Lust for Life Page #7

Do you know the girl?

She's a Dutch girl.

He's going to Holland this weekend

to meet her family.

Mother will be happy.

She's always wanted

one of us to get married.

When you write your brother,

wish him well from me and my family.

Yes, I will.

Thank you.

"But this doesn't mean

that I don't wish you both happiness...

"with all my heart.

"With your wife,

you won't be Lonely anymore.

"Your house won't be empty."

He must be so alone down there.

You two have always been so close.

Is there anything we can do, Theo,

to help him?

I wish I knew.

If only I could sell something of his.

Just one, that'd be a help.

Heaven knows I've tried.

He asks about Gauguin again, too.

He wants me to persuade him

to go down there.

- Gauguin?

- It might work.

When they were here last winter,

they seemed to get on.

Vincent was one of the few people

Paul didn't attack.

Perhaps if they were together...

If Vincent could have someone with him,

to whom he could pour out his heart.

Another painter.

- Do you think Gauguin would do it?

- He might.

I'd have to send him some money.

Enough to pay his debts in Brittany...

and get him down to Arles.

It could be the solution for both of them.

- Vincent!

- Paul?

- You're here. You're really here.

- Yes, I'm here.

You're a day early.

Theo told me you wouldn't come till...

Here, let me take these things.

Come on up, Paul.

Did you have trouble finding the place?

Your painting things are here,

and canvases.

They arrived the day before yesterday.

I fixed this room up for you.

- It's very nice.

- Thanks.

I painted them for you.

That's very friendly of you, Vincent.

That's very friendly.

Have you had anything to eat?

Come on downstairs.

I've got something on the stove.

I can't wait to see the things

you did in Brittany.

- I think you'll be interested.

- The way you wrote about them.

I may have hit something there

I never quite got before.

Sounds wonderful.

It was all I could do

to keep from opening them up...

and looking at them.

- Be ready in just a minute.

- Take your time.

I see you've been working.

That's not difficult

in this part of the world.

- I can't tell you, Paul.

- Yeah.

You'll see for yourself.

In the morning, you open the window,

see, there's the green of the gardens.

Wait till you see the yellow fields at noon

under the full sun.

And the light, you wouldn't believe it...

but all the time,

these yellows are really here.

Everywhere you look,

there's something to paint.

What an artist like you would do out here.

We'll go out this afternoon.

Wait a minute. I'm not one of

those painters that gets off the train...

and turns out a sunlight effect

before he's even unpacked his bags.

Paul, show me the Brittany paintings.

There's plenty of time for that.

- Come on, let's eat.

- All right.

A little heavy on the turpentine, isn't it?

What did you do,

boil some old paint tubes?

Smells like it.

Vincent, from now on

you better let me do the cooking.

All right.

Even my worst enemies

won't deny me that talent.

Do you really have to live like this?

- What do you mean?

- Look at it. How can you stand it?

Look at the paint in those brushes.

How can you work this way? It's a mess.

If we're going to live together,

might as well start right.

- Let's get this place in order.

- Show me the paintings.

That can wait.

If there's one thing I can't stand,

it's confusion, mental or physical.

There. Now, this'll have to last us

till the first.

After that, everything Theo sends us

every month:

Your allowance,

his advance on my paintings...

goes into this box.

Anything we spend, we write down.

So much for food, so much for drink,

for tobacco and other relaxation.

That way there'll be no more starving

at the end of each month. Understood?

Understood.

I still can't believe you're here.

Before you came here,

I was a little frightened.

I'd been alone so long that...

I hope you, too, will find

what you want here, Paul.

A chance to create in peace.

This could be just the beginning.

We could get other painters here.

Make a colony of it. A studio of the south,

with you at its head.

- A Father Superior?

- As its guiding force.

I thought maybe we'd ask Bernard

and Lautrec, only he'd never leave Paris.

- And Signac.

- Haven't you heard?

I've dismissed Mr. Signac

from the legion of my devoted admirers.

He bores me.

What about Guillaumin and Seurat?

- You know what I think of Seurat.

- He's so ill.

- This place would do him good.

- It wouldn't do me good.

I don't want that kind of painting

around me.

Vincent, I've just spent a year

beating my brains out.

I've sacrificed everything:

Execution, effect...

all the things that come easiest to me,

for a style.

A style that'll convey the mood

of what I see...

the idea, without regard

for concrete reality.

What do you paint, then?

What's in my head.

Art's an abstraction, not a picture book.

A painting is a flat surface

covered with lines and colors...

arranged in certain order.

Yeah, but what about the arrangements

that exist in nature?

I choose to disregard nature.

What I'm after are harmonies...

harmonies of pure color, deliberately

composed and carefully calculated...

that move you as music moves you.

But then you deny

the greatest artists of all:

Rembrandt, Rubens, Delacroix, Millet...

Millet?

Millet! That calendar artist

with his dun-colored tones...

- and sentimental insipidities.

- How dare you say that?

Millet's one of the few artists

that ever really captured the human spirit.

Here. In the dignity of toil.

Millet uses paint

to express the word of God.

Then he should have been a preacher,

not a painter.

If there's one thing I despise,

it's emotionalism in painting.

- Vincent, painting is for painters.

- Like your friend Degas, I suppose...

who's done nothing but ballet dancers

and racehorses for 10 years.

You can learn from him.

You can learn control!

I don't want control!

I'm not afraid of emotion.

When I paint the sun,

I want the people to feel it revolving...

giving off light and heat.

When I paint a peasant...

I want to feel the sun pouring into him

like it does into the corn...

Is that what you do

when you overload your brush?

When you slap paint on like putty?

When you make your trees

writhe like snakes...

and your sun explode all over the canvas?

What I see when I look at your work

is that you paint too fast!

You look too fast!

Whatever you say, brigadier.

Maybe you're right.

Maybe we need another drink.

I'm sorry, Paul.

Look, Paul, when I painted The Night Caf,

I tried to show evil.

The most violent passions of humanity.

I painted it blood red and dark yellow.

And a green billiard table in the middle.

Four lemon-yellow lamps...

with a glare of orange and green...

in an atmosphere of pale sulfur,

like a furnace.

I tried to show a place

where a man can ruin himself...

go mad...

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