Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 16, Episode 2 - Van Gogh's Ear - full transcript

Narrator: December 23, 1888.

The city of Arles,
south of France.

While the townsfolk prepare
for Christmas,

one man is about to commit

one of the most infamous
and bloody acts

in the history of art.

His name... Vincent van Gogh...

the genius who created some
of the most iconic

and valuable paintings
in the world.

But on that night,
driven to madness,

he cuts off his ear



and delivers it
to a girl in a brothel.

His paintings would turn him

into one of the most renowned
artists on the planet,

but his madness would make him
the center of a mystery.

For more than a century,
no one has agreed

on exactly what happened
that fateful night.

Did Vincent really
cut off his ear?

Why did he do it?

Who was the mysterious
prostitute?

Now one woman,

Bernadette Murphy,
is on a mission

to find out the truth,

uncovering lies...

There is something
seriously wrong here.



Narrator: hunting for
every scrap of evidence...

Murphy: You have to look in
places no one else has looked.

Narrator: on an epic journey
across countries

and continents...

to find the truth

about Vincent van Gogh.

[Murphy speaks French]

Oh, my God. I've found it.

Announcer: This program was made
possible in part by

the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by contributions
to your PBS station

from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Narrator: In 1888,

the sun-drenched region
of Provence

in the south of France
witnessed the arrival

of an outsider...

a strange Dutchman,

aspiring artist
Vincent van Gogh.

During his 15-month stay
in the city of Arles,

Vincent would paint
more than 200 paintings

that captured the people
and places he encountered.

[Foliage rustling in wind]

But during his time here,
he would also suffer

a cataclysmic breakdown,

culminating in an act
of bloody self-mutilation.

What led to the tragic downfall
of this tortured genius?

Did he cut off his whole ear,

or, as some believe,
just a small piece of it?

Bernadette Murphy moved here
from England over 30 years ago.

And the Vincent van Gogh mystery

has become a passion
that changed her life.

Murphy: Every time I would ever
bring friends or family

to Arles, the first thing
they would always know

about Vincent van Gogh was he
was the man who cut off his ear,

and yet, when you look
in art books,

they say that he only
cut off the lobe.

Narrator: In fact,
it seemed no one could agree

on what exactly happened.

[Thunder]

On the night of December 23rd,

while most of Arles was
celebrating Christmas...

a horrific incident occurred in
a northern district of the city.

[Bleats]

Vincent took a razor to his ear

and sliced it off.

He then wrapped
the bloody ear in a cloth,

left his house
on Place Lamartine,

and went to
the Rue du Bout d'Arles

in the heart
of the red-light district.

Knocking on the door
of a brothel,

Vincent then asked for a girl

and handed her
the bloody package.

She fainted at the sight of it,

while Vincent disappeared
into the night

and then returned home,

to be found slumped in a sea
of blood the next morning.

But while all
the newspaper reports agreed

on the big picture...

That a man had cut off his ear

before turning up at a brothel

and handing it to a prostitute...

They disagreed on the details.

Some reports
even labeled Vincent,

a Dutch man, as Polish.

Bernadette was intrigued.

Murphy: When I started
to look into the story,

I kept finding holes
in the official version,

things that didn't make sense,
so soon I realized there was

only one solution, and that
was to begin at the beginning

and look at the story
as a detective would.

Narrator: With so many
inconsistencies in the story,

Bernadette was determined
to find out what,

if any of it, was true.

First, she headed
to the world's leading center

for van Gogh research,

the Van Gogh Museum
in Amsterdam.

The museum has the largest
van Gogh collection

in the world,
with more than 200 paintings,

400 drawings, and 700 letters
by the artist.

Many of the works are now
globally iconic,

and the museum pulls in

an incredible 1.9 million
visitors each year.

With such intense fascination
about Vincent's life and work,

the museum gets thousands
of van Gogh inquiries each year

from independent researchers
like Bernadette.

Man: People are always
obsessive about the artist

in the sense that they tend
to think that they've got

a personal relationship
with him, and it has something

to do with the fact that he
makes very accessible art,

memorable kind of pictures
that he makes,

very easy to remember.

And I have to tell you

that there are many amateur
historians who are interested

in questions of van Gogh
and try to solve them

by themselves,

and Bernadette
was such a person.

Narrator: Convinced by
her enthusiasm,

the museum has given
Bernadette special access

to a key piece of evidence.

Great. Great.

Narrator: These research notes

include a witness statement
from van Gogh's friend

and fellow painter, Paul Signac.

