Cézanne et moi

This film is the story a friendship of Emile Zola and Paul Cézanne with its ups and downs: the meticulous writer of novels and the temperamental painter who has destryoed a lot of paintings.

I enjoyed this films for the description of this period of France: Emilie Zola was very criticized in this life and Paul Cézanne was finally accepted at the end of his life.

After this film I had the interest to read more about Emile Zola and Paul Cézanne and about their friendship.

I enjoyed the good performances of Guillaume Gallienne, Guillaume Canet, Alice Pol, Déborah François, Pierre Yvon, Sabine Azéma, Freya Mavor and Isabelle Candelier.

I'm surprised by the critics and bad ratings of this movie. Cézanne et Moi tells the relationship between Paul Cezzane and childhood friend Émile Zola, and their clash of personalities throughout their lives. Zola, shy and a little naif. Cezzane, conflictuous, at odds with his family and upset by his initial insuccesses, tries to hurt everyone around him, friends and lovers.

The film is a character study of artists in general, and of Cezzane and Zola in particular, including their ambition and selfishness. The constant flash back and forward in time has a purpose, as each conflict has a link to something happened in the past. All the cast delivers, with a special nod to the superb Guillaume Gallienne as Cezzane. On top of everything, the cherry on the cake: beautiful cinematography and scenary of Provance.

"Cezanne et Moi" (2016 release from France; 116 min.) brings the story of the ups and downs in the long friendship between French writer Emile Zola and the French painter Paul Cezanne. As the movie opens, we are in "Medan 1888", where Zola is awaiting the arrival of Cezanne, after not having seen each other for 2 years. We then go back in time to "Aix en Provence 1852", as we get to watch how they meet each other in 6th grade and become inseparable friends, Before we know it, we are in "Paris 1960" where the two are struggling to make it. At this point we're 15 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from veteran writer and (later in life also) director Danièle Thompson, who is now in her mid-seventies, if you can believe it. Here, she brings us the story that on its face could be fascinating: how 2 legends from the 19th century interacted with each other over decades. Is this a true story? I have no idea, and the movie does not open with the usual "Based on a true story" or "Inspired by true events". But that is not the problem. The problem is in the script writing, which is way heavy and wooden, resulting in us the viewers watching acting performances that simple do not convince us or get us emotionally connected or invested in any way, shape or form. When at one point Cezanne gets mad/upset at Zola, it feels fake and very much "acted". In that sense, certain stretches of the movie feel like watching a theater play, rather than a movie. On the plus side, the scenes that play out in the south of France (Aix) are pure eye candy and provide a much needed boost to the film. Also noteworthy (for my anyway) is the excellent original movie score, courtesy of French composer Éric Neveux. But bottom line is that for me this movie feels like a missed opportunity, considering the potential involving large personalities of not just Cezanne and Zola, but other contemporary eventual celebrities appearing in the movie (Auguste Renoir, Guy de Maupassant, Eduart Manet, and more).

"Cezanne et Moi" opened this past weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. The Tuesday evening screening where I saw this at was attended okay for a week night (about 10 people). Given the lack of critical acclaim or positive overall buzz, I can't see this playing in theaters very long, so is this movie sounds like it could be of interest to you, you're more likely to check it out on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray.

Films about the painters of the artistic revolution in France of the last decades of the 19th century have long become a stand-alone cinematic genre. Impressionists and post-impressionists changed the course of art and reinvented the process of artistic creation. The interest related to their lives and their artistic careers was amplified by the fact that their biographies intersected creating a group dynamic, well documented by the writers of the time but also by the vast correspondence that many of them left behind. 'Cezanne et Moi', Danièle Thompson's 2016 film follows the relationship between the painter Paul Cezanne and the writer Emile Zola from their childhood in Aix-en-Provence, going through the stormy 1860s spent in Paris where the two sought their way in life and in art, until the final decades of their lives, when their personal and artistic paths parted, at least apparently, in an argument as spectacular and passionate as their friendship had been until then. For both of them, this relationship was the friendship of their lives, probably more important than their marriages and relationships. What united them was childhood and youth, what separated them towards the end was art.

'Cezanne et Moi' is more of a psychological study than a film about art. The narrative technique of flashbacks reconstructs the paths in life of the child of a banker who became a radical painter in conceptions and art (Cezanne - Guillaume Gallienne) and of the son of Italian immigrants (Zola - Guillaume Canet) who became one of the most important writers of France and an opinion journalist with great influence. The writer travels the social path of gentrification as his successful books bring him public recognition. The painter remains a marginal and a loner, he does not integrate in the social or artistic circles of the time. The friendship between the two men also seems to invade their personal lives, and director Danièle Thompson does not hesitate to describe critically and with feminist opprobrium their misogynistic attitude and the lack of sensitivity towards the women in their lives. The social and artistic environment of Paris in which the rise of the bourgeoisie took place in parallel with the radicalization of art is described in great detail, although the spectator a little careless or less knowledgeable in the history of French painting and literature in the second half of the 19th century may miss the presence and importance of some of the personalities that appear on the screen for just a few seconds.

'Cezanne et Moi' is a biopic that allows itself some freedoms, despite the repeated mention of the years and places where important scenes take place. Some of the situations are imagined, some of the lines are taken from Zola's books and articles, or from the correspondence between the two artist friends and rivals. The two actors who play the main roles are trained in the theater school of Comedie Francaise, which is an advantage because of the deep cultural understanding and respect for the personalities embodied on the screen, but also a disadvantage because we can feel a certain rigidity of the actors in relation to the camera. Guillaume Canet's Zola has more warmth, calm and prestige while Guillaume Gallienne's Cezanne plays his disorder and anxieties in a more exteriorized manner, with repetitive hysteria not always clearly motivated. Excellent makeup helps them cross ages. The cinematography is superb, especially in the scenes filmed in Provence, which insinuate, a little demonstratively perhaps, the way the landscape and light have permeated Cezanne's art. However, the artistic facets of the two personalities remain hidden. What separated the two friends in the end was art. To write his book about the artistic environment of Paris, Emile Zola used Cezanne's life and person as raw material, he exposed his friend to the public, and the painter never forgave him for that. Revolutionizing painting, Cezanne received little recognition and appreciation during his lifetime except for some of the felloew artists, and Zola joined the critical chorus at a delicate time. Only death and posterity appeased them and their names remain together for all those who came later. 'Cezanne et Moi' tells a lot about the friendship and ego clashes between the two, but too little about their art. Only towards the end of the film, in the credits, the images of nature melting in the paintings remind us of what it is really about when we say the name of Paul Cezanne.

Well-made biographical drama is focused on the legends' complex and explosive friendship, with fully believable performances by Canet and Gallienne, and enhanced by Jean-Marie Dreujou's remarkable camerawork, but somehow neglects to explore or even explain the protagonists' importance in art and literature history.