Camille Claudel 1915 (2013) Movie Script

Freely inspired by the works and letters

of Paul Claudel,

the letters of Camille Claudel, and the

medical records of Camille Claudel.

Originally from Villeneuve in the Aisne,

Camille Claudel is a sculptress,

born in 1864, the sister of the writer

Paul Claudel, who is 4 years her junior.

Student then mistress of Auguste Rodin

for 15 years, until 1895 when she left.

In 1913, after the death of her father,

and after 10 years spent reclusively in

a workshop in Quai

Bourbon in Paris, her

family admitted her,

for mental problems,

to the hospital at Ville Evrard near

Paris, then to the south of France,

to an asylum in the Vaucluse.

1915, Montdevergues

Asylum, near Avignon.

Miss Claudel, please.

Come on, we'll run a bath.

You are too dirty.

Come and have your bath.

It will do you good.

No fuss today, Miss Claudel.

Here.

You are always dirty. You need to wash.

Come.

Every time it's the same.

Here.

See this completely dirty hand,

Miss Claudel.

And it soothes you.

Miss, what are you doing here?

You are not with the others?

Return with the others. Miss Claudel!

Doctor, please.

Miss Claudel has the authorization to

prepare meals.

Because of the fear of being poisoned.

Oh dear. It's wet.

My ears...

I can lunch in the courtyard?

Yes.

Miss Claudel...

could you care for Miss Lucas?

Come.

Thank you

What are you doing?

You're watching me cry?

What's going on?

Thank you, Miss Claudel.

OK, Miss Claudel?

Come on, I'll walk you to your room.

Miss Claudel...

Miss, what happened in the kitchen

this morning?

Was told

you threatened to slap the intern.

He doesn't know the risk he runs

He tried to take me.

I've the right to make my meals,

like you said.

Yes.

You have the authorization,

but it is exceptional.

This is for your good

I know.

Anyway, some good news for you

Saturday.

Your brother, Paul Claudel...

will come to visit you.

Thank you

My God... My God...

I want nothing else than to be in

a house nearby.

My little Paul

Make it end...

find my dear labor

Hallelujah.

God's Glory and all His saints.

He prayed for His saints...

Five apostles arrived in Bethlehem...

to save Jesus.

There was Rome, the Romans,

the time of the Romans...

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah...

Madame Danielle,

you will get into trouble.

You shouldn't stay here.

What are you doing there?

You have nothing to do in the school.

Hallelujah.

That's it. You're all there?

The meal is ready; you can enter.

Place?? yourselves there, please

Come on, now.

Fine. Bravo.

Here.

Come with me, please.

Come, Miss.

About the meals for next week -

three residents less.

Very well, my sister.

Miss, do not be afraid.

Nobody here wants to poison you.

Miss?

What's your name?

Blanc.

You...

You'll post a letter for me in the

village, in secret?

You have an address where I can

send the letter from?

My mother's: the Widow Blanc...

Tour Philippe-le-Bel,

Moriere-les-Avignon.

Thank you

My dear Henrietta

This is very far away as I write.

No longer my cute

little studio in Paris.

Since I was abducted from my place...

I often tried to communicate with you.

But I'm watched night and day,

like a criminal.

Do not know if this letter will

reach you.

I was interned at Ville Evrard...

then, under the pretext of war,

at Montdevergues, near Avignon

I've suffered to be torn

from my studio...

to be locked in these horrible houses.

My cousin Charles tried to get me out...

but since then I haven't any

more news.

Dear Henrietta

if you could give me news of you...

and your children,

you'd make me happy

Do not talk of my letter,

I have some trouble.

If you want to answer me,

use this address:

Widow Blanc...

Tour Philippe-le-Bel,

Moriere-les-Avignon.

This person was good enough to help me.

Send?? a large envelope to

this address...

with another inside,

smaller, and in my name.

Accept my very sincere wishes

to you and your dear children.

Paul tells me that he comes on Saturday.

I'm not desperate to get out

of here one day.

So, Miss? How are you today?

There is a delivery for me?

No. Today, we have nothing for you

Well, my sister. I entrust you.

Miss.

So, Miss?

How are you?

How are things going?

I'm here without knowing why.

How long will it last, this joke?

Longer still?

I'd like to know.

I am incarcerated as a criminal.

Worse.

No lawyer...

nor my family want to help me

out of this hell.

I am deprived of freedom...

fire...

food and basic amenities.

It's made me into what you want.

Even my parents abandoned me.

They respond to my complaints by...

complete silence.

This is awful, to be abandoned

in this manner.

