172-509: Alain Resnais ( French: [alɛ̃ ʁɛnɛ] ; 3 June 1922 – 1 March 2014) was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct short films including Night and Fog (1956), an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps . Resnais began making feature films in
344-765: A "fresh dimension to the understanding of Van Gogh's artistic achievement, an understanding granted to us by virtually no other painter". There are more than 600 letters from Vincent to Theo and around 40 from Theo to Vincent. There are 22 to his sister Wil , 58 to the painter Anthon van Rappard , 22 to Émile Bernard as well as individual letters to Paul Signac , Paul Gauguin , and the critic Albert Aurier . Some are illustrated with sketches . Many are undated, but art historians have been able to place most in chronological order. Problems in transcription and dating remain, mainly with those posted from Arles. While there, Vincent wrote around 200 letters in Dutch, French, and English. There
516-525: A March 1884 letter to Rappard he discusses one of Breton's poems that had inspired one of his paintings. In 1885 he describes Breton's famous work The Song of the Lark as being "fine". In March 1880, roughly midway between these letters, Van Gogh set out on an 80-kilometre trip on foot to meet Breton in the village of Courrières; he was intimidated by Breton's success and the high wall around his estate, and returned without making his presence known. It appears Breton
688-431: A change of direction. Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968) drew upon the traditions of science-fiction for a story of a man sent back into his past, a theme which enabled Resnais again to present a narrative of fragmented time. Alain Resnais's scriptwriter on this film was the author Jacques Sternberg . The film was unlucky in its release (its planned screening at Cannes was cancelled amid the political events of May 1968), and it
860-530: A common starting point, and to be seen in any order. Sabine Azéma and Pierre Arditi played all the parts, and the theatricality of the undertaking was again emphasised by the studio set designs for a fictional English village. Resnais returned to Ayckbourn in the following decade for his adaptation of Private Fears in Public Places to which he gave the film title of Cœurs (2006). Among the stage/film effects which contribute to its mood of "cheerful desolation"
1032-530: A confrontation with a razor when, in a rage, he severed his left ear. Van Gogh spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy . After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet . His depression persisted, and on 29 July 1890 Van Gogh died from his injuries after shooting himself in
1204-407: A film in which dialogue and song would alternate. Music, very differently used, was a major component of L'Amour à mort ( Love unto Death , 1984). For this intense chamber work with four principal actors (Azéma, Arditi, Ardant and Dussollier), Resnais asked Hans Werner Henze to compose musical episodes which would act as a "fifth character", not an accompaniment but a fully integrated element of
1376-503: A film should be made on the subject. Anatole Dauman , originally from Warsaw , undertook the production for Argos Films and arranged for co-financing by Films Polski, the Polish state production company. Dauman approached filmmaker Alain Resnais , who had experience with documentary films since 1948. For more than a week, Resnais resisted the offer, believing that only someone with first-hand experience of concentration camps should attempt
1548-633: A gridded "perspective frame" and three of those works were shown at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants . In April, he was visited by the American artist Dodge MacKnight , who was living nearby at Fontvieille . On 1 May 1888, Van Gogh signed a lease for four rooms at 2 Place Lamartine, Arles, which he later painted in The Yellow House . The rooms cost 15 francs per month, unfurnished; they had been uninhabited for months. Because
1720-640: A heart attack. Van Gogh painted several groups of still lifes in 1885. During his two-year stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolours and nearly 200 oil paintings. His palette consisted mainly of sombre earth tones, particularly dark brown, and showed no sign of the vivid colours that distinguished his later work. There was interest from a dealer in Paris early in 1885. Theo asked Vincent if he had paintings ready to exhibit. In May, Van Gogh responded with his first major work, The Potato Eaters , and
1892-422: A letter to his wife Louise he wrote: The film is grandiose, horrible, showing monstrous crimes...regrettably, the film people here are putting me under pressure to finish the whole thing in ten days even though the film is barely finished. I hope I can get it all together. I'm living here like a monk, I go to bed at 8 in the evening, eat and drink very little and don't feel at all at ease in this giant city with all
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#17329306433932064-488: A limited release until the end of the 1970s. In a 2014 Sight and Sound poll, film critics voted Night and Fog the fourth best documentary film of all time. On 29 June 1956, a contract was signed between Argos Films and the German Office for Press and Information (West Germany) to produce a German language version of the film. Jean Cayrol wished that Paul Celan serve as translator. Despite alterations requested by
2236-494: A miner until October. He became interested in the people and scenes around him, and he recorded them in drawings after Theo's suggestion that he take up art in earnest. He traveled to Brussels later in the year, to follow Theo's recommendation that he study with the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs , who persuaded him – in spite of his dislike of formal schools of art – to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts . He registered at
2408-554: A minister of the Dutch Reformed Church , and his wife, Anna Cornelia Carbentus (1819–1907). Van Gogh was given the name of his grandfather and of a brother stillborn exactly a year before his birth. His grandfather, Vincent (1789–1874), was a prominent art dealer and a theology graduate from the University of Leiden in 1811. This Vincent had six sons, three of whom became art dealers, and may have been named after his great-uncle,
2580-581: A minister was modest, but the Church also supplied the family with a house, a maid, two cooks, a gardener, a carriage and horse; his mother Anna instilled in the children a duty to uphold the family's high social position. Van Gogh was a serious and thoughtful child. He was taught at home by his mother and a governess, and in 1860, was sent to the village school. In 1864, he was placed in a boarding school at Zevenbergen , where he felt abandoned, and he campaigned to come home. Instead, in 1866, his parents sent him to
2752-491: A northwestern suburb of Paris, where he got to know Signac. He adopted elements of Pointillism, a technique in which a multitude of small coloured dots are applied to the canvas so that when seen from a distance they create an optical blend of hues. The style stresses the ability of complementary colours – including blue and orange – to form vibrant contrasts. While in Asnières Van Gogh painted parks , restaurants and
2924-470: A novel by Christian Gailly, as the basis for Les Herbes folles ( Wild Grass , 2009). He explained however that what initially attracted him to the book was the quality of its dialogue, which he retained largely unchanged for the film. When Les Herbes folles was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, it was the occasion for a special jury award to Resnais "for his work and exceptional contribution to
3096-542: A painting. After seeing the portrait of Adolphe Monticelli at the Galerie Delareybarette, Van Gogh adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack, particularly in paintings such as his Seascape at Saintes-Maries (1888). Two years later, Vincent and Theo paid for the publication of a book on Monticelli paintings, and Vincent bought some of Monticelli's works to add to his collection. Van Gogh learned about Fernand Cormon 's atelier from Theo. He worked at
3268-555: A prize at the Venice Biennale in 1948, and also won an Oscar for Best 2-reel Short in 1949. (Braunberger went on to act as producer for several of Resnais's films in the following decade.) Resnais continued to address artistic subjects in Gauguin (1950) and Guernica (1950), which examined the Picasso painting based on the 1937 bombing of the town, and presented it to the accompaniment of
3440-403: A recurring leitmotif, as it was an authentic prisoner song. When Resnais joined the production team, he proposed having an original composed score. Chris Marker suggested approaching Hanns Eisler , to which Resnais agreed after hearing a recording of his music. Although concerned that the composer's fee would put the film over budget, producer Dauman was supportive. Eisler was invited to compose
3612-461: A screenplay written by David Mercer , and a cast that included John Gielgud , Dirk Bogarde and Ellen Burstyn . The story shows an ageing, maybe dying, novelist grappling with alternative versions of his own past as he adapts them for his fiction. Resnais was eager that the dark subject should remain humorous, and he described it as "a macabre divertissement". Formal innovation characterised Mon oncle d'Amérique ( My American Uncle , 1980) in which
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#17329306433933784-636: A sculptor (1729–1802). Van Gogh's mother came from a prosperous family in The Hague . His father was the youngest son of a minister. The two met when Anna's younger sister, Cornelia, married Theodorus's older brother Vincent (Cent). Van Gogh's parents married in May 1851 and moved to Zundert. His brother Theo was born on 1 May 1857. There was another brother, Cor, and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna, and Willemina (known as "Wil"). In later life, Van Gogh remained in touch only with Willemina and Theo. Theodorus's salary as
