Original subtitles

- Blind him!

- Fornicator!

- Gouge out his eyes!

- Dauber!

- Scratch out his eyes!

- Ah! I can't see!

I can't see!

Fuck!

Where's the light?

I'm blind. I'm blind!

I'm blind! Oh!

My eyes...

My eyes!

Open your eyes, you fool!

Stop fooling!

Stop your shouting! - Who is shouting?!

- A blind man shouting! A blind man shouting!

- Who will listen to a blind man shouting?!

- Blinded.

Darkness.

Miles...

...and miles...

Fuck. And miles...

of... painted darkness.

Lit by spasms of light.

If you're lucky.

Open your eyes, you fool!

Miles and miles...

...and miles...

...of painted darkness.

Emptiness.

Silence.

- Are you all right?

- Oh!

Oh! Oh, God!

Was that only a nightmare?

Have I-I-I... Have I woken up?

I've been seeing the night. I was watching the night.

I was looking...

into Darkness.

Darkness without ending. I was watching Darkness.

I was...

watching... the night.

I was nightwatching.

- You were only dreaming.

- I am blind. Do I at least look blind?

- You were having a nightmare.

- Can I, in fact, see...

you, Hendrickje? Hmm?

Red-blooded Hendrickje?

Ah?

You see, I know... I know your blood is red.

Do I remember - your eyes are blue?

I suspect your piss is yellow! - Be quiet.

Let me get you something to drink.

- How would you describe...

colour?

Hmm?

If you were blind?

Hendrickje...

describe the colour red to...

to a blind man.

- You just did.

It's the colour of blood. - Red is thick to touch.

If you could not tell what it was by its colour,

you could tell what it was by its touch.

Red is touchable.

- And it's warm.

And when it grows cold, it crusts over.

- What is yellow?

- The sun?

Yellow smells.

It's... it's the smelling colour!

- Yellow is thinner than red. It's more transparent.

Yellow moves.

Red is static and becomes solid.

Yellow always moves.

Yellow could be...

a liquid.

New beer.

Urine.

Piss.

It doesn't smell so bad to begin with.

Then it smells ugly.

- Get dressed. We're all waiting for you.

Ineke's pregnant.

Again?

- You have milk in your beard.

- Why again? I haven't got a proper beard.

- Because Claus is insatiable.

- Then you should grow a beard.

Successful men wear beards. - Sanza,

pick up your doll. - I want to be insatiable...

and wealthy.

- Then grow a proper beard.

- You are insatiable.

You could be wealthier.

- Hendrickje, stop singing. - Oh, no. Let her sing.

It's good for the baby.

- How would you know?

- Hendrickje, you're dripping all over the floor.

- And what else is good for my baby?

- Milk.

Gallons of fresh milk, from a Friesian wet-nurse.

- Well, if Saskia's not breastfeeding,

we shall have to have Hendrickje breastfeeding.

Rembrandt, don't be vulgar.

Poor girl isn't a woman yet.

Besides, I shall have enough milk to make cheese.

Saskia, don't be vulgar.

There are students present.

- Students are here to learn and earn us money.

- You mustn't feed him yourself. - Of course

I'm going to feed him myself. Geertje, you're old-fashioned.

We are living in the 17th century.

Women in the 17th century are allowed to smoke, write,

correspond with Descartes, wear spectacles,

insult the pope, and breast-feed babies.

- If you can find a man to pay for the first and poke you up

for the last. - Geertje, that's enough.

- Geertje's not old-fashioned. She wears breeches

between her legs and garters below her knees.

- And how do you know that, Hendrickje Stoffels?

- Because she's a very observant girl.

Saskia, what have you got there?

- My accounts...

"Contemporary women are permitted to smoke, write...

Correspond with Descartes,

wear spectacles, insult the pope,

and breast-feed babies".

- And conduct business with men of substance.

- Oh, I'm a man of substance. - Mm. Visscher has a list.

- Oh... He has 12 officers interested.

- No, I'm not going to do it.

- Yes, you are. At 60 guilders each.

