illustration, and move precisely to part of what makes her mystery: his humanity, his contradictions, his inner life. This is a particularly delicate. A scenario is a work in itself. But it must also be sufficiently readable then hope to attract producers and find funding. It is a spine a working tool. After trying to gather as much information as possible about the life of Seraphim, especially after the meeting with Yolanda, I was eager to get to work, and full of apprehension ... But soon I felt that Seraphine was an ally, it allowed me to enter his world: a world harsh, confusing, struggling with the invisible. It seemed that I was traveling with her.
With Marc Abdelnour, who co-wrote the screenplay, we imposed a departure from the constraint, that does not "tell" the life of Seraphim as a series of moments: what interested me more was to focus the narrative on the little things on the field off, absences, create small mysteries. Choice screenplay, I wanted to focus primarily on the relationship if unexpected, ambiguous and discreet, which for over 20 years, and for posterity linked Seraphine Wilhelm Uhde. Unlikely encounter between two outsiders. Against all odds, it will be for each of them decisive. Seraphine lives on the margins of the world, and Uhde, a foreign homosexual, is the first to see it for what it really is, without prejudice. It is the developer, his mentor, his friend, his shop and as I felt, almost her boyfriend ... It's interesting to see how it disappears and reappears in his life at the right moment, as the messenger in an ancient tragedy. It is the basis of much alive Seraphine, and then he will perpetuate his memory by revealing to the general public, as it will be the first to organize finally, in 1945, an exhibition devoted exclusively to his works, which lead others in the world.
Returning to the origin of your interest Seraphine. What did you hit her? His personality? A personal sensitivity to the painting "naive" spontaneous, non-academic?
I myself have many painted at one time without special training, and I remember one day, after hours of concentration and hard work, being afraid, yes, irrational fear and a sense of intense loneliness. I have not touched a paintbrush since. What prompted me to Seraphina, it's silly to say, but it is close to heart, and also admiration, a sense of curiosity that I have always felt for anything which is of the order of pure creation, the creative outpouring. Some call it art "naive" and others of the art "gross" but it's not a matter of class.
as now they are often people who are not scholars who are not born into privileged backgrounds and close to culture, but carry within them the ability to create incredible, irrepressible and sometimes disturbing. These artists are fishing deep, outside the art developments and upheavals, without teachers or disciples, and they do not always get the recognition they deserve. Seraphim is a visionary in the sense of the word. It was left to wear with something stronger than herself, and she did not control, the risk of destroying itself. It touches me deeply.
Your film shows the almost mystical dimension of the work of Seraphine. It seems as if its paint life depended on it, as by performing a religious ritual. Paint is never a gratuitous act ...
It can be for some! And that's just fine. But in the world of Seraphine, painting is as vital as eating or drinking, I would add, since after Wilhelm Uhde's departure has been waived to a minimum of material comfort which she was entitled by his household to devote himself to painting body and soul. It's Picasso who said: "Me if I do not paint, I get sick, I die." Seraphine is. Painting allows him to preserve in it something vital. It is a condition of its survival, it is impossible to stop and help but create. In this context, the ritual, in fact, is very important and I took care to highlight whenever it was possible: many of these rituals, religious and otherwise, that structured life and could Seraphine pass for eccentricity, were in fact a disciplined life. So I wanted to show it.
Wilhelm Uhde, who was far from being a frog clam, said of Seraphim she was a saint, and I believe him. Seraphine had achieved through his hard work and that sort of passive rebellion that was hers, a form of holiness, which his painting is the expression.
In the late twenties, Seraphine has gained some notoriety. And then, economic crisis and personal crisis coming, Uhde will virtually abandon ... After having given everything, it seems to lose interest?
is the dark part of the character. I have not sought to evade. But in the movie it was more interesting to me, do not give any explanation for this strange behavior. It is the viewer to make his idea. The end of Seraphine, the Psychiatric Hospital of Clermont-de-l'Oise during the Second World War, was so sordid. It's very troubling. Uhde says in his autobiography that she had died in 1934, when she still lived there eight years, until 1942. Falsehood or negligence, I asked ... Moreover, already after the war of 14 and his return to France where he settled back with his sister, Wilhelm Uhde does not even attempt to review Seraphine, while living in a dozen kilometers from Senlis!