Murphy: Paul Signac,
he had actually been in Arles

and gone to see Vincent
after he cut off his ear.

So it says, "I saw him
the last time in Arles

"in the spring of 1889.

"He was already at
the hospital of the town.

"A few days earlier, he had
cut off the lobe of the ear

and not the ear, in the
circumstances that you know."

I mean, what he's saying there...

He cut the lobe of the ear
and not the whole ear...

It really just says that Vincent
wasn't as crazy as all that.

Well, I'm starting to think
that this might well be

a minor incident,
and that the whole story has

become exaggerated over time,

that a man would cut the lobe

of an ear, especially as the...

There's something
wrong here, though,

because the local newspaper said

he cut off his ear.

Narrator: For many,
this story about the lobe

has become gospel, but even
the museum experts admit

it is confusing.

Who to believe?

That's always been
the question, who to believe?

Signac said, for instance,
when he saw him there,

that Vincent was still wearing
the beret or the fur hat

that he had at the time,
and his bandages,

so he couldn't have
seen the ear.

The more reliable is some
of these people who were close

to him, who saw him, who knew
him for a couple of times

and who saw him, and they said
it was half the ear,

so that has always been
our point of view.

Narrator: Was this
a minor incident,

as the art historians believe,

or the tipping point for a man

who just 18 months later

would commit suicide?

Throughout his life,

Vincent suffered
with mental illness.

Born March 30, 1853, in Holland,

he was the eldest son
of a Protestant minister.

Vincent was expected to conform

to a strict
religious upbringing.

At the age of 16,

he went to work
at his uncle's art dealership,

but things soon started
to go wrong.

Naifeh: You have a person
who was alternately

unbelievably depressive
or unbelievably manic,

but he was also
terribly argumentative,

so that left him literally in
a life of almost no friendship

and with a family
that despaired over him.

Narrator: Struggling to fit in,

Vincent was forced
to leave his job

and withdrew
from society at age 23.

Van Tilborgh: Here we've got
this man who has failed,

convinced of the fact
that he can do something,

but not knowing what to do,

then his brother says, "Hey,
why don't you become an artist?"

Narrator: Theo,
Vincent's younger brother,

also worked in the family's
art-dealing firm,

but he succeeded
where Vincent failed.

Without Theo, there would have
been no Vincent.

If Theo had not kept him alive,

kept him relatively coherent,

and paid for his existence
and recommended

that he start painting
in the first place,

there would be
no Vincent van Gogh.

We owe much of this
to Theo's love

and fraternity and patronage.

Narrator: In 1880,
at the age of 27,

Vincent threw himself
into his art.

But his early works in Holland

were dark and somber,

very different from
his later paintings.

In 1886, he decided to move in
with Theo in Paris.

There, in the bright lights
of the big city,

Vincent developed
a lighter, more colorful style.

However, he again began
to feel like an outsider,

which led to
his momentous decision

to move south.

On February 20, 1888,

he arrived in Arles.

Had Vincent finally
found his Utopia,

or had he brought
his emotional baggage with him?

[Cricket chirping]

On her quest
to find out the truth

about Vincent's ear,

Bernadette Murphy wants
to know how he coped

with his relocation.

More than anyone else
who has researched van Gogh,

she understands
how difficult life can be

as a newcomer to Arles.

Murphy: I came to Provence
more than 30 years ago now.

I am and always will be

a foreigner
in a foreign country,

um, an outsider, if you will.

But in Provence, there's
another notion of an outsider

that is much more subtle
if you don't live here.

You can be French,
but you can be

what is considered
an "estranger."

It means somebody who's not
from your network,

your immediate environment,
and therefore there's a subtext

to this that perhaps
they're not really trustworthy.

Vincent, when he came
to Provence, was an "estranger."

Narrator:
When Vincent arrived in 1888,

Arles was just
a small provincial town,

its architecture dominated
by the legacy

of the ancient Romans
who'd settled there

more than 2,000 years before.

The town was rooted in a culture

that had remained unchanged
for centuries.

Its people sounded different,

speaking in their own dialect.

They looked different,

dressing in their own unique
Arlesian costume,

and they acted differently,

practicing traditions you'd be
more likely to witness

in Spain than anywhere else
in France.

But despite being a stranger
in a foreign land,

Vincent got lucky
with his chosen neighborhood.

The Place Lamartine was
a relatively new part of town.

Having developed after
the arrival of the railway

in 1840, this neighborhood

was used to the comings
and goings of strangers.