- No, I'm not. Anyway, that's too low a price.

- Yes, you are,

and it's 720 guilders.

- I'm not. I'm busy.

"Ecce Homo" till May.

"Washing of the Hands" till June.

"Saint Veronica" by August.

- You have such devoted supporters.

- And then print editions of the same.

- With golden angels. I need to find a golden angel.

Ah-hah.

You are modelling Magdalene.

- There was no record of her being pregnant.

Perhaps Hendrickje can be an angel?

- Are you pregnant, Hendrickje? - Angels should be innocent.

- What, even in the 17th century?

- But I-I-I am innocent.

- Painting soldiers will make me blind.

Blind and fingerless.

Both my father and my brother had their fingers blown off

by the Dutch artillery -

and not by being shot at, but by shooting at!

- Rembrandt.

- And painting repetitious rows of smiling part-time soldiers

is boring

and certainly bad for the eyes.

Not one of them's ever fired a musket in anger,

though all of them claim to have pulled

the King of Spain's fucking beard!

- Here's our captain, Piers Hasselburg,

and our lieutenant, Jean Egremont.

- Van Rijn.

They tell me your father was a miller.

Well, so was mine.

We are people of the wind.

- That is always blowing in contrary directions.

- Taking good advantage, I am sure,

of where we sail. - How we sail.

- And making sure we can sail back.

With profitable returns.

- Oh!

I thank you, sir.

- Do not mention it, Madame.

I am a soldier, but my father is - was -

a flower merchant in Paris.

But now, when Amsterdam is not besieged by Spaniards,

my business interests, Madame,

are flowers.

- Mm... Miller,

flower-merchant, soldier.

You see how the Republic goes downhill?

- But now, we have an opportunity.

- An excuse for a grand celebratory group portrait.

- This time, on the occasion of the arrival in Amsterdam

of Mary Stuart, daughter of the King of England.

- When monarchies are in trouble,

they send their females begging.

- The King of England is in serious trouble

of losing his throne to his parliament.

His daughter is here in Amsterdam

trying to arrange loans.

- And to pawn the Royal English jewels.

- Oh, sounds desperate.

- No, no. She understands, and we understand,

that there are many here in Amsterdam

who will, as likely as not, help her out,

with considerable profit to themselves, of course.

- Ourselves. - And you?

How will that help you out?

- I am looking for a place in the King of England's household

as a musician and a composer.

My cousin, Ruben's protege, van Dyk, is at Westminster.

- Then the king had better win. Hmm?

- So you are to be the standard-bearer,

the carrier of the flag of Amsterdam.

Your ambition does not sound to be so very patriotic.

- Patriotism is a currency of fluctuating value

in the marketplace.

The Dutch abroad are not the Dutch at home.

- You could go to England.

You must know the King of England owns a portrait of your mother.

- My son, Carl. - Ah.

- His mother collects your paintings.

My son collects your prints.

- My mother bought the "Stoning of St. Stephen"

that you painted in Leiden.

- Uli! Ahem.

I hear I'm charging 80 a full-length now?

Would that be to give yourself a useful profit?

- Come on, Rembrandt, be more gracious.

I recommended you.

I am an honest businessman,

even in my dishonesty.

If I benefit - and it's for me to say how

and for you to find out - you could benefit too.

Push up your price.

- Inclusive or exclusive of your fee?

- Well, I obviously don't expect extras from you.

Those days are over, I think.

I feel, I know, I'm sure...

- Cousin, you promised me a man of talent,

and as you can see,

I now have him.

He lives in my kitchen.

With servants from Leeuwarden all around him.

I have his replica in my belly.

- Saskia!

- And you promised after you trapped him with my smile

and my body as bait... - Saskia, Saskia...

...that I would think of you,

and I was certainly to think of myself.

Rembrandt therefore left you, through me,

on your recommendation.

You benefited...

from this little provincial

for eight profitable years.

Time enough to make a little fortune.

Now it's my turn...

to make a little fortune,

for my son.

And I believe you still owe us money.