3956-631: A series "Films Against Fascism". A new German translation was desired, but as the original film soundtrack components were unavailable, a completely new audio track was created. Evelin Matschke wrote the text, basing it on the French audio track, which was read by Erwin Geschonneck. Manfred Grabs (of the Academy of Arts, Berlin , where Eisler's manuscripts are held) prepared new performance materials. The orchestral score
4128-590: A series of " peasant character studies " which were the culmination of several years of work. When he complained that Theo was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, his brother responded that they were too dark and not in keeping with the bright style of Impressionism. In August his work was publicly exhibited for the first time, in the shop windows of the dealer Leurs in The Hague. One of his young peasant sitters became pregnant in September 1885; Van Gogh
4300-414: A series of short documentary films showing artists at work in their studios, as well as a few commercial commissions, Resnais was invited in 1948 to make a film about the paintings of Van Gogh , to coincide with an exhibition that was being mounted in Paris. He filmed it at first in 16mm, but when the producer Pierre Braunberger saw the results, Resnais was asked to remake it in 35mm. Van Gogh received
4472-711: A shot of a French police officer in the film, and with the German embassy in France, which attempted to halt the film's release at the Cannes Film Festival . Night and Fog was released to critical acclaim, and still receives very high praise today. It was re-shown on French television nationwide in 1990 to remind the people of the "horrors of war". The film alternates between past and present, using historical black-and-white and newly shot colour footage, respectively. The first part of Night and Fog shows remnants of Auschwitz while
4644-508: A shot of trains arriving in night and fog, which has become a metaphor for the mystery of their situation. Michel's and Wormser's 1954 exhibit Resistance, Liberation, Deportation was organized in nine parts: This was adapted into seven parts for the first draft of the film (dating from late February/early March 1955): The outline of the film changed dramatically when in April 1955, Wormser and Michel went to Poland to attend commemorations for
4816-533: A side issue—something that was in any case supposedly a matter for the Jews themselves and not for the majority of society. Michel and Wormser might have wanted scholarly objectivity instead of the heroism favoured by the deportees' association...but nevertheless the Holocaust had remained a blind spot even for them." Film producers Anatole Dauman , Samy Halfton, and Philippe Lifchitz were invited to this exhibit and felt that
4988-457: A student and introduced him to watercolour, which he worked on for the next month before returning home for Christmas. He quarrelled with his father, refusing to attend church, and left for The Hague. In January 1882, Mauve introduced him to painting in oil and lent him money to set up a studio. Within a month Van Gogh and Mauve fell out, possibly over the viability of drawing from plaster casts . Van Gogh could only afford to hire people from
5160-510: A studio in Antwerp. Meanwhile, other visitors to the hospital included Marie Ginoux and Roulin. Despite a pessimistic diagnosis, Van Gogh recovered and returned to the Yellow House on 7 January 1889. He spent the following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions of poisoning. In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople (including
5332-462: A studio of our own with Gauguin," he wrote in a letter to Theo, "I'd like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large Sunflowers ." When Boch visited again, Van Gogh painted a portrait of him, as well as the study The Poet Against a Starry Sky. In preparation for Gauguin's visit, Van Gogh bought two beds on advice from the station's postal supervisor Joseph Roulin , whose portrait he painted. On 17 September, he spent his first night in
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5504-591: A survivor of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp . The music of the soundtrack was composed by Hanns Eisler . Resnais was originally hesitant about making the film and refused the offer to make it until Cayrol was contracted to write the script. The film was shot entirely in the year 1955 and is composed of contemporary shots of the camps plus stock footage. Resnais and Cayrol found the film very difficult to make due to its graphic nature and subject matter. The film faced difficulties with French censors unhappy with
5676-453: A survivor of the camps) was intentionally understated to add to the distancing effect. Although the film encountered censorship problems with the French government, its impact was immense and it remains one of the director's most admired works. A different kind of collective memory was considered in Toute la mémoire du monde (1956), in which the seemingly endless spaces and bibliographic riches of
5848-469: A temporary member of a travelling theatre company, Les Arlequins. He returned to Paris in 1946 to start his career as a film editor, but also began making short films of his own. Finding himself to be a neighbour of the actor Gérard Philipe , he persuaded him to appear in a 16mm surrealist short, Schéma d'une identification (now lost). A more ambitious feature-length work, Ouvert pour cause d'inventaire , has also vanished without trace. After beginning with
6020-459: A text written by Paul Éluard . A political perspective on art also underpinned his next project (co-directed with Chris Marker ), Les statues meurent aussi ( Statues Also Die , 1953), a polemic about the destruction of African art by French cultural colonialism. Nuit et Brouillard ( Night and Fog , 1956) was one of the first documentaries about the Nazi concentration camps, but it deals more with
6192-604: A three-minute version of Fantômas . Around the age of 14, he discovered surrealism and through that an interest in the works of André Breton . Visits to the theatre in Paris gave Resnais the desire to be an actor, and in 1939 he moved to Paris to become an assistant in Georges Pitoëff 's company at the Théâtre des Mathurins . From 1940 to 1942 he studied acting in the Cours René-Simon (and one of his small jobs at this time
6364-602: A three-month course at a Protestant missionary school in Laken , near Brussels. In January 1879, he took up a post as a missionary at Petit-Wasmes in the working class, coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium. To show support for his impoverished congregation, he gave up his comfortable lodgings at a bakery to a homeless person and moved to a small hut, where he slept on straw. His humble living conditions did not endear him to church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining
6536-403: A trace, "into the night and fog". Another layer of meaning is expressed one quarter of the way through the film: Hanns Eisler 's chilling score, which has accompanied images of deportation, is disrupted as the train arrives at Auschwitz . The narrator observes that during the train ride, "death makes its first choice" and "a second is made upon arrival in the night and fog". The visuals cut to
6708-419: A visit. He was thrilled and took long walks with her. Kee was seven years older than he was and had an eight-year-old son. Van Gogh surprised everyone by declaring his love to her and proposing marriage. She refused with the words "No, nay, never" (" nooit, neen, nimmer "). After Kee returned to Amsterdam, Van Gogh went to The Hague to try to sell paintings and to meet with his second cousin, Anton Mauve . Mauve
6880-504: A volume of his photographs, taken between 1948 and 1971, of locations in London, Scotland, Paris, Nevers, Lyon, New York and Hiroshima; Jorge Semprun wrote the introductory text. Some of the photographs relate to his unfulfilled Harry Dickson film. After contributing an episode to L'An 01 (The Year 01) (1973), a collective film organised by Jacques Doillon , Resnais made a second collaboration with Jorge Semprun for Stavisky (1974), based on
7052-598: A woman and two men, in the opulent setting of a grand European hotel or château where the possibility of a previous encounter a year ago is repeatedly asserted and questioned and contradicted. After winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival , the film attracted great attention and provoked many divergent interpretations of how it should be understood, encouraged by interviews in which Robbe-Grillet and Resnais themselves appeared to give conflicting explanations of
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7224-410: A woman at a brothel Van Gogh and Gauguin both frequented. Van Gogh was found unconscious the next morning by a policeman and taken to hospital, where he was treated by Félix Rey, a young doctor still in training. The ear was brought to the hospital, but Rey did not attempt to reattach it as too much time had passed. Van Gogh researcher and art historian Bernadette Murphy discovered the true identity of
7396-692: Is Memory of the Garden at Etten . Their first joint outdoor venture was at the Alyscamps , when they produced the pendants Les Alyscamps . The single painting Gauguin completed during his visit was his portrait of Van Gogh. Van Gogh and Gauguin visited Montpellier in December 1888, where they saw works by Courbet and Delacroix in the Musée Fabre . Their relationship began to deteriorate; Van Gogh admired Gauguin and wanted to be treated as his equal, but Gauguin