Cannot resist the

grief that overwhelms me

Mum and my sister...

have kidnapped me in a most

comprehensive fashion.

No letter, no visit.

They stake a lot that I'll

never get out of here.

They take my legacy...

So you blame me?

Having lived all alone?

Having spent my life with cats?

They have a mania of persecution.

These fine gentlemen pounced on me...

to seize all my works...

and let me spend as long as

possible in prison.

They are eager to turn this poor woman

who'd be for them a living accusation

an annoying phantom of their crime

If there is no danger, they do not

let me out.

It's Rodin who has this in his claws.

It's Rodin who used them to seize

my workshop.

He holds them in his claws...

they cannot move

without his permission.

For a long time, it was fixed...

in such a way that I could not...

dare leave the house.

As soon as I was absent,

gentlemen came home...

searched in my books and

took my sketches.

It's Rodin, preparing to do the same job

He found in them accomplices

and an excuse.

Please do what you can to free me.

I have no intention of claiming.

I'm not strong enough for that

I live in my corner,

as I have always done.

The life I lead here does not suit me.

This is too hard for me.

Sorry to tell you so frankly.

Yet...

your relationship with Rodin...

stopped 20 years ago.

Fine.

We'll see you next week, Miss.

Miss Pierre, we must return.

Miss Pierre?

Not

Miss.

No!

Miss Pierre...

Hello, Miss Claudel.

Miss Lucas.

Miss Lucas, do you want

Miss Claudel to come with us?

You'll just walk with us, Miss Claudel?

Come on, come with us.

Come walk.

Come with us.

Lift the feet, please.

Raise the feet well.

We'll soon be there, Miss.

Come on, ladies.

You'll get there soon.

This is very good.

Sing with me.

Come on, we're going home.

Look where you put your feet

You know the text by heart.

Now want your

gestures.

Avery gallant Don Juan...

and Miss Charlotte a little wary.

Go.

Hello, Mrs. peasant.

Don Juan, your gesture.

Gallantly.

Charlotte, step back a little.

There. Perfect.

Hello, Mrs. peasant.

Hello, Sir.

From where do you come?

From the village.

What's your name?

Charlotte.

Don Juan.

, Don Juan

Start again.

Hello, Mrs. peasant.

Hello, Sir.

From where do you come?

From the village.

What's your name?

Charlotte.

I, I... Don Juan.

You have beautiful eyes.

You have beautiful eyes,

a beautiful face.

Give me...

your hand.

No, my hands are dirty

You have beautiful hands.

There, that's Scene 1.

Now we will tackle Scene 2.

Hello, Mrs. peasant.

No!

Will you marry me?

But no.

I thought that we were starting again.

No, no repeats. We're tackling Scene 2.

Are you married?

No.

But soon, with Pierrot.

What? Will you marry a farmer?

Never, I love you too.

Will you marry me?

No.

Why?

Again.

Will you marry me?

Yes.

Not immediately. Not now, Charlotte.

Will you marry me.

You have already said that.

She said yes. Then she said no.

And after, I'll know more.

You're a little lost.

Well, we'll go back. Come on, pick up.

You are Don Juan, and

you want to seduce.

Not unless my aunt agrees.

No, no, no.

Charlotte, you just say "No."

No.

Why?

Because you have tricked me.

Me, fool you? Never.

I love you, too.

Take that...

Me, fool you? Never.

Look!

You do not say it to the air,

you look there.

But I do look there. What do I do?

You look down.

No.

Watch Charlotte.

Look at me.

I'm looking at you. I'm doing that.

Me, fool you? Never.

Me, fool you? Never. I love you, too.

Will you marry me?

Repeat: "Yes..."

Yes, but... provided...

provided that you do not deceive me.

Never, I love you too.

Will you marry me?

No. "Kiss me."

Kiss Me.

Nearer, Don Juan. "Kiss Me."

Kiss... Kiss me.

Charlotte. "Not before marriage."

Not before marriage.

Give me your hand.

After, I kiss you as you like.

Give me your hand.

You can do better.

After, I kiss you as you like.

No, No, No!

No, No!

Get lost! don't want to see you!

Go! don't want to see you!

Get lost!

Get lost! don't want to see you!

Don't want to see you!

Miss Lucas?

Go!

What is it? Come.

No!

What's happening, Miss Claudel?

Cannot stand

I'm a human being!

I stand over the cries of all

these creatures.

It turns my heart!

Talk to your brother.

He will visit you tomorrow

Oh, my God...

Miss?

You can help us to leave town?

Come, will escort you

Thank you, Miss.

Amen.

In the name of the Father, the Son

and the Holy Spirit.