- Saskia. - Rembrandt,

allow me to introduce Rombout Kemp,

our sergeant.

You may know him as the Keeper of the Resselwart Orphanage.

- Van Rijn.

We are neighbours in the Breestraat.

How about making a contribution to the orphanage?

We have many new children, orphaned by the Spanish wars.

- Then I think they must all be touching 30.

- Hmm. The governing body is now six.

Perhaps as a neighbour you might like to join us,

a man of means doing charitable works,

and we may need a group portrait soon

to remind us of our responsibilities.

Perhaps we could remind you of your responsibilities.

- I, Rembrandt, will be your commanding officer.

Are you ready, Mr. Painter?

Then aim...

...fire!

Rembrandt!

Oh, what's happening? - Oh, she's fainted!

Fetch some water!

Can you hear me?!

Saskia! Saskia!

Never again! Saskia!

- Look at this.

Bloody burghers.

Gawking and smiling.

Poncing and posing.

I can do better than that.

- There's Benjamin.

He had a most desirable wife.

Dimples and curls everywhere.

- He couldn't sit still. He had a bladder complaint.

We had to keep the chamber pot by his chair.

They all look so stiff.

- They all look like conspirators.

- Or worse - thieves, pickpockets.

Child-molesters, murderers...

- His head's too big.

- Well, maybe the painter wanted you to say that.

He didn't like him or approve of his character,

so he made him absurd.

Not enough to spoil his own reputation,

of course, but certainly enough

to spoil his. Legitimate painter's armoury.

Flatter, praise, insult, abuse, accuse.

- Accuse?

Are you going to do the same?

- I might. It depends.

- On what?

- The price, the state of our friendship,

the angle of the light,

the smell of his armpits,

the beauty of his wife,

whether I've eaten or drunk, whether, indeed, I am drunk,

does he know Titian,

has he been to Cadiz, does he have big feet?

Context, context, context.

- God,

I'd like to watch you do those things.

I really think you ought to do it.

- You do?

Well, the boy says I should do it.

Then I'll do it!

No, I won't. At least, not for nothing.

I want 100 guilders for a full-length, half the money up front.

Now, how much did van der Helst get for this one?

- 2, 3, 6, 7, 8... full-lengths at 100.

2, 3, 6, 7... half-lengths at 50.

2, 4, 6, 8... nine heads-and-shoulders at 25.

Which is 1,375.

- Not bad.

- Well, he should've subtracted 100 for that stale duck,

50 for the vulgar drinking-horn, and 25

for that dried-up vegetation. - Hello!

Looks like they're making certain

that you don't have a choice, Rembrandt.

Ah, they've already reserved you a space,

Rembrandt.

You have been named.

- I want to draw everyone beforehand.

That's essential.

And I'm not doing long rows of pompous faces,

but anyway, I have other things to do first,

and I want nine months.

Human gestation period.

If it takes that long to make a baby,

it will certainly take that long to make a painted army.

- It doesn't take that long to make a baby.

Ten seconds, at the most. - For you, maybe,

but for me, with the right dimples and curls,

five seconds. - Ah.

- This is me with Saskia.

Saskia van Uylenburgh.

Hendrick Uylenburgh's cousin.

Now, Hendrick was my dealer and patron for eight years.

How was she?

Well, she was my dealer's cousin,

and the three of us knew what we were doing.

A business proposition.

Keep it in the family, so to speak.

A dynastic marriage.

Twenty when I met her. I was... 25.

I admit that I was, at first,

not so much taken with her.

A little insipid, I thought.

And she was also hoity-toity.

An accent.

At least from where I stood.

She smirked a great deal.

She kept eating almonds,

which she hid in a pocket somewhere.

Maybe in her underwear,

close to her skin.

And...

and perhaps that excited me a little.

Out of her armpit...

into her mouth.

We met for the first time in a church.

The Old Church, Amsterdam.

You don't normally think of armpits in a church.

Her first question she ever asked me

was how the mills were turning in Leiden.

- So how do the mills turn in Leiden?

- Cheeky cow.

I said, "Well enough.