In one sequence, I am told he is persuaded that Seraphim is dead, but Ulrich Tukur (who plays the role of Wilhelm) we made sure that the character makes this point without really believing in itself . This ambiguity preserves the complexity of the character. Despite his integrity and moral strength he has shown throughout his life he is worked by guilt and a certain helplessness, perhaps even a bit of cowardice, is an important dimension of the character and his relationship with Seraphina and things. Uhde had his inner demons. They are there as a watermark throughout the film. My intention was not to confine the role of a loyal patron, caring and accomplice, simple to make. For me, the shadows of Wilhelm were fundamental to rebalance in a way the couple that form on the screen with Seraphina, so that his character is not stifled by it.
SERAPHINE
Martin Provost
Martin Provost
"The work we speak of is unique and defies comparison. Its genesis is uncontrollable. It escapes the laws that ordinarily govern the painting, although she meets the most extreme requirements. Seraphine, with the most modest, some flowers, leaves, trees, water running, created by means that are daring his personal conquest, a grand work. "
Wilhelm Uhde, 1945.
Interview with Martin Provost:
What is the origin of your meeting with Seraphine Louis? One day a friend producer for France Culture said in a rather cryptic: "Martin, you should interest you to Seraphine Louis ..." Not knowing the character, I did not understand what she was coming, but She added: "Look, you'll understand why." On the Internet, I found very little information, only a few biographical details, tables confusing. Enough to arouse my curiosity. I started to enter the world very special Seraphine.
He soon got became clear that there was something strong, poignant, and food for movies ... This initial impression has only strengthened, it has become an obsession when later I read everything there was to read, including the thesis Seraphine Francoise Cloarec, psychoanalyst, who has known Anne-Marie Uhde (sister of Wilhelm Uhde, the discoverer of Seraphina) it has letters and many documents. His work has been my main source.
Yes, the meeting with Yolanda was really decisive. I never made the film without her. The very writing of the screenplay, before going in search of producers, has been nourished by his presence at my side. By coincidence we both lived in the countryside, two miles from each other. So we quickly encountered. I told him the story of Seraphine and she said yes. Very simply. Later I found in the library Kandinsky's only one portrait known to Seraphina, executed in pencil by one of its neighbors. The resemblance was more than striking. Yolande Moreau was. When I showed him the portrait, she was speechless at first then she added, nonchalantly: "It's not flattering, but that's me!" Then we talked a lot about Seraphina of what she faced, her childhood imagined ...
And then on the shelf, there was a sort of miracle, a true encounter between character and actress. Yolanda does not play, she plays Seraphine. She managed to print the image, as and when the film, a poetic and emotionally intense and more valuable it is still in detention. Our work has always been to remain precisely on the wire, not to indulge in the ease, sentimentality, the hysteria in the cinema is often associated with the representation of madness. A subtract rather than add and then to be end to end, faithful to our common vision of the character: its challenging, its weaknesses, her courage, in short, everything that we were impressed and moved from Seraphine.
After these two meetings, you write your script. It is also, and again, the story of an encounter ...
The danger for a scenario based on a real person is to stay in the anecdotal, the illustration, and move precisely to part of what makes her mystery: his humanity, his contradictions, his inner life. This is a particularly delicate. A scenario is a work in itself. But it must also be sufficiently readable then hope to attract producers and find funding. It is a spine a working tool. After trying to gather as much information as possible about the life of Seraphim, especially after the meeting with Yolanda, I was eager to get to work, and full of apprehension ... But soon I felt that Seraphine was an ally, it allowed me to enter his world: a world harsh, confusing, struggling with the invisible. It seemed that I was traveling with her.
With Marc Abdelnour, who co-wrote the screenplay, we imposed a departure from the constraint, that does not "tell" the life of Seraphim as a series of moments: what interested me more was to focus the narrative on the little things on the field off, absences, create small mysteries. Choice screenplay, I wanted to focus primarily on the relationship if unexpected, ambiguous and discreet, which for over 20 years, and for posterity linked Seraphine Wilhelm Uhde. Unlikely encounter between two outsiders. Against all odds, it will be for each of them decisive. Seraphine lives on the margins of the world, and Uhde, a foreign homosexual, is the first to see it for what it really is, without prejudice. It is the developer, his mentor, his friend, his shop and as I felt, almost her boyfriend ... It's interesting to see how it disappears and reappears in his life at the right moment, as the messenger in an ancient tragedy. It is the basis of much alive Seraphine, and then he will perpetuate his memory by revealing to the general public, as it will be the first to organize finally, in 1945, an exhibition devoted exclusively to his works, which lead others in the world.
Returning to the origin of your interest Seraphine. What did you hit her? His personality? A personal sensitivity to the painting "naive" spontaneous, non-academic?