7568-435: Is disgusting ". In despair, he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words: "Let me see her for as long as I can keep my hand in the flame." He did not recall the event well, but later assumed that his uncle had blown out the flame. Kee's father made it clear that her refusal should be heeded and that the two would not marry, largely because of Van Gogh's inability to support himself. Mauve took Van Gogh on as
7740-508: Is a gap in the record when he lived in Paris as the brothers lived together and had no need to correspond. The highly paid contemporary artist Jules Breton was frequently mentioned in Vincent's letters. In 1875 letters to Theo, Vincent mentions he saw Breton, discusses the Breton paintings he saw at a Salon , and discusses sending one of Breton's books but only on condition that it be returned. In
7912-405: Is acknowledged under the pseudonym Alex Reval, since he did not want his name to appear more than once in the credits.) Time and memory have regularly been identified as two of the principal themes of Resnais's work, at least in his earlier films. He however consistently tried to modify this view of his concerns: "I prefer to speak of the imaginary, or of consciousness. What interests me in the mind
8084-439: Is compromised by a lack of sensuousness, and that his seriousness of intent fails to communicate itself to audiences. Elsewhere however it is suggested that such views are partly based on a misreading of the films, especially his earlier ones, which has impeded an appreciation of the humour and irony which pervade his work; and other viewers have been able to make the connection between the film's form and its human dimension. There
8256-534: Is from the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdokumentatie (National institute for war documentation) in the Netherlands , and from French television, Gaumont Film Company , and the association of former deportees. Cayrol was aided by mutual friend and film maker Chris Marker while writing the commentary that was spoken by actor Michel Bouquet . After viewing the images in the editing room, Cayrol became nauseated and
8428-399: Is general agreement about Resnais's attachment to formalism in his approach to film; he himself regarded it as the starting point of his work, and usually had an idea of a form, or method of construction, in his head even before the plot or the characters took shape. For him this was also the basis for the communication of feeling: "There cannot be any communication except through form. If there
8600-448: Is no form, you cannot create emotion in the spectator." Another term which appears in commentaries on Resnais throughout his career is "surrealism", from his documentary portrait of a library in Toute la mémoire du monde , through the dreamlike innovations of Marienbad , to the latterday playfulness of Les Herbes folles . Resnais himself traced a link to his teenage discovery of surrealism in
8772-526: Is that faculty we have to imagine what is going to happen in our heads, or to remember what has happened". He also described his films as an attempt, however imperfect, to approach the complexity of thought and its mechanism. Another view of the evolution of Resnais's career saw him moving progressively away from a realistic treatment of 'big' subjects and overtly political themes towards films that are increasingly personal and playful. Resnais himself offered an explanation of this shift in terms of challenging what
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#17329306433938944-432: Is the artificial snow which is continually seen through set windows until eventually it falls on the studio interior as well. Speaking in 1986, Resnais said that he did not make a separation between cinema and theatre and refused to make enemies of them. He preferred working with "people of the theatre", and he said that he would never want to film a novel. It was therefore something of a departure when he chose L'Incident ,
9116-413: Is uncorroborated; Gauguin was almost certainly absent from the Yellow House that night, most likely staying in a hotel. After an altercation on the evening of 23 December 1888, Van Gogh returned to his room where he seemingly heard voices and either wholly or in part severed his left ear with a razor causing severe bleeding. He bandaged the wound, wrapped the ear in paper and delivered the package to
9288-578: The 64th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2014, where it won a Silver Bear award "for a feature film that opens new perspectives". At the time of his death, Resnais was preparing a further Ayckbourn project, based on the 2013 play Arrivals & Departures . Resnais was often linked with the group of French filmmakers who made their breakthrough as the New Wave or nouvelle vague in
9460-650: The Bibliothèque nationale were explored in another compendium of long travelling shots. In 1958 Resnais undertook a commission from the Pechiney company to make short film, in colour and wide-screen, extolling the merits of plastics, Le Chant du styrène . Poetry was brought to the project, literally, by Raymond Queneau who wrote the narration for the film in rhyming couplets. In his decade of making documentary short films, Resnais established his interest in and talent for collaboration with leading figures in other branches of
9632-557: The Fauves and German Expressionists in the early 20th century. Van Gogh's work gained widespread critical and commercial success in the following decades, and he has become a lasting icon of the romantic ideal of the tortured artist . Today, Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings ever sold . His legacy is celebrated by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds
9804-537: The Hanns Eisler Gesamtausgabe (Hanns Eisler Complete Edition) . After the film was complete, producer Dauman told Resnais that he was "delighted to have produced the film", but that he guaranteed that "It will never see a theatrical release". In December 1955, French censors wanted some scenes cut from Night and Fog . The end of the film showed scenes of bodies being bulldozed into mass graves , which some censors considered too horrifying to be allowed in
9976-531: The Institut Pédagogique National (National Teaching Institute) in Paris . The exhibit was based on Michel and Wormser's monograph, which had been published earlier in 1954 in a special issue of Revue d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale . The first public notice of a proposed film project was given during a radio broadcast on 10 November 1954, the opening day of the exhibition. Although Michel
10148-576: The Seine , including Bridges across the Seine at Asnières . In November 1887, Theo and Vincent befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris. Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged an exhibition alongside Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec, at the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 avenue de Clichy, Montmartre. In a contemporary account, Bernard wrote that the exhibition
10320-461: The Seine . In 1885 in Antwerp he had become interested in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints and had used them to decorate the walls of his studio; while in Paris he collected hundreds of them. He tried his hand at Japonaiserie , tracing a figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine Paris Illustre , The Courtesan or Oiran (1887), after Keisai Eisen , which he then graphically enlarged in
10492-462: The " Left Bank " group of authors and filmmakers who shared a commitment to modernism and an interest in left-wing politics. He also established a regular practice of working on his films in collaboration with writers previously unconnected with the cinema such as Jean Cayrol , Marguerite Duras , Alain Robbe-Grillet , Jorge Semprún and Jacques Sternberg . In later films, Resnais moved away from
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#173293064339310664-519: The Académie in November 1880, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modelling and perspective . Van Gogh returned to Etten in April 1881 for an extended stay with his parents. He continued to draw, often using his neighbours as subjects. In August 1881, his recently widowed cousin, Cornelia "Kee" Vos-Stricker, daughter of his mother's older sister Willemina and Johannes Stricker , arrived for
10836-498: The Antwerp Academy on 18 January 1886. He quickly got into trouble with Charles Verlat , the director of the academy and teacher of a painting class, because of his unconventional painting style. Van Gogh had also clashed with the instructor of the drawing class Franz Vinck . Van Gogh finally started to attend the drawing classes after antique plaster models given by Eugène Siberdt . Soon Siberdt and Van Gogh came into conflict when
11008-682: The Berlin House of Commons came out in explicit support of the film and the Paul Bausch, chairman of the Federal Bureau for the Press, Film and Radio, proposed that there should be free screenings for all civil servants in Germany. A local association of former deported prisoners insisted that the film be shown at Cannes, threatening to occupy the screening room in their camp uniforms unless the festival showed
11180-614: The German Federal Press Office, Celan refused to change the text. Celan's translation was recorded by narrator Kurt Glass in Paris on 26 October 1956. Although shown during the Leipzig Film Week in November 1956, the East German state film company DEFA accused Celan of mistranslation—a pretext for creating a version of the text in line with the communist ideals of East Germany. Upon realization that Film Polski owned
11352-462: The German people. Articles were written in French magazines including Libération and L'Humanité , protesting any censorship of the film at Cannes. One of the few writers who supported the withdrawal, Jean Dutourd , felt that Auschwitz and other concentration camps should be forgotten. Contrary to concerns over the film inciting anti-German hate, the film was shown across many major cities in Germany just months later. Willy Brandt, President of