Vincent soon became friends
with the owners

of the Café de la Gare,
the station café.

And it was these café owners,

Monsieur and Madame Ginoux,
who found Vincent

the home where his triumphs
and tragedies would play out.

Unfortunately, the building
was destroyed in World War Il.

Murphy: He spoke
to the Ginoux family,

and they said, "You can stay
here for a few months

until the house is ready,"
and so Vincent took over

a house that was a bit run-down.

The plan was that it was
going to be restored,

and Vincent chose the color
of green for the shutters

and the butter yellow
of the walls.

Narrator: For Vincent,
the yellow house was not just

a home, but a base
for his far greater ambitions

as an artist, which were,
like everything else,

financed by Theo, his brother.

Meedendorp: Vincent had had
some extra money from Theo,

and he could buy chairs
and table, he could buy beds.

He is making a decoration
for this yellow house,

so it is a true artist's home.

Also for non-artists to visit,
so they can tell that this is

a special place,
this is where art is,

somewhere you can look at art.

Narrator: The yellow house
was at the heart

of Vincent's mission to create
a modern artistic brotherhood

in the south of France.

Vincent seemed happier
than he had ever been.

He began to paint obsessively.

Naifeh: What's astonishing
about Arles is that he could,

in a single day,
make a great painting

that is so intense
and so iconic.

Narrator: Inspired by the beauty
of the surrounding landscape,

van Gogh created more than
a hundred paintings.

Were Vincent's
artistic achievements

in the summer of 1888
the sign of a genius

who'd found his path,

or was this feverish activity

actually evidence
of his mental decline?

Van Tilborgh: So you've got
an artist who thinks

that he will improve his art
by working quickly, and so

he has to get into the mood
to do it as quickly as possible.

Narrator: In a letter
to Theo, Vincent wrote,

"I am working as one possessed."

Van Tilborgh:
People who saw him at the time

probably see him
as a kind of maniac.

[Church bell tolling]

Narrator: It's said
that the locals nicknamed him

"le fou roux"...
"the red-headed madman."

But was he really a maniac

capable of cutting off
his own ear?

Local legend from before
the time of the incident

suggests Vincent
was feared as a danger

not only to himself,
but the whole population...

and the townspeople even tried
to banish him from Arles.

But is the story true?

Bernadette tracked down
town records in the city archive

in the Hotel Dieu, which,
ironically, was once a hospital,

the one where Vincent
was treated

after the ear-cutting incident.

Murphy: The document is written
to the mayor, and it says,

"We, the people of Arles,

"the people who live
around Place Lamartine,

"would like to draw
your attention that Mr. Vincent

"is suffering
from mental disturbance,

"he drinks too much,
and we think it would be good

"if he was sent back
to his family

or he was placed
in a mental institution."

Vincent thought that there
were 80 signatures.

He says in his letters,
"Eighty people signed a petition

to get me out of the city,"
and later this was exaggerated;

a hundred people signed it.

There were actually
only 30 people.

If you count them,
there are 30 signatures.

Narrator: Bernadette analyzed
every signature to determine

the identities
of Vincent's accusers,

and her research revealed
a disturbing pattern.

Murphy: It took quite
a bit of time, but slowly, um,

I worked out who everybody was.

So, um, the first name is
Damaz Crèvoulin, épicier,

and that's Vincent's
next-door neighbor.

The writing seems to be the same
as the signature,

so we think he actually
wrote the petition out.

And the other person
who's very important in this

is this very pale one there,
which is Mr. Soulé,

who was Vincent's house agent;
he organized the rentals.

All of these people were cronies
of these two men.

Narrator: Vincent wrote
that these men had tried

to replace him
with another tenant.

When this failed,
Bernadette believes they created

a smear campaign to evict him
from his home.

Murphy: One very famous
art historian called it

"a conspiracy of hyenas,"
really a violent image

of the whole town
being up in arms

against this poor, sick man,
and him being chased out

by the local populace, you know.

It's nothing of the sort.

In fact, it was organized

by two men, got
their friends to sign it.

They had a vested interest

in getting Vincent out
of the yellow house.

Narrator: In fact,
Vincent made many close friends,

from soldiers stationed
in Arles to the café owners...

even the local postman,
Joseph Roulin and his family.

Rather than making
a public nuisance of himself

or being in constant battle
with angry neighbors,

van Gogh spent the summer
of 1888 engrossed in art.

The walls of the yellow house

were soon covered
with paintings inspired

by his Arles experience.

They included a subject
that would spawn some

of the most iconic paintings
the world has ever seen.

