The Debussy Film Page #2

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(P March-like music)

(Music obscures speech)

(Music fades)

- Is this Lilly?

- Yes.

- Hello.

- Hi.

Come along here, darling,

I want to talk to you.

- All right? Can I help you?

- That's OK.

- Are you cold?

- No.

- Did you have a nice swim?

- It was fine, thanks.

This is, er...Debussy.

(Lilly) Hello.

This is, er...

Sorry, darling.

- This is, er...0ur little Gaby.

- Hello.

And this is my secretary.

All right? Shall we go and see

the rough cut?

All right?

(Director) Oh, please. Not again!

You behave, old man!

- What am I going to see?

- Did you read that book I told you about?

Most of it.

Oh.

I'm surprised.

And did you read this chapter

about Pierre Louys?

Well, I didn't get that far.

Ah.

To follow this, you must know.

Well, er... Hm...

Can we hold it

for a few minutes, please?

Thank you.

Er...

Debussy is working in Paris,

er...living with Gaby.

Or rather she's working and he's living.

He earned next to nothing.

Then he met Pierre Louys.

Louys was rich.

He collected rare books,

oriental tapestries,

cocktail recipes, betting systems,

and as many experiences

as money and agility could buy.

(Chuckles)

Debussy became his favourite.

Or he sponged from him,

whichever way you want to put it.

Anyway, they were friends and, er...

worked together on various projects,

most of which collapsed.

But Louys introduces him

to all sorts of writers.

The two of them were going to share

a house at one time.

He wanted Debussy to come to

North Africa and the Middle East with him,

but Debussy didn't go.

(Chuckles) Louys liked young girls.

He wrote to Debussy

saying that he couldn't get on

with the work they were planning

because he did nothing with his fingers

except unmentionable things.

Mm. And the music behind this scene

is from L Zzprs-m/b?' 0"un zune.

Debussy took the poem from Mallarm.

- We're ready.

- All right... (indistinct)

What happened to Louys, the kinky one?

Kinky...

He got what he deserved. He...

lived to a cultured old...

dirty old age.

OK?

OK, let's run.

Who's playing LOWS?

(Whispers) I am.

Me.

That's me. That's Louys.

He wrote

a very successful pornographic book,

took lots of strange photographs.

What he really liked to do

was manipulate people,

a kind of Svengali.

And Debussy was good material for him,

always dreaming.

At one time, he and Gaby used to spend

more time at L0uiis's home than their own.

And Debussy would always be dreaming,

dreaming his way through the strange

beauty of all L0uis's possessions.

Dreaming his way through

a hot summer afternoon with Gaby.

They did play with balloons. I checked.

(I DEBUSSY:

"Prlude Faprs-midi d'un faune")

(Director) It was new music. Really new.

Nothing like it

had ever been written before.

(Woman) Who's the slave girl?

(Director)

Zara, a present from Andre Gide.

There he is.

It was he who went to Algeria with Louys,

instead of Debussy.

I don't know how to work it in.

Gide, Oscar Wilde, Mallarm,

Rodin, Monet.

All interacting, all so complicated.

(Jazz music)

- Rene Peter, Baudelaire...

- Mm.

- Mater... Materlich?

- Maeterlinck.

- Mallarm.

- Yeah.

- Louys himself?

- Yeah...

He based his music

on writings of all these?

Yes, 90 per cent of his music started

from a painting or a poem or a play.

They're just a selection,

they were all in Paris.

If I put down everyone

he worked with or knew well,

it would sound like the last roll call

of all the brilliant dead.

- Who were Chocolat and...Footitt, is it?

- Yes. Clowns, friends of his.

- And the Revue b/anche?

- A magazine.

He was the music editor for a time.

According to your list, he was patron

and pianist of every nightclub in time.

What did he do for kicks?

It's all in his music.

What's this g/gue bit?

Ah, it's a poem by Verlaine.

He came to London for a time,

to get away from scandals in France.

- What, like Debussy?

- Like Debussy.

Dansez la g/gue.

Dansons la g/gue.

That's the title of the poem.

"Everybody dance the jig".

- It sounds lousy in English.

- Yes.

Yes. He wrote it here, in Soho, in a cafe.

- The jig that's The Kee/Rom

- Keel Row?

Keel Row. It was being played

on a barrel organ outside.

It's about the streets.

Debussy based one of his Images on it.

Ah...it goes like this, er...

"Dansons la gigue!

"Most of all I like her dancing eyes

"Sharper than stars, malicious

"I love her eyes

"Dansons la gigue!"

(I DEBUSSY:

"images - Gigues")

"She had the fine gift

of making her lover desperate

"And doing it so charmingly

"Dansons la gigue...

"Even more,

I liked the ripe feeling of her kiss

"Especially as she was dead for me

"Dansons la gigue...

"I remember, I remember those hours

"Those embraces

"My finest possessions

"Dansons la gigue!"

(I DEBUSSY:

"images - Gigues")

(Debussy) "Even more,

I liked the ripe feeling of her kiss

"Especially as she was dead for me

"Dansons la gigue..."

(Director) Right. You are depressed.

You don't know where Debussy is.

You have no money.

He's gone to buy meat but he'll probably

bring back a bit of silk,

a statuette or something.

OK, walk it through. That's right.

Now remember:
he was lazy.

All his friends said that he was lazy.

He never appeared to do any work.

He would only write the music

he wanted to write.

And he would only write it in his own time.

He took ten years

- ten years! -

over Maeterlinck's play,

Pel/as e! Ml/Sande;

turning it into an opera.

And you didn't understand any of it.

You're fed up with him.

He's probably with another woman.

Or talking.

Always talking

about things that don't interest you.

He won't even give music lessons

to help feed himself.

You have to look after him.

You serve him.

Is he going to be all right...this man?

Well, it depends how much I like him

and how much you can hate him.

- I hope he's not drunk today.

- Exactly.

- Is he always?

- I don't know.

(Wagner on record player)

mew

- (Gun pops, cat shrieks)

- Death to Debussy!

Next time, it will be the real thing.

A real bullet...or me?

Both.

Let's have a drink, shall we?

(Turns music down)

- Do you mind?

- Yes, I do, since you ask.

I certainly bloody well do.

- Isn't it to your refined French taste?

- Yes.

But sometimes it tastes a little too strong

and I have to spit it out.

He's a spirited lad.

Well, I suppose I'm to be filled in.

Do you know anything

about Maeterlinck's spirit?

I know he wanted to shoot Debussy

and practised on the local cats.

Yes, I'm aware he was

the Belgian Shakespeare

and wrote many beautiful

Symbolist dramas,

including The Blue Bird

and Pel/as e! Ml/Sande;

in which Debussy saw

the perfect subject for an opera.

So he begged Maeterlinck's permission

to be allowed to use it,

which Maeterlinck

very generously granted him.

And ten years later,

very generously took it back again.

I was betrayed.

You forget.

We agreed that Georgette Leblanc,

my mistress,

was to sing Mlisande...

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