11524-598: The Ginoux family) who described him as le fou roux "the redheaded madman"; Van Gogh returned to hospital. Paul Signac visited him twice in March; in April, Van Gogh moved into rooms owned by Rey after floods damaged paintings in his own home. Two months later, he left Arles and voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence . Around this time, he wrote, "Sometimes moods of indescribable anguish, sometimes moments when
11696-507: The Israeli Knesset (the Israeli parliament), immediately after its arrival, in 1956. A political debate opened around the film, dividing supporters and opponents between religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sepharadi , right wing and left wing, or—as Lebovic showed—between centrists and radicals from both ends of the political map. A centrist demand to ban the film resulted with a small and
11868-580: The Nazis used human corpses to make soap, a claim now seen by modern scholarship as a myth arising from wartime rumours. Alan Pakula studied Night and Fog when he was writing the 1982 film adaptation of Sophie’s Choice , William Styron 's 1979 novel about a Polish-Catholic survivor of Auschwitz. Nagisa Oshima titled his 1960 film Night and Fog in Japan after Resnais's film. Though Night and Fog had not premiered in Japan until 1963, Oshima had read about
12040-471: The New Wave because it created the conditions of production, and particularly the financial conditions, which allowed him to make a film like Hiroshima mon amour , his first feature film. Resnais was more often associated with a "Left Bank" group of writers and filmmakers who included Agnès Varda , Chris Marker , Jean Cayrol , Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet (with all of whom he collaborated in
12212-530: The Rhone (1888), and Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (1888), all intended for the decoration for the Yellow House . Van Gogh wrote that with The Night Café he tried "to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime". When he visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in June, he gave lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant – Paul-Eugène Milliet – and painted boats on
12384-562: The Spanish government caused it to be withdrawn and it was shown out of competition. In 1967 Resnais participated with six other directors, including Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard , in a collective work about the Vietnam war, Loin du Vietnam ( Far from Vietnam ). From 1968 onwards, Resnais's films no longer addressed, at least directly, big political issues in the way that a number of his previous ones had done, and his next project seemed to mark
12556-660: The Yellow House had to be furnished before he could fully move in, Van Gogh moved from the Hôtel Carrel to the Café de la Gare on 7 May 1888. He had befriended the Yellow House's proprietors, Joseph and Marie Ginoux , and was able to use it as a studio. Van Gogh wanted a gallery to display his work and started a series of paintings that eventually included Van Gogh's Chair (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), The Night Café (1888), Café Terrace at Night (September 1888), Starry Night Over
12728-807: The artistic avant-garde , including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin , who were seeking new paths beyond Impressionism . Frustrated in Paris and inspired by a growing spirit of artistic change and collaboration, in February 1888 Van Gogh moved to Arles in southern France to establish an artistic retreat and commune. Once there, his paintings grew brighter and he turned his attention to the natural world, depicting local olive groves , wheat fields and sunflowers . Van Gogh invited Gauguin to join him in Arles and eagerly anticipated Gauguin's arrival in late 1888. Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions . He worried about his mental stability, and often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. His friendship with Gauguin ended after
12900-716: The arts: with the painters who were the subjects of his early works; with writers (Eluard in Guernica , Cayrol in Nuit et Brouillard , Queneau in Le Chant du styrène ); with musicians ( Darius Milhaud in Gauguin , Hanns Eisler in Nuit et Brouillard , Pierre Barbaud in Le Chant du styrène ); and with other filmmakers (Resnais was the editor of Agnès Varda 's first film, La Pointe courte , and co-directed with Chris Marker Les statues meurent aussi ). Similar collaborations underpinned his future work in feature films. Resnais's first feature film
13072-522: The body of a freshly buried man, Felix Germont, impaled on a stake. Response was strong to this act. Night and Fog was broadcast on all three of the French national television channels at the same time to remind viewers of what took place under the Nazis. The film has been shown since 1991 as a teaching tool in schools in France. The film received very high acclaim in France on its initial release. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze wrote in Cahiers du Cinéma that
13244-448: The camera and entrusting most of its musical numbers to actors rather than to trained singers. There are many references to the theatre throughout Resnais's filmmaking ( Marienbad , Muriel , Stavisky , Mon oncle d'Amérique ), but he first undertook the challenge of taking a complete stage work and giving it new cinematic life in Mélo (1986), an adaptation of Henri Bernstein 's 1929 play of
13416-470: The camps. While Night and Fog states that the Nazis made soap from the corpses, giving the possible impression that this was done regularly, this claim is now considered untrue , with the exception of isolated cases. Researching and making the film were difficult for Resnais. He suffered nightmares during filming and found himself waking up screaming in the night. As Resnais began filming on site in Auschwitz,
13588-467: The characters express their key emotions or private thoughts by bursting into snatches of well-known (recorded) popular songs without interrupting the dramatic situation. A long-neglected operetta from the 1920s was the unexpected basis for Resnais's next film Pas sur la bouche ( Not on the Lips , 2003), in which he sought to reinvigorate an unfashionable form of entertainment by recreating its theatricality for
13760-431: The chest with a revolver . Van Gogh's work began to attract critical artistic attention in the last year of his life. After his death, his art and life story captured public imagination as an emblem of misunderstood genius, due in large part to the efforts of his widowed sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger . His bold use of colour, expressive line and thick application of paint inspired avant-garde artistic groups like
13932-661: The child. He believed Van Gogh was his father, but the timing of his birth makes this unlikely. Sien drowned herself in the River Scheldt in 1904. In September 1883, Van Gogh moved to Drenthe in the northern Netherlands. In December driven by loneliness, he went to live with his parents, then in Nuenen , North Brabant. In Nuenen, Van Gogh focused on painting and drawing. Working outside and very quickly, he completed sketches and paintings of weavers and their cottages . Van Gogh also completed The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen , which
14104-568: The clandestine activities of left-wing opponents of the Franco government in Spain. Resnais's scriptwriter on this film was the Spanish author Jorge Semprún , himself an ex-member of the Spanish Communist Party now in voluntary exile in France. Both men denied that the film was about Spain, but when it was entered for the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966, an objection from
14276-517: The contemporary art scene. Theo kept all of Vincent's letters to him; but Vincent kept only a few of the letters he received. After both had died, Theo's widow Jo Bonger-van Gogh arranged for the publication of some of their letters. A few appeared in 1906 and 1913; the majority were published in 1914. Vincent's letters are eloquent and expressive, have been described as having a "diary-like intimacy", and read in parts like autobiography. Translator Arnold Pomerans wrote that their publication adds
14448-425: The contribution of his chosen writer, whose status in the shared "authorship" of the film he fully acknowledged. He was also known to treat the completed screenplay with great fidelity, to the extent that some of his screenwriters remarked on how closely the finished film realised their intentions. (On the few occasions when he did participate in writing the script, particularly for his last three films, his contribution
14620-457: The difficulty of coming to terms with its horrors, was a central theme of his next film Muriel (1963), which used a fractured narrative to explore the mental states of its characters. It was among the first French films to comment, even indirectly, on the Algerian experience. A contemporary political issue also formed the background for La guerre est finie ( The War Is Over , 1966), this time
14792-628: The dignity of the priesthood". He then walked the 75 kilometres (47 mi) to Brussels, returned briefly to Cuesmes in the Borinage, but he gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten. He stayed there until around March 1880, which caused concern and frustration for his parents. His father was especially frustrated and advised that his son be committed to the lunatic asylum in Geel . Van Gogh returned to Cuesmes in August 1880, where he lodged with