Meedendorp: Vincent made
a series of flower still lifes

in Arles in the summer of '88,
when they were blooming.

What you see here is
a whole arrangement

of different shades of yellow,

going from a sulfurous yellow,
greenish yellow,

to darker, ochre colors
and every hue in between.

This was something
completely new.

Narrator: Vincent wasn't just
trying to push the boundaries

of modern art;

he was trying to create art
that would attract

other artists to join him,
to realize his dream

of an artists' colony
in the south.

With the sunflowers,
he had a very specific painter

in mind... Paul Gauguin.

Unlike Vincent,

Gauguin had already become
something of a celebrity

in the modern art world.

Vincent's brother Theo
had put on a small exhibition

of his work.

If Vincent could persuade
Gauguin to come to Arles,

it would be the start of his
dreamed-of artistic brotherhood.

Meedendorp: He knew that Gauguin
was interested in sunflowers,

and he actually wrote to him
that he decorated his room

with the series of sunflowers.

Narrator: Whether Gauguin
was lured by the sunflowers,

by Vincent's promise that Arles
was full of beautiful women,

or by Theo paying for his move,

on October 23, 1888,

Gauguin took up residence
at the yellow house.

Van Tilborgh:
Gauguin was a man of the world,

van Gogh wasn't;
totally the opposite.

Gauguin might have been
a bit arrogant,

van Gogh might have been
aggressive.

There were differences
in character, but nevertheless,

in principle,
if you look at the total,

I think they liked each other.

Narrator: Vincent now believed
he had a soul mate,

and his dream of an artistic
commune was taking shape.

Was it possible
that just two months later,

he would have been capable
of cutting off his ear?

Vincent never fully explained
his self-inflicted violence,

but he did paint himself
immediately after.

Bernadette believes
these portraits provide

fascinating clues.

In the "Bandaged Ear and Pipe,"
you can see a bandage

that goes under his neck
and down into his body.

Underneath the bandage is
a large piece of wadding,

and the wadding is thick.

I talked to different doctors
about his injury,

and I explained the scenarios
that it could have been a lobe,

part of the lower part
of the ear,

the whole ear,
or not the whole ear,

and a doctor remarked,

"I believe that seriously
you would need extra wadding,"

which would imply
the injury had been bigger

than just the lobe.

Now, this made me think

this lobe story is beginning
to look less and less likely.

Narrator: Bernadette is not
the only one who believes

Vincent's paintings hold
important clues

to the ear mystery.

Holland's Kroller-Muller Museum

owns another intriguing
van Gogh painting.

Recent analysis offers insight

into Vincent's mental state
at the time of the incident.

Woman: Van Gogh painted
this still life

shortly after he returned
from the hospital.

And you could actually see it
as a self-portrait,

about his life in Arles,
about his state of mind.

Narrator: The painting shows
his increasing dependence

on both alcohol
and tobacco in the run-up

to the night in question.

The candle represented
Gauguin's importance

as a shining light
in Vincent's life,

while perhaps he used
the medical booklet

to treat his own injury.

Jooren: But perhaps
the most interesting thing

in this painting is the letter
that we see over here.

Narrator: Overlooked
for more than a century,

this letter is a vital clue
to Vincent's state of mind

on the night he took
a razor to his ear.

Jooren: And in 2009,
the researchers found out

by who the letter was written.

Very important evidence are
the stamps that you see.

Over here, you see
the number 67, which indicates

the number of the post office
where it was stamped,

and this is near the apartment
of Theo, his brother.

Then there is the mark saying,
"Jour de l'an," which was used

by the post office
in very busy time,

around Christmas and New Year.

And, of course, they had a look
at the handwriting,

and with all these clues,
they couldn't conclude

anything else than it has
to be a letter by Theo,

and it has to be the letter
that arrived in Arles

on the 23rd of December.

Narrator: Arriving on
the very day of the incident,

scholars believe it contained
devastating news.

Jooren:
This is probably the letter

in which Theo announces
his engagement to Jo Bonger,

and the theory is that it caused
Vincent's mental breakdown

because he was so afraid
of losing his brother's support

and Vincent not being

the most important person
on earth anymore.

Narrator: Theo had supported
his brother financially

throughout his career,

and now Vincent's means
of survival might disappear

as his brother took on

the responsibilities
of marriage and family life.

Could Theo's news

have driven Vincent
to despair and self-mutilation?

It came at a moment when he was
already at his most vulnerable.

His relationship
with Gauguin was falling apart.

