“The Nude Muse of Pierre Bonnard”: an artless biopic of the artist
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The film “The Nude Muse of Pierre Bonnard,” shown at the last Cannes Film Festival, was released in Russian distribution almost a year later. The torments and joys of the outstanding French artist are carefully filmed, but they look meaningless.
Paris, winter 1893. Pierre Bonnard (Vincent Macaigne), whose name is already well-known, enthusiastically paints a new model, still unnamed. In the morning he noticed her on the street, probably not far from Montmartre, and now she reluctantly bares her breasts to him, and then luxuriates on the bed, throwing her head back in post-coital languor. Conceived as just another sketch, this majestic nude, subjugating the gloomy and sloppy interior of a bohemian studio, would soon become a sensation at the Salon of Independents, and over the years would be declared a masterpiece of post-impressionism. But Martha—that’s the name of the girl who dozed off while visiting the genius—doesn’t even know about the role she has to play in the history of world art. Her thoughts are busy with everyday worries – how to feed herself and how to help her sister and mother. She comes from a poor family, of which she is terribly ashamed, and her health is poor, according to indifferent doctors. The chances of getting out of poverty or simply surviving are negligible; she will love the strange man who abandoned his career as a lawyer for canvases and paints at first sight, because he is the only one who can save her. 32 years later they got married.
“Bonnard Pierre and Marthe” by Martin Provost, a director who has established himself as the author of simple-minded melodramas about the insignificant hardships of Gallic existence, traditionally received in the Russian box office the cumbersome and somewhat distorting title “The Naked Muse of Pierre Bonnard.” Apparently, in order to entice the viewer with the piquant aspects of the creative process: artists, as you know, do not so much create as indulge in vices, especially in Paris during the Belle Epoque, where a French kiss invariably led to the French disease. Contrary to the Russian title, there is only about two minutes of nudity in the film; the rest of the screen time is occupied by the exposed nerves of the heroines, who, through the evil intent of fate, ended up in the field of view of Pierre Bonnard. Critics called him the painter of joy, guessing, however, that, beyond the frame, the grief he caused to his legal wife Martha (Cecile de France) and his mistress Rene Monchati (Stacy Martin), who eventually committed suicide, invariably came into its own.
In principle, this picture should be classified as a typical biopic. The narrative is linear, neatly divided into decades – the first sex, the first masterpiece, the first gray hair, the First World War. Then the action enters the second circle in a similar sequence – with the only difference: Martha died almost immediately after the Allied victory, and Bonnard was still grieving alone in the sun of the Cote d’Azur. As a haunting refrain, not only destructive wars are repeated, but also symbolizing eternal youth and artistry, jogging naked from the studio to the Seine – even in his death throes, the hero of this biopic recalls how he rushed through meadows copied from landscapes from the collection of the Orsay Museum, in the company of his departed muses , then burst into ringing laughter.
Film biographies of artists usually tend toward caricatured simplifications and vulgar generalizations. The authors fluctuate between informativeness and mystery. On the one hand, it is necessary to retell the contents of the exhibition catalogue, adhering to chronology, on the other hand, to tear the veil of secrecy from the soul in the depths of which either the Sistine Chapel or the “Sistine Madonna” was born. The result is a mixture of “Arzamas” (podcast) with Aznavour (performing the hit “La Boheme”). This is exactly what happened with “The Nude Muse of Pierre Bonnard.” Here the protagonist graciously explains to Martha who is who on the Parisian art horizon: “These are my friends “Nabi”, translated from Hebrew as “prophets”, Vuillard on the left, Sérusier on the right, but be careful not to confuse them.” But the protagonist hides, as in the lyrics of the song, behind blooming lilacs or points out to Claude Monet a rare water lily in the pond. And only Bonnard’s painting reveals the tragic truth – these famous nudes, dozing in warm baths, the further, the more clearly reminiscent of ice sarcophagi, seem ready to close their tear-stained eyes forever. Martha, who is in poor health, will endure a lot and die not from old age, but from misfortune. But she never even dreamed of peace and will, as can be seen from the masterpieces written by her selfish husband.
In theaters from March 21
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