14964-421: The diptych of Smoking/No Smoking (1993). Resnais, having admired the plays of Alan Ayckbourn for many years, chose to adapt what appeared the most intractable of them, Intimate Exchanges , a series of eight interlinked plays which follow the consequences of a casual choice to sixteen possible endings. Resnais slightly reduced the number of permuted endings and compressed the plays into two films, each having
15136-530: The distribution rights to the film for the Eastern Bloc , DEFA went ahead and produced a German-language version with a translation by Henryk Keisch, recorded by Raimund Schelcher. Argos Film's dissatisfaction with DEFA and Film Polski's action led to non-renewal of the film's license, resulting in this version of the film shown only between 1960 and 1963. In 1974, Night and Fog was telecast in East Germany in
15308-479: The drama with which the speech of the actors would interact. In subsequent years, Resnais gave his attention to music of more popular styles. He made Gershwin (1992), an innovative TV documentary in which the American composer's life and works were reviewed through the testimonies of performers and filmmakers, juxtaposed with commissioned paintings by Guy Peellaert . In On connaît la chanson ( Same Old Song , 1997), his tribute to television works of Dennis Potter ,
15480-823: The earlier part of his career). They were distinguished by their interests in documentary, left-wing politics, and the literary experiments of the nouveau roman . At the same time, Resnais was also a devotee of popular culture. He owned the largest private collection of comic books in France and in 1962 became the vice president and co-founder of an International Society for Comic Books, Le Club des bandes dessinées , renamed two years later as Centre d'Études des Littératures d'Expression Graphique (CELEG) . CELEG members also included Resnais's artistic collaborators Marker and Robbe-Grillet. The importance of creative collaboration in Resnais's films has been noted by many commentators. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he always refused to write his own screenplays and attached great importance to
15652-399: The end of January 1882, when she had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant. She had previously borne two children who died, but Van Gogh was unaware of this. On 2 July, she gave birth to a baby boy, Willem. When Van Gogh's father discovered the details of their relationship, he put pressure on his son to abandon Sien and her two children. Vincent at first defied him, and considered moving
15824-419: The end of the film. The censored scene was restored to its original form for a 2003 DVD release. The second attempted censorship of the film arose when the German embassy in France asked for the film to be withdrawn from the Cannes Film Festival . The French press reacted negatively to the proposed withdrawal, noting that Cayrol and Resnais had been careful to define the difference between Nazi criminals and
15996-439: The family out of the city, but in late 1883, he left Sien and the children. Poverty may have pushed Sien back into prostitution; the home became less happy and Van Gogh may have felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. Sien gave her daughter to her mother and baby Willem to her brother. Willem remembered visiting Rotterdam when he was about 12, when an uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry to legitimise
16168-522: The film and titled his work before seeing Resnais's version. Michael Haneke criticized films such as Downfall (2004) and Schindler's List (1993) for manipulating the audience to perceive events subjectively and not giving any room for an objective point of view. In contrast, he praised Night and Fog for its portrayal of such historical events. Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh ( Dutch: [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləɱ vɑŋ ˈɣɔx] ; 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890)
16340-405: The film could take the form of a montage of news reports. But as a result of the exhibit Resistance, Liberation, Deportation , both he and Wormser had received many items created by former inmates during their internment. They came to believe that they could create a unique perspective by providing an inside view of the camps. "The genocide of the Jews was treated in French remembrance as more of
16512-447: The film depicts the liberation of the country, the discovery of the horror of the camps, and the questioning of who was responsible for them. From 1954 to 1955, a number of activities took place in observance of the tenth anniversary of the liberation of France and of the concentration camps. One of these was an exhibition curated by Olga Wormser and Henri Michel , Resistance, Liberation, Deportation , which opened on 10 November 1954 at
16684-492: The film was a powerful work comparable to the work of artists Francisco Goya and Franz Kafka . French film critic and director François Truffaut referred to Night and Fog as the greatest film ever made. In his film, Une femme Mariée ( A Married Woman ), Jean-Luc Godard shows the film playing in the cinema where the lovers have their assignation. Modern reception has also been positive. Todd Gitlin describes it as "an unbearable apotheosis of desolation that speaks to
16856-483: The film. Another point of contention was that Resnais had included photographs of French officers guarding a detention center where Jews were gathered before deportation; it was operated by the collaborationist Vichy government located in central France. This scene prompted a call demanding that the shot be cut because it "might be offensive in the eyes of the present-day military". Resnais resisted this censorship, insisting that images of collaboration were important for
17028-403: The film. On 26 April 1956 the film was announced to be shown out of competition at Cannes. Night and Fog was shown in commercial theaters in Paris, in May 1956. The film was awarded the 1956 Jean Vigo Prize , a French award for young filmmakers. Night and Fog was shown on French television as early as 26 April 1959. On 10 May 1990 a Jewish cemetery at Carpentras was desecrated, and
17200-582: The film. There was little doubt however that it represented a significant challenge to the traditional concept of narrative construction in cinema. At the beginning of the 1960s France remained deeply divided by the Algerian War , and in 1960 the Manifesto of the 121 , which protested against French military policy in Algeria, was signed by a group of leading intellectuals and artists who included Resnais. The war, and
17372-422: The first time and bringing attention to Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. Theo kept a stock of Impressionist paintings in his gallery on boulevard Montmartre, but Van Gogh was slow to acknowledge the new developments in art. Conflicts arose between the brothers. At the end of 1886 Theo found living with Vincent to be "almost unbearable". By early 1887, they were again at peace, and Vincent had moved to Asnières ,
17544-407: The footage to contrast the desolate tranquility of several concentration camps — Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Struthof, and Mauthausen — with the horrific events that occurred there during World War II, to muse on the diffusion of guilt, and to pose the question of responsibility. The film deals briefly with the conditions of prisoners, and shows disturbing footage of prisoners and dead victims in
17716-440: The history of cinema". In his final two films, Resnais again drew his source material from the theatre. Vous n'avez encore rien vu ( You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet! , 2012) was adapted from two plays by Jean Anouilh , and it assembled thirteen actors (many of them regular performers in Resnais's earlier films) who have been summoned by the dying wish of an author to witness a new performance their roles in one of his plays. The film
17888-497: The imagination, and he was noted for devising innovative formal structures for his narratives. Throughout his career, he won many awards from international film festivals and academies, including one Academy Award , two César Awards for best director (he was nominated on eight occasions), three Louis Delluc Prize and one Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival . Resnais was born in 1922 at Vannes in Brittany, where his father
18060-434: The impressions of things, particularly nature or common objects. Van Gogh's profound unhappiness seems to have overshadowed the lessons, which had little effect. In March 1868, he abruptly returned home. He later wrote that his youth was "austere and cold, and sterile". In July 1869, Van Gogh's uncle Cent obtained a position for him at the art dealers Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After completing his training in 1873, he
18232-404: The large cast of La vie est un roman ( Life Is a Bed of Roses , 1983), a comic fantasy about utopian dreams in which three stories, from different eras and told in different styles, are interwoven within a shared setting. The action is punctuated by episodes of song which develop towards the end into scenes that are almost operatic; Resnais said that his starting point had been the desire to make
18404-528: The late 1950s and consolidated his early reputation with Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and Muriel (1963), all of which adopted unconventional narrative techniques to deal with themes of troubled memory and the imagined past. These films were contemporary with, and associated with, the French New Wave ( la nouvelle vague ), though Resnais did not regard himself as being fully part of that movement. He had closer links to
18576-425: The late 1950s, but by then he had already established a significant reputation through his ten years of work on documentary short films. He defined his own relationship by saying: "Although I was not fully part of the New Wave because of my age, there was some mutual sympathy and respect between myself and Rivette, Bazin, Demy, Truffaut ... So I felt friendly with that team." He nevertheless acknowledged his debt to