I myself have many painted at one time without special training, and I remember one day, after hours of concentration and hard work, being afraid, yes, irrational fear and a sense of intense loneliness. I have not touched a paintbrush since. What prompted me to Seraphina, it's silly to say, but it is close to heart, and also admiration, a sense of curiosity that I have always felt for anything which is of the order of pure creation, the creative outpouring. Some call it art "naive" and others of the art "gross" but it's not a matter of class.
as now they are often people who are not scholars who are not born into privileged backgrounds and close to culture, but carry within them the ability to create incredible, irrepressible and sometimes disturbing. These artists are fishing deep, outside the art developments and upheavals, without teachers or disciples, and they do not always get the recognition they deserve. Seraphim is a visionary in the sense of the word. It was left to wear with something stronger than herself, and she did not control, the risk of destroying itself. It touches me deeply.
Your film shows the almost mystical dimension of the work of Seraphine. It seems as if its paint life depended on it, as by performing a religious ritual. Paint is never a gratuitous act ...
It can be for some! And that's just fine. But in the world of Seraphine, painting is as vital as eating or drinking, I would add, since after Wilhelm Uhde's departure has been waived to a minimum of material comfort which she was entitled by his household to devote himself to painting body and soul. It's Picasso who said: "Me if I do not paint, I get sick, I die." Seraphine is. Painting allows him to preserve in it something vital. It is a condition of its survival, it is impossible to stop and help but create. In this context, the ritual, in fact, is very important and I took care to highlight whenever it was possible: many of these rituals, religious and otherwise, that structured life and could Seraphine pass for eccentricity, were in fact a disciplined life. So I wanted to show it.
Wilhelm Uhde, who was far from being a frog clam, said of Seraphim she was a saint, and I believe him. Seraphine had achieved through his hard work and that sort of passive rebellion that was hers, a form of holiness, which his painting is the expression.
In the late twenties, Seraphine has gained some notoriety. And then, economic crisis and personal crisis coming, Uhde will virtually abandon ... After having given everything, it seems to lose interest?
is the dark part of the character. I have not sought to evade. But in the movie it was more interesting to me, do not give any explanation for this strange behavior. It is the viewer to make his idea. The end of Seraphine, the Psychiatric Hospital of Clermont-de-l'Oise during the Second World War, was so sordid. It's very troubling. Uhde says in his autobiography that she had died in 1934, when she still lived there eight years, until 1942. Falsehood or negligence, I asked ... Moreover, already after the war of 14 and his return to France where he settled back with his sister, Wilhelm Uhde does not even attempt to review Seraphine, while living in a dozen kilometers from Senlis!
In one sequence, I am told he is persuaded that Seraphim is dead, but Ulrich Tukur (who plays the role of Wilhelm) we made sure that the character makes this point without really believing in itself . This ambiguity preserves the complexity of the character. Despite his integrity and moral strength he has shown throughout his life he is worked by guilt and a certain helplessness, perhaps even a bit of cowardice, is an important dimension of the character and his relationship with Seraphina and things. Uhde had his inner demons. They are there as a watermark throughout the film. My intention was not to confine the role of a loyal patron, caring and accomplice, simple to make. For me, the shadows of Wilhelm were fundamental to rebalance in a way the couple that form on the screen with Seraphina, so that his character is not stifled by it.
The film will be followed up. Over sixty years after the qu'Uhde was held at the Galerie de France, an exhibition will be devoted to Seraphine and alone in Paris ...
Seraphine will revive with the film. In her lifetime, she had not had the solo show she had so hoped for. I made a point of honor to see her again on display in Paris. Thanks to Dina Vierny and his son, Olivier Lorquin, the exhibition will take place at the Musée Maillol: after his death, Dina Vierny has indeed bought the collection of Uhde Anne-Marie, her sister, which has enabled it to survive, and the Musée Maillol enriched by many works. There was also a room Wilhelm Uhde in the Museum of Modern Art, with some beautiful paintings of Seraphine. This hall was reconstructed at the Museum of Senlis. The tables will be reunited for the exhibition. Unfortunately, many paintings were destroyed Seraphine. At the time, many people believed them worthless. Now I hope the work of Seraphine can - and will - relive the big day, out of a circle of connoisseurs ...
Interview with Philippe Vandendriessche
MUSEUM EXHIBITION MAILLOL
click Document
click Document
File
educational support
Printable
click to order
**************************** *********
0 comments:
Post a Comment