I'm ready.

This is me.

My God, I am risen...

and am still with you

I slept.

I slept like the dead in the night.

God said, "Let there be light"...

and woke up like a cry

popped up and I woke up

I'm up and I start...

with the day that begins.

My Father...

who have led me before dawn.

I stand in Your presence.

God.

Who is one in three people...

relationship on which Christ on

the cross.

Verb that everything is word.

What you say, think

You are given the word and

nailed nails defer...

the title that I have my hope.

What you say, think

I'm the finger in your wound.

The hand in your heart.

You are the Almighty.

You cannot help that I love You.

Know someone, I am close to...

committed the same crime as you.

She's atoned for 2

years in a nursing home

Killing a child in an immortal soul.

It's horrible.

How can you live and breathe...

with such a crime on the conscience?

Can you be misunderstood?

Anyway, I do not speak with the

indignation of a Pharisee...

but with the compassion of a brother.

Sunset at the Abby of Frigolet...

near Tarascon.

Soon to visit...

my poor sister, Camille, at

Montdevergues.

In fact, I am convinced...

that in most cases called 'madness'...

it's really possession.

It is curious, in any case, that the

almost unique forms...

are pride and terror...

delusions of grandeur and

delusions of persecution.

She was a great artist...

and his pride and contempt for

the upcoming...

were without limits.

This is further exaggerated

with age and misfortune.

I have the temperament of my sister...

though a little softer and a

bit of a dreamer...

and without the grace of God...

my story would have been

like that, or worse.

ls it possible to exorcise remotely?

God told me no...

to my entrance to the Benedictines.

If I had really been a saint or hero...

who knows if I would not have spent

also the defense of God...

and if, despite everything...

I would not be able to be

truly a saint.

Excuse me.

At the time I forgot religion.

I respected him with the

ignorance of a savage.

The first light of truth...

I was given by encountering

the books of a great poet.

I owe eternal gratitude...

and put in a prominent place

for my training of thinking:

Arthur Rimbaud

Reading "Illuminations"...

and after a few months

"A Season in Hell"...

was, for me, a decisive event.

For the first time

these books opened a crack in my

materialistic prison...

and made a vivid, almost physical

impression; supernatural.

This was an unfortunate child who,

on 25 December 1886...

went to Notre Dame DE Paris

to attend the offices of Christmas.

I started writing...

and it seemed that in the masses...

treated with a superior dilettantism

I would find a suitable excitement...

and the matter of some

decadent exercises.

After you

It is under these provisions that,

jostled by crowds...

I attended high mass...

with not that much pleasure.

Having nothing better to do

returned to Vespers.

Children of the masters, dressed in

white robes...

and pupils of the seminary of

Saint-Nicolas-do-Chardonnet.

sang what I later learned to be

the "Magnificat".

I was myself standing in the crowd...

near the second pillar

by the entrance of the choir, to the

right, to the side of the sacristy.

And then it happened - the event...

that dominates my life.

In an instant, my heart was touched,

and I believed.

I thought of such a forced membership...

and such certainty,

leaving no doubt...

since the books, the reasoning...

the hazards of a restless life

could not shake the faith...

or indeed touch it.

I had, suddenly, the feeling...

of the innocence...

the eternal childhood of God...

an unspeakable revelation.

I am not a Christian to enjoy the

religious sentiment...

or a kind of mystical pleasure

I always hated that.

This is why I am a Christian:

I'm a Christian by obedience and

by interest...

to know what's expected of me.

But I've never had the idea to

enjoy God...

to draw enjoyment or any

pleasure whatsoever.

I would have considered it to be

quite vile, is it not?

It seemed to me that God took to

solemnly sitting in my heart.

It reminded me of his past favors

and showed me my vocation,

made it known.

Invited me to a knowledge...

deeper and more intimate of himself

Mr. Claudel, we expect holiness of you.

The secret of holiness is left to God.

To the chapel.

Why?

We will make a prayer.

We will see God.

What is it, the good God?

He is in heaven.

This is the one who hears our prayers.

Shh.

Easy.

I'm hurt.

Easy,

My foot!

Easy.

Hello, Miss Claudel.

You seem happy today.

He's coming, your brother?

Yes, this afternoon.

Thanks!

Paul.

Camille.

My little Paul!

It cries, it bellows...

it whines, it laughs, it is

unbearable!

These are creatures that even

parents do not support.

Why am I here?

Take me.

Take me from here.

They tried to poison me.

Camille!

What do you think, Camille?

What do we do, Mum, Louise and I?

We do everything for you to get better

You have the best care when

there's a war.

You're wrong.