As well as they turn in Friesland.

The wind blows in Leiden

as much as it does in Leeuwarden,

or, for that matter, out of any miller's arse,"

and she smirked again.

So I could see it was going to be possible

to share a dirty joke with her.

God, she had big feet.

And, I must admit,

the most delightful, tight little arse.

We married,

and it worked.

We rousted about.

Did she love me?

Hmm...

I don't know.

Did I love her?

I don't know.

She was more like a relative I had known all my life.

Perhaps even like a... sister,

but legitimate in bed, so to speak.

How do babies grow in your family?

- Like tulips. - Let's make a baby.

- Very well. - Very well?

What's that mean? - No more than it says.

- Get Geertje!

- Let me look! - No, you don't want to look!

Geertje?!

- Let me draw you. - No.

- Then let me stay. - You must go!

This is a private time. No drawing or painting!

Now, what the hell am I,

just an excuse for a bloody drawing?!

- How can it be a private time?! It's our child! We made it!

- I and my stretched and bloodied private parts

are not just an excuse for another bloody painting...

- There are chalk marks all over the sheet!

...that ends up in a dealer's window

for the whole world to see! Oh!

My body reproduced in a thousand prints

seen all over Holland! - Holland?

How dare you! You mean Europe?

- Oh, fuck you and your painting!

- You are not needed. Take you stuff and get out!

- Yes, yes! - Get out!

- I think we married to make babies,

and to make a fortune for her cousin -

and for her, and for me.

- We did? Hmm.

We certainly needed to make some money.

- Good at keeping the books.

She was very good with figures.

Geertje, please. Look after her, will you?

- Bastard! Get out! You smelly little runt!

Take my hand!

- Out! - I pay you!

- We really needed to make some money.

- And creating a nice, snug,

and very Dutch comfortable business.

She was a great companion.

Oh, fuck.

Fuck. Fuck!

I cannot lose her,

and I'm not going to go down and fucking pray.

There's no goddamn superstitious angels,

no visitations!

This sort of goddamn thing is happening all over Amsterdam

at this moment.

God.

What... what are you doing?

You're not going to jump, are you?

- No.

I'm an angel.

Least they say so,

when I dance for them

in my angel's costume.

- Angel's costume?

- Like when I was born.

No clothes on.

Only I'm nine now.

Well...

nine going on 10.

Perhaps 11.

I could be 12.

Maybe even older.

Horatio says that's what excites them.

Am I a woman, or am I still a girl?

What do you think?

I don't think I'm a woman yet anyway.

Least, I haven't bled yet.

They say that as soon as you bleed,

you become a woman.

You are no longer a child and you can go with men.

Sometimes,

they become impatient,

and they cut you to make you bleed.

I'm nearly as old as my mother was when she died.

She jumped off the roof of the Westerkerk.

- What was she doing up there?

- Watching the night, I expect. Like you.

They will tell you that babies are made up there,

the stars in the sky,

but it's not true.

Fathers make the babies.

They are out there,

doing it,

between their legs.

In the streets.

In the Kerkendam

and the Kloosterstraat and the Doelenplein.

And then the mothers bring them to the house downstairs.

- I live downstairs.

- It's not so bad really.

Most of the babies die and go to heaven.

Least, I think they go to heaven.

So it's less a burden than you think.

Take my handl Take my handl

- Think about it.

- Oh, I will.

- Why are your hands red?

It looks like blood.

- Oh, no, it's, um, chalk. I've been drawing.

- What are you looking at?

- Uh, the night.

I was watching the night.

I see churches and...

- Over there,

in that church,

is where your wife will be buried.

Really? How do you know that?

- And over there, in that church,

is where you will be buried.

She stays there,

and you get to disappear.

- Really?

- Yes.

- Are you an Angel of Death?

- No. I'm an Angel of Birth.

Kemp says.

- Birth? Really?

Rombout Kemp?

- I bring babies.

- Whose babies?

- I can bring you a baby if you want.

- You can?

How's that?

- How much will you give me?

- That depends.

- Girl or boy?