They were complete opposites.

Although friends at first,

they had
very different personalities.

Unlike Vincent, Gauguin
was confident, charismatic,

commercially successful,
and a serial womanizer.

Naifeh:
Gauguin was sort of a jerk.

He arrives in Arles
this ladies' man

who has a pretty strong ego.

And he finds himself
in this house

with this very difficult,
um, person

with almost no self-esteem.

And it's a terrible situation.

He's only there
because Theo is paying him.

Almost within days of arrival,

he's sending his friends
back in Paris letters saying,

"I got to get out of here.

I can't possibly
take this any longer."

Narrator:
The Van Gogh Museum has

a collection of
the artist's letters,

revealing the falling out
between the two.

Woman: At some point,
Gauguin writes to Theo

that he will have to leave

because it's not going
well between him and Vincent.

They don't agree on art,

on the artists that they admi...
Admire.

And they have
a lot of discussions.

And Vincent is saying
that these discussions

are excessively electric.

He uses the word "electric."

"And afterwards our heads
are like run-down batteries."

So I think
that's expressing very well

the state that he's in
just before the incident.

Narrator: On the very day
that Vincent received news

of Theo's engagement,

Gauguin announced he'd
had enough and was leaving.

Vincent had lost
his brother, his companion,

and his dreams
for the yellow house.

That night,
he had the breakdown.

As an eyewitness to the events

leading up to Vincent's
terrible attack,

Paul Gauguin
gives us a fascinating insight.

His notebook is
full of sketches and notes

about the night in question.

Murphy:
This is a whole list of words.

They just seem random at first.

They say "Inca," "snake,"
"fly on a dog," "black lion."

Narrator:
Experts believe van Gogh

used these words
bitterly to insult Gauguin

when he announced
he was leaving.

"Inca."
Gauguin was born in Peru.

"Snake, fly on the dog,
black lion."

Murphy: And then it says,

"Save your honor,
money on the table."

I could imagine Gauguin wanting
to leave Arles and saying,

"I need some money,
I've got to go,"

and Vincent saying,
"OK, here it is."

So I think this strange
series of words is, in fact,

a little sort of memo to himself

of what was happening
in the yellow house

the day of the drama.

Narrator: Other jottings
in Gauguin's notebook give

even more tantalizing clues

as to Vincent's
state of mind that night.

While the word "ictus"
is a historical term

for a psychotic fit,

it is also the name
of a symbol for Christianity.

And it wasn't the only
religious association with mania

recorded in Gauguin's notebook.

Murphy: But that wasn't
really what was intriguing.

It was this part. It said,
"Sain d'esprit, Saint Esprit."

And in Gauguin's
autobiography, he puts this.

He says that Vincent wrote this
on the wall of the yellow house.

I am "sain d'esprit" means
"I'm healthy."

And he plays with it:
"I am the Holy Ghost,"

so he's obviously
having mystic delusions.

Narrator: Vincent's religious
upbringing had instilled

a Protestant work ethic that
drove him to paint obsessively

and had often been at
the heart of his anguish

when things didn't go
according to plan.

Various theories exist

about why Vincent chose
his ear to butcher.

He admired a painting by
Giotto of the arrest of Jesus,

when Jesus is kissed by
the traitorous Judas Iscariot.

But it also depicts St. Peter

cutting the ear off
one of the arresting soldiers.

Is that what Vincent
was imagining?

Others believe
van Gogh was mimicking

a victorious bullfighter.

[Bull grunting]

Having defeated the beast,

the fighter cuts off
the bull's ear

and gives it as a bloody gift
to a girl in the crowd.

[Applause]

With Vincent facing
these numerous setbacks,

we can only imagine
what was going through his mind.

Thoughts of losing his
brother and Gauguin's betrayal,

memories of his
triumphs and tragedies,

his time in Arles,
his past sexual failures,

the paintings he'd painted,
and his religious obsessions.

Now he was alone
with a razor in his hand.

But did he cut off
his whole ear?

Narrator:
Despite her exhaustive research,

Bernadette has
never been able to find

any accounts from the man
who actually treated Vincent:

Dr. Felix Rey.

Murphy:
Dr. Rey spoke to many people,

but I've tried to find
archives to do with Dr. Rey,

and there's just nothing,
absolutely nothing.

Narrator: So Bernadette
has gone back through

every piece of evidence
she's amassed

over the last seven years.

Murphy: This is a reply to a man

who had questioned
"Time" magazine,

who had done
an article on Vincent van Gogh

and talked about him
having cut off his whole ear.