18748-458: The latter did not comply with Siberdt's requirement that drawings express the contour and concentrate on the line. When Van Gogh was required to draw the Venus de Milo during a drawing class, he produced the limbless, naked torso of a Flemish peasant woman. Siberdt regarded this as defiance against his artistic guidance and made corrections to Van Gogh's drawing with his crayon so vigorously that he tore
18920-504: The life of the notorious financier and embezzler whose death in 1934 provoked a political scandal. With glamorous costumes and sets, a musical score by Stephen Sondheim , and Jean-Paul Belmondo in the title role, it was seen as Resnais's most commercial film to date, but its complex narrative structure showed clear links with the formal preoccupations of his earlier films. With Providence (1977), Resnais made his first film in English, with
19092-566: The majority of his films from 1983 onwards; they were married in the English town of Scarborough in 1998. On his religious views, he called himself a "mystical atheist". Resnais died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 1 March 2014; he was buried in Montparnasse cemetery . Notes Night and Fog (1956 film) Night and Fog ( French : Nuit et brouillard ) is a 1956 French documentary short film . Directed by Alain Resnais , it
19264-441: The memory of the camps than with their actual past existence. Realising that standard documentary techniques would be incapable of confronting the enormity of the horror (and even risked humanising it), Resnais chose to use a distancing technique by alternating historical black-and-white images of the camps with contemporary colour footage of the sites in long tracking shots. The accompanying narration (written by Jean Cayrol , himself
19436-472: The middle school in Tilburg , where he was also deeply unhappy. His interest in art began at a young age. He was encouraged to draw as a child by his mother, and his early drawings are expressive, but do not approach the intensity of his later work. Constant Cornelis Huijsmans , who had been a successful artist in Paris, taught the students at Tilburg. His philosophy was to reject technique in favour of capturing
19608-462: The music by Argos Films on 18 October 1955, which offered him 200,000 francs and help in obtaining a visa to enter France. Resnais also sent Eisler a "lyrical" letter. In what Resnais considered a stroke of luck, Eisler opened the letter in the presence of Vladimir Pozner , who was familiar with Resnais and urged Eisler to accept the offer immediately. Eisler agreed to do it by telegram on 25 October. Eisler arrived in Paris on 30 November 1955. In
19780-493: The narrator Michel Bouquet describes the rise of Nazi ideology . The film continues with comparisons of the life of the Schutzstaffel to the starving prisoners in the camps. Bouquet shows sadism inflicted upon the doomed inmates, including scientific and medical experiments, executions, and rape. The next section is shown completely in black-and-white, and depicts images of gas chambers and piles of bodies. The final topic of
19952-471: The necessity of our making a mental effort to grasp what is impossible to grasp—a duty that has been imposed upon us by history." Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics had given the film a positive rating, based on 24 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.99/10. As Nitzan Lebovic pointed out, the film was not received as well in Israel; Resnais's universalist approach drew some criticism that reached
20124-416: The nightmares ended. From 29 September to 4 October 1955, Resnais and his crew filmed at Auschwitz-Birkenau . They next shot scenes at Majdanek from 7 to 10 October. For the archival material, Resnais had to use black-and-white footage, but did not receive any from English, German or French military sources. Some of the stock footage in the film is from Michel and Wormser's exhibit. Other stock footage
20296-426: The novelist Marguerite Duras a fusion of fiction and documentary was developed which acknowledged the impossibility of speaking about Hiroshima; one could only speak about the impossibility of speaking about Hiroshima. In the film, the themes of memory and forgetting are explored via new narrative techniques which balance images with narrated text and ignore conventional notions of plot and story development. The film
20468-426: The overtly political topics of some previous works and developed his interests in an interaction between cinema and other cultural forms, including theatre, music, and comic books. This led to imaginative adaptations of plays by Alan Ayckbourn , Henri Bernstein and Jean Anouilh , as well as films featuring various kinds of popular song. His films frequently explore the relationship between consciousness, memory, and
20640-472: The overture into his song Monolog Horatio's (Hamlet) . Eisler considered the possibility of conceiving of his music to Night and Fog as a separate orchestral work, although this never came to fruition. He reused portions of the music for his incidental music to The Days of the Commune ( Die Tage der Commune ) and William Tell ( Wilhelm Tell ). The score was published for the first time in 2014 as part of
20812-418: The paper. Van Gogh then flew into a violent rage and shouted at Siberdt: 'You clearly do not know what a young woman is like, God damn it! A woman must have hips, buttocks, a pelvis in which she can carry a baby!' According to some accounts, this was the last time Van Gogh attended classes at the academy and he left later for Paris. On 31 March 1886, which was about a month after the confrontation with Siberdt,
20984-435: The previous May. His teeth became loose and painful. In Antwerp he applied himself to the study of colour theory and spent time in museums—particularly studying the work of Peter Paul Rubens —and broadened his palette to include carmine , cobalt blue and emerald green . Van Gogh bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, later incorporating elements of their style into the background of some of his paintings. He
21156-502: The production designer, and the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen attached for the score. Resnais and Dauman worked towards the project for a decade before finally giving up. The screenplay for the film by Frédéric de Towarnicki was published in 2007. Resnais spent some time in America working on various unfulfilled projects, including one about the Marquis de Sade . He also published Repérages ,
21328-758: The proprietor moved to Isleworth in Middlesex, Van Gogh went with him. The arrangement was not successful; he left to become a Methodist minister's assistant. His parents had meanwhile moved to Etten ; in 1876 he returned home at Christmas for six months and took work at a bookshop in Dordrecht . He was unhappy in the position, and spent his time doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French, and German. He immersed himself in Christianity and became increasingly pious and monastic. According to his flatmate of
21500-418: The public to see. When Resnais refused to cut the French officer scene, the censors threatened to cut the last ten minutes of his film. Finally in compromise, Resnais said that obscuring the contested scene would not change the meaning of the film to him. He painted a fake support beam to obscure the distinctive képi worn by the French officer. In exchange, Resnais was allowed to show the bodies of victims at
21672-452: The public. From the 1980s onwards Resnais showed a particular interest in integrating material from other forms of popular culture into his films, drawing especially on music and the theatre. In almost all of his remaining films he chose to work repeatedly with a core group of actors comprising Sabine Azéma , Pierre Arditi , and André Dussollier , sometimes accompanied by Fanny Ardant or Lambert Wilson . The first four of these were among
21844-554: The responsibility for the film. Recording took place on 19 December 1955. Sound editing was completed on 24 December 1955. The overture in the score had been written before Eisler was offered work on the film. It had been written for Johannes R. Becher 's play Winterschlacht ( Winter Battle ), which had its premiere on 12 January 1955. Eisler's inspiration for this piece was Horatio 's monologue from Hamlet , which Eisler had read in Karl Kraus ' Weltgericht . Eisler later reworked
22016-451: The return trip to Paris. During the first days of his treatment, Van Gogh repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked for Gauguin, who asked a policeman attending the case to "be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken this man with great care, and if he asks for me tell him I have left for Paris; the sight of me might prove fatal for him." Gauguin fled Arles, never to see Van Gogh again. They continued to correspond, and in 1890, Gauguin proposed they form
22188-488: The rise of expressionism in modern art . Van Gogh's work was beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at age 37. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, The Red Vineyard , was sold. Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful, but showed signs of mental instability . As a young man, he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he
22360-414: The same name. Resnais remained entirely faithful to the play (apart from shortening it) and he emphasised its theatricality by filming in long takes on large sets of evidently artificial design, as well as by marking off the acts of the play with the fall of a curtain. After an excursion into the world of comic books and cartoons in I Want to Go Home (1989), an ambitious theatrical adaptation followed with