- Bring me a boy.

- Kemp will be pleased.

He charges more for a boy.

What will you call him,

because as yet these babies don't have names,

and it's important for baptism. - Hmm.

Well, I had thought of Titus.

- All right,

but you must look after him very carefully.

Babies need to be provided for, for life. Always.

What happens if you lose your eyes,

become blind. What then?

- Did you say Rombout Kemp?

- Yes, I did.

He's my father.

- Thank you. Ladies...

Ladies, please, please.

Thank you so much, but leave us now.

Thank you. - Let us change the sheets.

- No, no! Leave them! It's blood, chalk. It's us.

Geertje.

And thank you.

We're parents now.

At last, we can be trusted to be alone together.

Hold that.

Hold that Roman gesture for a moment!

- Surely we're going to wake up the baby!

It's meant to be a Nativity in Bethlehem, isn't it?!

- Matthias, I'll decide, thank you very much, what the scene is.

It could be "The Visit of the Three Kings".

The baby's name this time is Titus.

- That's not a Jewish name. It's Roman.

- Pompey?

Caesar?

Anthony? Augustus?

That's not bad.

Just hold that one more minute.

- The queen.

I am the queen.

- Is this wise?

- I've given her something to drink. She's a little bit tipsy.

- Aren't you being fucking irresponsible?

- Like you, she's celebrating. Let her be.

- She's just out of childbirth, the baby's sick,

and you're making them both fucking drunk!

- Rembrandt, I came to see what you were doing,

but it's all so noisy in here. - Oh...

- Careful, he's just been fed.

You'll make him sick. - Oh. Okay...

Oh...

Mm.

Hasselburg.

Meet...

Titus van Rijn.

Painter's son.

Carl, here, hold him.

Come on, he won't bite.

Or shit on your hands.

- But he might throw up on your shoulder.

- Ah... There.

There he is.

Look at this lot.

Tramps, beggars, Amsterdam riff-raff!

Never could be Romans. - Romans?

Is that what we're meant to be? - I thought we were in Bethlehem.

- There were Romans in Bethlehem?

- There were Romans everywhere. Just like now.

- I'm not playing a Roman Catholic!

You never said we were Roman Catholics!

- No one would mistake you for a Roman, or a Catholic.

You're too raggedy-arsed. - Soldiers are soldiers everywhere.

Make them the Dutch Militia, you will have your crowd.

Wave a few banners. Swing a few pikes.

Let the Romans become the Amsterdam Musketeers.

- All right, you pathetic rabble, take a break.

Come on, take them to the kitchen for a beer.

Carl, give me back my son,

and, uh, take your father into the house,

show him my armour.

I could equip a regiment for him.

Yes! Couldn't I?

Couldn't I?

Ah, so beautiful.

I don't want to do this thing. - Are you so sure?

You prepare a Nativity to celebrate your son,

and you fill it with soldiers.

I think you're halfway to accepting the commission.

- And there's no women. There has to be some women

in this painting. Maybe you could be in it.

- Oh, no, thank you. All happy roistering,

bad breath, bad jokes, buttock pinching.

- Buttock pinching? So who's up to buttock-pinching, then?

Stop it!

No, don't put your hand there.

I'm still bleeding.

- Women always bleed after childbirth.

That's normal. - Up to a point.

We have gone beyond that point. - It's two months.

You should be on the mend by now.

What's happened to our love life? - Stop it.

- Where's those rosy cheeks? Hmm?

That kissable backside.

I'm fed up masturbating into a paint-rag.

- Well, find yourself a whore, then!

I'm a leaky vessel.

My womb has never returned to where it should've been.

- Let me be the judge.

- Stop. - Saskia.

- Stop. - Please, please, Saskia.

Oh, my God, Saskia! Saskia!

Oh, God...

- Look what you've done! Get Geertje!

Stop thinking about your prick and get Geertje!

- Sorry. - Saskia? I'm here!

What are you doing on the floor?

You fool! Get out!

- Fuck this painting!

Fuck it! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Bloody hell!

What are you doing up here?

