- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: You're rather modest for an actress.
- Andrée Heuschling: Actress doesn't mean whore.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: It's us... old people, the infirm who they should send to the front, in the mud and trenches.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: You want to make yourself useful? Go put a necklace on her. Take the emerald one.
- Jean Renoir: [approaches a posing Andree] The boss wants you to wear this.
- Andrée Heuschling: No introduction first?
- Jean Renoir: Forgive me.
- Andrée Heuschling: You're Jean? I saw a painting of you.
- Jean Renoir: I saw a painting of you, too.
- Andrée Heuschling: He always makes me too fat.
- Jean Renoir: He makes me look like a girl.
- [takes a fruit from a bowl in the studio and bites into it]
- Jean Renoir: You just bit into one of my father's models. I understand. Renoir's paintings make me want to eat them too.
- Andrée Heuschling: You want to eat me?
- Jean Renoir: If you told me what you wanted...
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: You can't explain a painting, you have to feel it. Go see Titian's courtesans at the Louvre. If those don't make you want to caress them, then you've understood nothing at all.
- [Jean leaves]
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Where are you going?
- Jean Renoir: To the Louvre!
- Andrée Heuschling: I paint like a child.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: That's a good thing. My whole life, I tried to paint like a child. Without knowing anything. Without thinking.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: She won't come anymore, will she? Were you a gentleman with her?
- Jean Renoir: Did I need your permission?
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: All women, whether they be a whore or a queen, deserve the same respect.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: [Jean has re-enlisted in WWI] Go get yourself pumped full of lead, imbecile! Or if you prefer, go kill some good German fellow who smokes a pipe. If you think it'll change something.
- [long pause]
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: You, too... you can't live without her either.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: I need living, breathing material. What interests me, is skin... the velvety texture of a young girl's skin.
- Coco Renoir: Show me your tits.
- Andrée Heuschling: Are you nuts?
- Coco Renoir: Show me.
- Andrée Heuschling: Why should I show you?
- Coco Renoir: You show them to the boss.
- Andrée Heuschling: That's different. That's for art.
- Andrée Heuschling: Jean, promise me.
- Jean Renoir: What?
- Andrée Heuschling: When the war is over, we'll make movies.
- Jean Renoir: That's your dream.
- Andrée Heuschling: No. The two of us, together. I'm not spending my life with a plate painter.
- Pierre Renoir: Andree said you were going to make films?
- Jean Renoir: No. Nothing's been decided.
- Pierre Renoir: That reassures me. The cinema isn't for us French. It's entertainment for the masses. Our artistic heritage is too old, too heavy.
- Jean Renoir: [his father has suffered the torments of arthritis in his hands] Papa. You can't take any more.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: The pain passes, Jean. But beauty remains.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Don't force Fate's hand. Hmm? It's best to go with the flow. Like a cork floating in a stream.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: I started as a porcelain painter. But the appearance of machines decided my fate. If they'd continued hand painting, I would have spent my whole life painting plates. Hmm. And been very happy to do so.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: You say it's my poor wife who sent you?
- Andrée Heuschling: She told me - she said maybe I could pose for you.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Hmm. A girl from out of nowhere - sent by a dead woman. I think we're going to work together.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Strokes, more strokes. One melting into the other. They've got to fuck! What must control the structure, is not the line. It's the color.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Change positions. - - Not like that.
- Andrée Heuschling: Like what then?
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Floating! Courbet.
- Jean Renoir: I see.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: "Les Demoiselles" Floating. Hanging in the landscape.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Walking takes all my strength. I won't have any left for painting.
- Docteur Pratt: And when you can't use your hands anymore?
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: I'll paint with my dick.
- Jean Renoir: You paint faster than ever.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: My whole life, I got tangled up in complications. Today I simplify matters.
- Andrée Heuschling: You've got to seize everything life has to offer. Don't be afraid. I want everything and I don't want to wait.
- Andrée Heuschling: You have to know who you are.
- Jean Renoir: Hmm. And you? Who are you?
- Andrée Heuschling: I am what I am.
- Andrée Heuschling: What are your ambitions? What are your dreams?
- Jean Renoir: I don't know. No. No dreams. No ambitions.
- Andrée Heuschling: Never say that to a woman you love. She'll despise you. Believe me.
- Andrée Heuschling: Why not be an artist like your dad?
- Jean Renoir: My dad doesn't see himself like that. He thinks of himself as a worker.
- Andrée Heuschling: Hmm. A worker everyone calls "Boss."
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: I don't want to hear Gabrielle's name again. It's Andrée who left! My best model since - Titian would have worshipped her. I'd give my right arm for her tits. Rounded and firm, with a delicate fold that gives them a golden tinge. Flesh! That's all that matters. If you don't understand that, you'll never understand life! Or painting.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Your mother. I owe her everything. I had fury running through my veins. She calmed my nerves. When we met I was twenty years older than her. I thought my life was over. But no. It was only just beginning.
- Jean Renoir: You've painted everything.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: I still have progress to make. I'll carry on till I collapse.
- Andrée Heuschling: I read that actresses can't play the role of lover without lots of experience. What do you say, boss?
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Nothing. Nothing.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Canary yellow. Ochre red.
- Andrée Heuschling: Boss, do you mind if I lie down?
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: No. Naples yellow.
- Andrée Heuschling: I'm dead tired. Didn't sleep all night. You want to know why?
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: No.
- Andrée Heuschling: I have a new beau. A fabulous lover.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Do you mind posing, please? Any position you want.
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: The Renoirs refuse to paint the world black. A painting should be something pleasant and cheerful. There are enough disagreeable things in life. I don't need to create more. Poverty, despair, death. They're not my concern.
- Jean Renoir: And the war?
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: That either. Tragedy. Others play it very well.
- Jean Renoir: I find Musidora very mysterious.
- Andrée Heuschling: Poor thing, if only you know how easy it is to seem mysterious.
- Jean Renoir: An American actress?
- Andrée Heuschling: Why not? What have they got over me? Nothing. Nothing at all.
- Jean Renoir: I want you to come back. Come back home. Renoir needs you.
- Andrée Heuschling: Renoir? The father or the son?