I'll never cease to be wrong,

only cease to be sincere.

Yes...

I learned you had sent...

a nice amount of money

to Mr. director.

You're right, because

he's someone who...

has a great reputation.

Who has benevolence...

like the sisters elsewhere.

You try to comfort me...

you're burden's extraordinary...

you make an effort for me.

You're raising four kids.

You go to the hotels, you have

terrible burdens.

I do not know how you do it.

I am unable to.

But you know, here,

it is very difficult...

to live.

You know, Paul?

There are rules, ways adapted to live.

This is very difficult, to change

these things.

There's too much noise.

You know, I...

I would like to return to Villeneuve.

I want to live with Mum.

I do not understand why you will

not take me.

Here in first, it is unbearable.

I'd rather be in third class.

You see, I saw my diet.

I do not need much money.

It's no use at all.

I ll...

Talk to the director. Ask him to

deliver me or...

It's cold here.

There's the wind.

You should tell Mum to come and see me.

I'd like it to be reviewed again.

You'll say?

Paul?

Going quickly is not so tiring.

She could do it.

Your wife does not want me, nor

the others...

but hoped more again

You do manipulate, Paul.

This is Berthelot.

You know, your friend Berthelot

who took all my works.

It seems that my little workshop,

my poor furniture...

my little household and my tools...

excite their lust.

This is beautiful...

these millionaires who throw

themselves on a helpless artist.

They are 40 times more millionaires.

Imagination.

The feeling, the new...

the unforeseen that comes from a

developed spirit.

The thing being closed to them...

heads, mouthfuls...

nervous, obtuse

the light closed forever...

They need someone to provide for them

They said:

"We use a hallucination to find our

subjects."

They are those who have had

fundamental recognition...

and do not give some compensation...

to the poor woman they deprived of

her genius.

Paul...

This is the exploitation of the woman.

They want to make me sweat blood.

And Rodin.

The diabolical mind of Rodin...

thinks one thing: steal.

Afraid that I become more than him...

during life, and without doubt

after death.

He wanted them to take me in their

claws.

He wanted me to be unhappy.

Oh, there, I am.

This might not disturb you, but it

does me, Paul.

I miss much of this slavery.

I'd like to be home and close the door.

So you say: "God...

"God is good.

God pities the afflicted."

Let's talk, your God who

let me rot in an asylum.

God allows experience, Camille.

He withdrew his hand.

He left us in sin to check the

secrets of His wisdom.

His secrets do our due hesitance

because?.

we had not enough to convince us.

There is nothing on earth that is like

the translation.

Meaning He who is in heaven.

God is everywhere.

In all natural phenomena...

all of which signifies something

of Him.

In all human feelings, Camille.

All human acts.

There is no-one in which he has

no interest

Who he doesn't see

Who has no connection with him.

Both the good and the bad.

Everything is parable, Camille.

All signifies infinite complexity.

The connections of creatures with

their creator.

In reality, Paul...

it would force me to make sculptures.

Seeing we cannot do it, it gives me

trouble.

But not decide that...

instead.

Promise me...

you'll hold me and you will

not abandon me.

I promise you, Camille.

For 20 years

every night, every morning, pray

for you.

I'm still sick, poisoned in the blood.

My body burns, Paul.

This Huguenot Rodin

makes me dispense the dose...

because he hoped to inherit

my workshop.

I'll leave you.

Yes.

Can it be that when the war ends,

I can go with you?

I'll sit in the light.

lam peaceful.

Hello. How is it going?

What a terrible sadness.

There is no worse job than art.

The genius pays.

What a tragedy! What a life!

The artistic vocation is a very

dangerous one...

and one which few people

can resist.

Art addresses faculties of the mind

that are very dangerous...

imagination and sensitivity...

which can easily make the equilibrium

go haywire...

and lead a life

with little aplomb.

At 30...

my sister thought that Rodin

would not marry.

Everything collapsed around her...

and reason did not resist.

That was the end of her conscious life.

Yes.

Miss... your sister

remains very persecuted.

Always the fear of being poisoned.

With all the genius, life was

full of disappointments.

Yes, but...

Miss Claudel is now calm and docile...

she misses a lot...

she wants very strongly...

to be closer to Paris

wanting to live alone in the country.

And think

it might be time...

to try to satisfy that.

Camille spent the last 29 years

of her life in the asylum

and died on 19 October 1943,

age 79 years.

Buried in a communal grave,

her body will never be found.

Dying on 23 February 1955, Paul visited

his sister until the end of her life.

He did not attend her funeral

at Montdevergues.

Camille Claudel 1915 (2013) - full transcript