This man had written and said,
"No, no, no.

"He only cut off the lobe.

Everybody knows that.
Paul Signac said so."

And this is from the editorial
offices, and it says,

"When Irving Stone,
the author of 'Lust for Life, '

"was in Arles,
he visited Dr. Felix Rey.

"Dr. Rey was the only
man still alive

who had seen Vincent van Gogh
without his ear."

Narrator: In 1934,
novelist Irving Stone wrote

"Lust for Life," a biography of
Vincent and his time at Arles.

Although a work of fiction,

glamorized further
as a Hollywood blockbuster,

Bernadette has discovered

that Stone was rigorous
in his research for the book.

Murphy: This letter says

something
extraordinarily interesting.

It says, "Dr. Rey drew a medical
diagram for Irving Stone

"on one of
the prescription blanks,

"which he later signed

"and which Mr. Stone
now has in his possession,

"indicating that Vincent
made a clean stroke,

cutting off the whole cabbage"...

I mean, that's
the funniest line!

"leaving nothing but the lobe."

This is dated 1955,
so what I need to know,

Is Dr. Felix Rey's
medical diagram still somewhere?

Narrator: Bernadette
had ignored this modern letter,

but if Dr. Rey's diagram exists,

could it solve
the van Gogh mystery?

To find out, Bernadette
must make the 6,000-mile journey

from southern France
to San Francisco.

The University
of California, Berkeley, is home

to Irving Stone's archive,

which Bernadette hopes
will include

a crucial piece of evidence.

The archive is housed
in the Bancroft Library,

where she's come
to meet David Kessler.

Murphy:
So this is Berkeley.

Kessler: This is Berkeley.
This is the Bancroft. Yes.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Huge amounts
of research material.

Bancroft has hundreds
of boxes like this

and hundreds of cartons
which are bigger,

filled with material.

But for "Lust for Life,"
he just had...

He discarded stuff
as he went along.

So only a very few things exist,

so all of it fits in this
box 91 of the collection.

And in this, there
are mostly letters

that he collected for research.

I know you're gonna be
excited to see this,

see the kind of things
you'll see here...

Little brochures and
clippings from newspapers,

where eventually you find

this tiny, little document here.

Oh, my godfathers!

And it's from Dr. Rey.

And he says here, you know,
in the subscript here,

"Anything you can do to..."

I'm gonna lose it.
I'm sorry.

What?
I worked so hard
on this.

I can't believe it.

I can't believe it
after all these years!

Murphy: And this is
from Dr. Felix Rey.

It's dated the 18th
of August, 1930.

I can definitely say
that's his signature.

And it's... it's unbelievable.

It says, "I am so happy
to be able to give you

"some information
that you asked me

concerning m y unhappy
friend van Gogh."

"I do hope that
you will glorify him

"as he deserves.

"The genius of
this remarkable painter.

Cordially yours,
Dr. Rey."

Kessler: Yes.

It shows sort of

a little sketch of an ear,

and it says,

"The ear was cut with a razor

"following the dotted line

"and the aspect that is left

of the lobe
of the ear."

That's what it looked like
afterwards, what his ear...

looked like.
Yeah, what he...

Just a tiny little
bit down there.

So it really documents that
he removed his whole ear.

It must have been

an incredibly painful
thing to do.

What was going through
his mind at that time

must have been
really remarkable.

Well, you realize what...

What a... what a really
gruesome thing happened.

He did.

I've been working,
I think as you know,

on this for some time.

And when you finally get to s...

[Chokes up]

see something!

And this proves...

This. And, yes, it does
prove what ha...

Exactly what happened.

Narrator: Consuming seven
years of Bernadette's life

and the subject of speculation
and debate for over a century,

the truth about van Gogh's ear
can finally be revealed.

[Thunder]

By the night of December 23rd,

it had been raining
solidly for three days.

Stuck in the yellow house
the whole time,

tensions between van Gogh
and Gauguin mounted.

Gauguin announced his departure,
and a heated argument ensued.

Van Gogh hurled insults:
"black lion," "serpent,"

"murderer."

As Gauguin left, walking
across the Place Lamartine,

van Gogh followed him,
and the confrontation continued.

Vincent then returned home

and, alone with his demons,
took out a razor,

held it to his head,

and with a downward slice,
cut off his entire ear.

[Razor slashes]

For anyone other than
Bernadette, Dr. Rey's drawing

would be the end of the mystery.

But what Vincent did next
is also a mystery.

