Cézanne e eu

Cezanne and I directed and written by Danièle Thompson is a movie that should never have been. It's a pragmatic and artless movie about artists of the second half of the XIXth Century.

It is a movie without purpose, the writing is poor and disjointed, it constantly jumps between different points in time without any purpose, or structure or even memory as some scenes seem to happen two or even three times.

What you will enjoy from this movie:

• the name dropping of some of the biggest artists of modern times
• the scenery towards the end of the movie

What you won't enjoy and the movie gets wrong:

• the portrayal of every character as a completely antipathetic, there is not one likeable character in the whole movie, even those with minimal texts such as Renoir or Manet who only talk to hate in this movie.
• the movie itself is deceiving, it isn't a movie about Cezanne but about Zola
• the artistic portraying of Cezanne who, apparently drew 99% of his canvas as portrait! What a strange choice from the director.
• the complete lack of artistry through the whole movie, be it from the cinematography, the direction, the writing or even the paintings shown through the movie.

The director clearly had no clue about art so why make a film about art other than self-indulgence?

Avoid.

Whew boy! Saw a really wonderful movie last night. It is entitled Cezanne et Moi. Yep, a French movie. Actually, it was a Bro-mance, but I absolutely could not tear my eyes off of it. It was a visual, feast for the eyes, and compliments to the Cinematographer. I don't know how he did it (I'm thinking some kinds of filters), but he was able to light his film with brilliant Cezanne blues and pink and rose colors. Which, btw, prevented me from being able to take the time to read the subtitles because I was so busy being dazzled by the kaliedoscopic colors. The result was similiar to mirroring the desired effect of the painters. The impressionists were madly trying to capture an image which was held in a particular moment during the day when sunlight evoked a particular feeling. So the brush was flying, causing the impressionistic feel and look. And someone, A HACKER, caused my computer to "go dark." Now, thank you, I have to watch it again. But I don't mind...really. You are going to love it, I saw many Manets, Monets, Degas, Cezannes, etc. when I went to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, a museum in San Francisco. Actually, when I got to the Dutch Masters, I fell in love with my favorite painting, Fishing under the Ice on the Maas. The scene takes place at daybreak, I think, where the colors evoke the same impressionistic feeling. Anyway, I will see it again. I won't say when though; I don't want my pc to go dark again. :)

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.

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.