22532-520: The sea and the village . MacKnight introduced Van Gogh to Eugène Boch , a Belgian painter who sometimes stayed in Fontvieille, and the two exchanged visits in July. When Gauguin agreed to visit Arles in 1888, Van Gogh hoped for friendship and to realise his idea of an artists' collective. Van Gogh prepared for Gauguin's arrival by painting four versions of Sunflowers in one week. "In the hope of living in
22704-645: The still sparsely furnished Yellow House. When Gauguin consented to work and live in Arles with him, Van Gogh started to work on the Décoration for the Yellow House , probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. He completed two chair paintings: Van Gogh's Chair and Gauguin's Chair. After much pleading from Van Gogh, Gauguin arrived in Arles on 23 October and, in November, the two painted together. Gauguin depicted Van Gogh in his The Painter of Sunflowers ; Van Gogh painted pictures from memory, following Gauguin's suggestion. Among these "imaginative" paintings
22876-703: The street as models, a practice of which Mauve seems to have disapproved. In June, Van Gogh suffered a bout of gonorrhoea and spent three weeks in hospital. Soon after, he first painted in oils, bought with money borrowed from Theo. He liked the medium, and he spread the paint liberally, scraping from the canvas and working back with the brush. He wrote that he was surprised at how good the results were. By March 1882, Mauve appeared to have gone cold towards Van Gogh, and stopped replying to his letters. He had learned of Van Gogh's new domestic arrangement with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik (1850–1904), and her young daughter. Van Gogh had met Sien towards
23048-587: The studio in April and May 1886, where he frequented the circle of the Australian artist John Russell , who painted his portrait in 1886. Van Gogh also met fellow students Émile Bernard , Louis Anquetin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – who painted a portrait of him in pastel. They met at Julien "Père" Tanguy 's paint shop, (which was, at that time, the only place where Paul Cézanne 's paintings were displayed). In 1886, two large exhibitions were staged there, showing Pointillism and Neo-impressionism for
23220-462: The subject matter. Resnais eventually agreed, providing that poet and novelist Jean Cayrol , who had been a concentration camp prisoner, would collaborate on the project. Resnais officially signed his contract for the film on 24 May 1955. Cayrol had written in 1946 about his experience as a survivor of Mauthausen in Poèmes de la nuit et brouillard ("Poems of night and fog"), from which the documentary
23392-585: The tasks of assembling documentary material on, and of launching historical inquiries and studies of, the period of the French occupation from 1940 to 1945. The second was the Réseau du souvenir (Network of memory), an association devoted to the memory of those deported to camps. A pre-production meeting was held on 28 May 1955, during which participants decided "to explain clearly how the concentration-camp system (its economic aspect) flowed automatically from fascism". The film's working title , Resistance and Deportation ,
23564-664: The teachers of the academy decided that 17 students, including Van Gogh, had to repeat a year. The story that Van Gogh was expelled from the academy by Siberdt is therefore unfounded. Van Gogh moved to Paris in March 1886 where he shared Theo's rue Laval apartment in Montmartre and studied at Fernand Cormon 's studio. In June the brothers took a larger flat at 54 rue Lepic . In Paris, Vincent painted portraits of friends and acquaintances , still life paintings , views of Le Moulin de la Galette , scenes in Montmartre , Asnières and along
23736-750: The team, a new script (dated 11 June 1955) emerged with 12 sections: The film draws on several sources, including black-and-white still images from various archives, excerpts from older black-and-white films from French, Soviet, and Polish newsreels, footage shot by detainees of the Westerbork internment camp in the Netherlands, or by the Allies' "clean-up" operations, plus new color and black-and-white footage filmed in 1955 at concentration camps. Resnais filmed his color sequences in Eastmancolor rather than Agfacolor, using
23908-442: The tenth anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation. They wanted to include film of how Auschwitz was currently seen. They were approached by Auschwitz museum staff, who supplied additional documentation and images. Visiting Poland gave Wormser and Michel the opportunity to make contact with Polish archives. The result was broadening the scope of the film from a nationalist view toward a broader European perspective. Once Resnais joined
24080-501: The theories of the neurobiologist Henri Laborit about animal behaviour are juxtaposed with three interwoven fictional stories; and a further counterpoint to the fictional characters is provided by the inclusion of film extracts of the classic French film actors with whom they identify. The film won several international awards including the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, and it also proved to be one of Resnais's most successful with
24252-430: The time, Paulus van Görlitz, Van Gogh ate frugally, avoiding meat. To support his religious conviction and his desire to become a pastor, in 1877, the family sent him to live with his uncle Johannes Stricker , a respected theologian, in Amsterdam. Van Gogh prepared for the University of Amsterdam theology entrance examination; he failed the exam and left his uncle's house in July 1878. He undertook, but also failed,
24424-452: The woman named Gabrielle Berlatier, who died in Arles at the age of 80 in 1952, and whose descendants still lived (as of 2020) just outside Arles. Gabrielle, known in her youth as "Gaby," was a 17-year-old cleaning girl at the brothel and other local establishments at the time Van Gogh presented her with his ear. Van Gogh had no recollection of the event, suggesting that he may have suffered an acute mental breakdown. The hospital diagnosis
24596-430: The works of André Breton: "I hope that I always remain faithful to André Breton who refused to suppose that imaginary life was not a part of real life". In 1969 Resnais married Florence Malraux (daughter of the French statesman and writer André Malraux ). She was a regular member of his production team, working as assistant director on most of his films from 1961 to 1986. His second wife was Sabine Azéma , who acted in
24768-482: The world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings. The most comprehensive primary source on Van Gogh is his correspondence with his younger brother, Theo . Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of Vincent's thoughts and theories of art, are recorded in the hundreds of letters they exchanged from 1872 until 1890. Theo van Gogh was an art dealer and provided his brother with financial and emotional support as well as access to influential people on
24940-421: Was Hiroshima mon amour (1959). It originated as a commission from the producers of Nuit et Brouillard ( Anatole Dauman and Argos Films) to make a documentary about the atomic bomb, but Resnais initially declined, thinking that it would be too similar to the earlier film about the concentration camps and that it presented the same problem of how to film incomprehensible suffering. However, in discussion with
25112-449: Was "acute mania with generalised delirium", and within a few days, the local police ordered that he be placed in hospital care. Gauguin immediately notified Theo, who, on 24 December, had proposed marriage to his old friend Andries Bonger 's sister Johanna. That evening, Theo rushed to the station to board a night train to Arles. He arrived on Christmas Day and comforted Vincent, who seemed to be semi-lucid. That evening, he left Arles for
25284-450: Was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings , most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes , still lifes , portraits , and self-portraits , most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic brushwork that contributed to
25456-400: Was a pharmacist. An only child, he was often ill with asthma in childhood, which led to his being withdrawn from school and educated at home. He was an eager reader, in a range that extended from classics to comic books, but from the age of 10 he became fascinated by films. For his twelfth birthday his parents gave him a Kodak 8mm camera with which he began to make his own short films, including
25628-488: Was accused of forcing himself upon her, and the village priest forbade parishioners to model for him. He moved to Antwerp that November and rented a room above a paint dealer's shop in the rue des Images ( Lange Beeldekensstraat ). He lived in poverty and ate poorly, preferring to spend the money Theo sent on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee and tobacco became his staple diet. In February 1886, he wrote to Theo that he could only remember eating six hot meals since
25800-845: Was ahead of anything else in Paris. There, Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and Van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin. Discussions on art, artists, and their social situations started during this exhibition, continued and expanded to include visitors to the show, like Camille Pissarro and his son Lucien , Signac and Seurat. In February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, Van Gogh left, having painted more than 200 paintings during his two years there. Hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his only visit to Seurat in his studio. Ill from drink and suffering from smoker's cough, in February 1888, Van Gogh sought refuge in Arles . He seems to have moved with thoughts of founding an art colony . The Danish artist Christian Mourier-Petersen