He left
the yellow house, staggering

to the heart of Arles'
red-light district.

At a brothel, he asked
for a girl named Rachel

and handed her his severed ear.

For Bernadette,
this extraordinary act was

as intriguing
as the ear-cutting itself.

Murphy: This street is
Rue du Bout d'Arles,

the street that
Vincent van Gogh came to

on the night
of the 23rd of December, 1888.

And basically
he came across the park,

walked up the street,
and went to the brothel.

All the research
suddenly comes to life.

You can imagine
the catcalls going across.

Drunken men and girls
trying to entice the men in

and the general mayhem
of a loud, bawdy part of town.

[Indistinct noisy chatter]

Narrator:
On the night of the 23rd,

when Vincent came here,
his mind wasn't on sex.

Instead, he asked
for a specific girl, Rachel,

and gave her his severed ear
with an almost biblical request

to "Take this
in remembrance of me."

So who was Rachel?

And why did he single her out?

Bernadette is now determined
to track down her identity.

Once again, the city archives
could provide evidence.

Prostitution was
a legal profession at the time,

and sex workers were
included in the city's census.

This is the 1886 census
for the town of Arles

as opposed to
the outlying villages.

And I have to look
for section "E,"

which is where most of
the brothels were located.

So I'm looking

for the profession
of lemonade seller,

"limonadier," and that
was the quaint term.

It could well be
a lemonade seller,

but it was the quaint
term employed by people

to talk about
the brothel madams.

Ah! Here we are.

This is my girl,

Virginie Chabaud, limonadier.

This is the woman who
was running the brothel

at the time Vincent
asked for Rachel.

When I look at all
the girls, one's from Spain.

This other lady is from Germany.

You can see the ages...

26, 29, 25, 30, 30, 28.

These are not young women.

They've got lots of names...

Jeanne, Rose, Marguérite,
Marie, Madeleine,

but there are no Rachels here.

Narrator: Although there is
no one by the name of Rachel

in the census,
Bernadette is still convinced

that her identity
is significant.

After all, Vincent had
a long history with prostitutes.

Naifeh:
He was horny, basically,

and he was lonely,

so he was desperate
both for the sexual relationship

and for the affection
and nurturing

that he desperately longed
for in a relationship

from a... with a woman.

Narrator: Vincent had
even lived with a prostitute,

Sien Hoornik, for
a year and a half in Holland.

Could he have been
similarly attracted to another,

the mysterious Rachel,
when he was in Arles?

Out of all the Arlesian women

whom Vincent must have
encountered during his stay,

what made her so special?

Bernadette couldn't find
any Rachels in the town census,

but then she discovers something

that changes
the story completely.

Narrator: It's an old press
article quoting the policeman

who was actually
at the scene of the crime.

In it he says, "The prostitute's
name escapes me,

though her working name
was Gaby."

For Bernadette,
it is a pivotal detail.

She goes back to the records

and finds a document
listing prostitutes.

Many of the names were followed

by the words
"dite Rachel," "called Rachel."

Murphy:
It's not their real name.

It's just a nickname.

I know they have other
names like Blondie and Redhead

and silly things like that,

but Rachel is one of the names

that occurs
linked into different girls.

So maybe although
policeman Robert said

Gaby was her working name,
maybe he just got it wrong.

Maybe it was her real name.

Narrator: There were no
Rachels living in Arles in 1888,

but there were 31 women
called Gabrielle or Gaby.

Bernadette is determined
to track down

the identity of this key figure

in the drama
of Vincent's breakdown.

And now, she has
another fascinating lead.

Murphy: This book
is by a man called Leprohon.

And, uh, what's really
interesting is that he does

a sort of follow-up
after Vincent's death

and goes back over
the tracks of Vincent,

trying to find, uh,
different testimonies

and different places
where he lived.

There's things on Madame Ginoux.

See? There's things
on the Roulins

and all various different
people in the life of Vincent,

but what's really interesting
is towards the end of the book,

there are just
four little lines,

but for me,
they're really exciting.

It says "Rachel, who
was called Gaby, died in 1952

at the age of 80."

So what I have to do
is find anybody called Gaby

who died around the age of 80
in 1952.

Narrator: For Bernadette,

the information raises
new questions.

Until now, many
assumed Vincent's Rachel or Gaby

was a prostitute simply
because she worked at a brothel.

But if Vincent's Gaby died
in 1952,

she would have been 16
at the time of the incident,

five years below
the legal age for prostitution.

Bernadette has discovered
there was

one Gabrielle of the right age,

who died in Arles
around that time.

With a network of connections,

she finds one local
who is willing

to give her insider knowledge.

[conversation in French]

Oui.

Narrator:
Gaby's family still lives

on the outskirts of Arles and
agreed to meet with Bernadette.

But, sensitive
about their family secret,

they did not want to be filmed.

Murphy: The family do not
wish in any shape or form

for their identity
to be revealed.

The perfume of scandal
that surrounds

the notion of working
in a brothel is too much.

People were prostitutes.

She wasn't.
She was a cleaner.

She was a domestic servant
in a brothel,

and she did several
brothels in the street,

by the looks of it.

Narrator: Although
keen to remain anonymous,

the family have revealed
a potentially vital connection

between van Gogh and Rachel.

In 1888, both she and Vincent
were in Paris at the same time.

Murphy: When I was down in
Arles, I thought

I'd finished
the story of Rachel,

but then I discovered
that she had actually spent

the early part
of January 1888 here in Paris.

And what's really extraordinary
is she actually was treated

by Louis Pasteur himself.

Narrator: In 1885,
the great French chemist

discovered the cure for rabies.

So the medical records
give me her name, Gabrielle,

that she came from Arles,

and that on 8th of January,
1888, at 3:00 in the afternoon,

she was bitten
by a dog that had rabies.

She was literally put
on a train that night to Paris.

It was a whole day
and night journey.

And she started treatment
on the 10th of January,

and this continued
to the 27th of January.

Narrator: Although Vincent
and Gaby were in Paris

at the same time, the chance
of them meeting

in a city of two million
seems unlikely...

until Bernadette
remembers something

from one of van Gogh's letters.

Murphy: I started to get
a little bit intrigued

because I found some references.

There are two references
to Pasteur in Vincent's letters,

but one in particular
is very, very precise.

It's a letter that he wrote

sometime around
the 9th or 10th of July, 1888.

And he says that the women
who go around

who have been bitten
by rabid dogs,

who live at
the Institut Pasteur.

Narrator:
Did Vincent learn about Pasteur

from these women in Arles

or, more intriguingly,
from an encounter

with the mysterious Gaby
in Paris?

Vincent arrived in Arles

just three weeks after Gaby
returned from her treatment.

Murphy: I wonder if they
did meet while she was in Paris.

I mean, there was no reason
for Vincent to go to Arles.

He did want to go south.
We knew that.

I think that, perhaps,
he followed her there.

Narrator: If Bernadette's
theory is correct,

she has possibly discovered
why Vincent went to the brothel

on that terrible night:

to give his ear to the girl
who'd attracted him to Arles

in the first place.

Now Bernadette
has one final journey to make.

She's heading back
to where she started...

The Van Gogh Museum
in Amsterdam...

With a copy of her evidence.

So I have something to show you.

Murphy: It's, obviously,
the 18th of August, 1930.

I checked the address.
I checked the signatures.

Have a look and tell me
what you think.

Van Tilborgh: Well, that
solves the question.

Meedendorp: There's not
much left of the ear...

Murphy: No, there's not
much left of the ear.

At least, in this,
uh, this drawing.

It's quite clear
on what happened.

Eh, the truth now is
in front of our eyes.

You did find
an important document.

Thanks, Louis.

I was excited when I found it.

It answers a question.

It does.

And it was the question
I had in the beginning.

It just took, you know, a
much longer time to bring...

To prove it in the end
than I thought.

It answers this for
once and for all.

I mean, uh it answers it for...

It answers it for once
and for all, yeah.

Once and for all.
Yeah.

Kind of a lucky find
for Bernadette.

[Laughter]

Narrator: Bernadette's
seven-year quest has created

an incredible picture
of van Gogh's time in Arles.

The people he knew,
where they lived,

his friends, and his enemies.

She has tracked down the girl
he gave his severed ear to

and even found
a possible explanation

for why Vincent was drawn
to Arles in the first place.

In the Van Gogh Museum,

the artworks and documents
that tell this story

are now coming together
for the first time

in a major exhibition

that rewrites the legend of
Vincent's descent into madness.

The exhibition
includes the brilliant portrait

of Dr. Felix Rey

and the still life showing
his brother's letter

that could have pushed him
over the edge.

Tucked among the masterpieces,

there is even a tiny scrap
of paper,

forgotten for
over half a century...

a small drawing
by Dr. Rey that finally solves

the mystery of van Gogh's ear.

This program was made possible
in part by

the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by contributions
to your PBS station

from viewers like you.

Thank you.