25972-402: Was almost five years before Resnais was able to direct another film. Throughout the 1960s, Resnais was attached to direct an international production called Les Aventures de Harry Dickson , based on the stories by Jean Ray , with Anatole Dauman as producer. The project was intended to star either Dirk Bogarde or Laurence Olivier as the titular detective, with André Delvaux attached as
26144-473: Was arrogant and domineering, which frustrated Van Gogh. They often quarrelled; Van Gogh increasingly feared that Gauguin was going to desert him, and the situation, which Van Gogh described as one of "excessive tension", rapidly headed towards crisis point. The exact sequence that led to the mutilation of Van Gogh's ear is not known. Gauguin said, fifteen years later, that the night followed several instances of physically threatening behaviour. Their relationship
26316-404: Was as an extra in the film Les Visiteurs du soir ), but he then decided in 1943 to apply to the newly formed film school IDHEC to study film editing. The filmmaker Jean Grémillon was one of the teachers who had the most influence on him at that period. Resnais left in 1945 to do his military service which took him to Germany and Austria with the occupying French forces, as well as making him
26488-448: Was changed to the French translation of the German term Nacht und Nebel ( Night and Fog ). This was the term for handling World War II prisoners according to a decree promulgated by Himmler on 7 December 1941. This decree provided that those resisting the Reich , who were arrested in their own countries but not promptly executed, would be deported to camps where they would vanish without
26660-414: Was complex and Theo may have owed money to Gauguin, who suspected the brothers were exploiting him financially. It seems likely that Vincent realised that Gauguin was planning to leave. The following days saw heavy rain, leading to the two men being shut in the Yellow House. Gauguin recalled that Van Gogh followed him after he left for a walk and "rushed towards me, an open razor in his hand." This account
26832-533: Was drinking heavily again, and was hospitalised between February and March 1886, when he was possibly also treated for syphilis . After his recovery, despite his antipathy towards academic teaching, he took the higher-level admission exams at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and, in January 1886, matriculated in painting and drawing. He became ill and run down by overwork, poor diet and excessive smoking. He started to attend drawing classes after plaster models at
27004-434: Was energised by the local countryside and light; his works from this period are rich in yellow, ultramarine and mauve . They include harvests, wheat fields and general rural landmarks from the area, including The Old Mill (1888), one of seven canvases sent to Pont-Aven on 4 October 1888 in an exchange of works with Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Charles Laval and others. In March 1888, Van Gogh created landscapes using
27176-510: Was his companion for two months and at first, Arles appeared exotic to Van Gogh. In a letter, he described it as a foreign country: "The Zouaves , the brothels, the adorable little Arlésienne going to her First Communion, the priest in his surplice, who looks like a dangerous rhinoceros, the people drinking absinthe , all seem to me creatures from another world." The time in Arles was one of Van Gogh's more prolific periods: he completed 200 paintings and more than 100 drawings and watercolours. He
27348-498: Was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps . The title is taken from the Nacht und Nebel ( German for "Night and Fog") program of abductions and disappearances decreed by Nazi Germany. The documentary features the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek established in occupied Poland while describing the lives of prisoners in the camps. Night and Fog was made in collaboration with scriptwriter Jean Cayrol ,
27520-495: Was recorded by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (East Berlin) with Eugen Schneider conducting. A DVD edition of Night and Fog was released by The Criterion Collection on 23 June 2003. It restores the scene of the French officer that was censored in France on the film's initial release. The film was released on Blu-ray in 2016, remastered in 4K from the original camera negative. The film relates that
27692-460: Was secretly engaged to a former lodger. He grew more isolated and religiously fervent. His father and uncle arranged a transfer to Paris in 1875, where he became resentful of issues such as the degree to which the art dealers commodified art, and he was dismissed a year later. In April 1876, he returned to England to take unpaid work as a supply teacher in a small boarding school in Ramsgate . When
27864-439: Was shown at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival , alongside Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups ( The 400 Blows ), and its success became associated with the emerging movement of the French New Wave . Resnais's next film was L'Année dernière à Marienbad ( Last Year at Marienbad , 1961), which he made in collaboration with the novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet . The fragmented and shifting narrative presents three principal characters,
28036-471: Was shown in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival . Aimer, boire et chanter (2014) was the third film which Resnais adapted from a play by Alan Ayckbourn, in this case Life of Riley , in which three couples are thrown into confusion by the news that a shared friend has a terminal illness. Three weeks before Resnais's death, the film received its premiere in the competition section of
28208-505: Was stolen from the Singer Laren in March 2020. From August 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbour's daughter ten years his senior, joined him on his forays; she fell in love and he reciprocated, though less enthusiastically. They wanted to marry, but neither side of their families approved. Margot was distraught and took an overdose of strychnine , but survived after Van Gogh rushed her to a nearby hospital. On 26 March 1885, his father died of
28380-588: Was the norm in filmmaking at the time: having made his early films when escapist cinema was predominant, he progressively felt the need to move away from exploration of social and political issues as that itself became almost the norm in contemporary cinema. Experimentation with narrative forms and genre conventions instead became a central focus of his films. A frequent criticism of Resnais's films among English-language commentators has been that they are emotionally cold; that they are all about technique without grasp of character or subject, that his understanding of beauty
28552-449: Was the successful artist Van Gogh longed to be. Mauve invited him to return in a few months and suggested he spend the intervening time working in charcoal and pastels ; Van Gogh returned to Etten and followed this advice. Late in November 1881, Van Gogh wrote a letter to Johannes Stricker, one which he described to Theo as an attack. Within days he left for Amsterdam. Kee would not meet him, and her parents wrote that his "persistence
28724-506: Was titled. Resnais intended the film to warn of the horrors of Nazism, which he feared could be repeated during the Algerian War , during which torture and internment were already taking place. The film was commissioned by two organizations: the first was the Comité d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale (Committee on the history of the Second World War), a government commission assigned
28896-448: Was transferred to Goupil's London branch on Southampton Street , and took lodgings at 87 Hackford Road , Stockwell . This was a happy time for Van Gogh; he was successful at work and, at 20, was earning more than his father. Theo's wife, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, later remarked that this was the best year of Vincent's life. He became infatuated with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but she rejected him after he confessed his feelings; she
29068-516: Was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted into ill-health and solitude. He was keenly aware of modernist trends in art and, while back with his parents, took up painting in 1881. His younger brother, Theo , supported him financially, and the two of them maintained a long correspondence . Van Gogh's early works consist of mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers . In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of
29240-402: Was unable to write further. Marker's contribution was to adapt the written text to the rhythm of the images in the film. While editing the film, Resnais felt general discomfort, saying that he "had scruples, knowing that making the film more beautiful would make it more moving - it upset me". Originally Wormser and Michel had wanted to use the song " Chant des Marais " ( Peat Bog Soldiers ) as
29412-492: Was unaware of Van Gogh or his attempted visit. There are no known letters between the two artists and Van Gogh is not one of the contemporary artists discussed by Breton in his 1891 autobiography Life of an Artist . Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert , in the predominantly Catholic province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. He was the oldest surviving child of Theodorus van Gogh (1822–1885),
29584-439: Was under pressure from veterans' organizations to create a film that would honor French Resistance fighters, Wormser argued for a scholarly approach that would show the concentration camps as a systematic microcosm of the German war economy. Michel recognized that this approach would enable broader financing, and both re-envisioned the film as "communicating historical research through contemporary media." Initially, Michel thought
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