- I'm sorry.

I can only find you a girl baby.

Look.

- For Christ's sake, mind you don't fall.

- This one's really pretty, don't you think?

- I once had two daughters.

Both called Cornelia.

But they died.

- I expect they're in heaven.

Maybe these will be soon.

Only half of girl babies survive,

and only one quarter of boy babies.

My sister and I do our best,

but since we are not fully women yet,

we can't feed them at the breast. That's what they really want.

So since they don't have proper mothers,

they tend to die.

- Where did you get them from? - Downstairs.

- Where downstairs? I live downstairs.

- In the basement. Next door, really.

Well, three houses next door,

but the roofs are connected.

My sister normally helps me.

She looks after the boy babies,

and I look after the girl babies.

There's Horatio, too, and Dirk, our friends.

They don't look after babies.

They want to be soldiers.

Horatio's certain to be a soldier.

He's learning to fire a musket.

My sister, Marita, is really in love with him.

She often kisses him,

and other things.

- You must come downstairs to my house,

and I'll draw you and your sister.

- No, I can't do that.

I'm to stay away from men.

Unless they are approved of by my father.

Men are supposed to be dangerous.

Especially at night.

- Oh, foul day!

Oh, desperate deed!

I will bestow on thee

the reward of thy treachery.

Thou wanton!

Blacker than the vilest pit of Hell!

Thinks thou self an innocent?

Thinks thou self an innocent?

Thinks thou self chaste?!

I had rather proved thee

what I know thou art.

A whore!

Witness thus

the reward of dishonour.

- I need them. I need them out here.

I need them looking towards me.

I'm the painter of this painting,

I need them here! - Everyone, turn this way.

- That's good, but take it down, please,

because that's going to be way out of the frame.

- That's Jorisz. - Oh, fuck, Jorisz. Never mind.

Listen. That's good, Pieter. I can see Simon.

Jorisz, will you please find the light?!

- Get them to put their hands together,

as though in prayer. - Are you sure, Kemp?

This is meant to be a tableau full of martial spirit.

Is it an accident the fair-haired ones are grouped on the left?

- Well, they can be your little angels, Kemp.

- My God! They don't look

like little angels. - Expert on angels, Kemp?

Because they can come in all shapes, sizes and ages.

They needn't all be girls, either.

Jan is a blacksmith.

- Joseph shovels shit,

when he's not in the guardhouse,

or lounging around on our doorstep.

- Jacob is a vagrant of no fixed address.

- Emmett is... What is Emmett?

- Uh, Emmett has been Sophocles and Nebuchadnezzar,

if that helps.

And, uh, and... who else he been?

Potiphar the, uh... Potiphar the what's it called?

- Cuckold. - Cuckold. Thank you.

- Potiphar was no cuckold.

- Oh, excuse me, he certainly was!

I have spoken to a rabbi,

who told me that Potiphar slept with young men

in order to avoid the temptation

of his wife trying to screw Joseph.

- Jewish sophistry. - Sophis... Really?

They got a down payment on sophistry?

What about Reformists' sophistry?

What about Mary being a virgin as a result

of a translation error from the Hebrew?

Come on, Kemp, keep up, love.

Now, hands together, please, clasped in prayer.

"Our Father who art in Heaven..."

- Jan, please, forgotten how to pray?

Thank you.

- There's bound to be trouble with the liturgy.

- What are we praying for? Rain?

- A visit from the Holy Ghost. - Thank you.

- Permission to shit? - Let's try a Frans Hals.

- No, no, but isn't that plagiarism?

- No. He stole it from Veronese.

- Well, Frans, tables, chairs. Geertje, Hans!

Come on! Things for the table!

I'm not paying 100 guilders to be in a rout.

- Oh, come now. See it as good poor-box money.

You can take the leftovers back to the orphanage.

We'll give you a bag.

Take the bread back to your little angels,

your daughters.

- I have no daughters.

- Jorisz, will you please

stop looking so fucking miserable.

- My dog died. - Oh, sorry, but get a new one.

Like this one who's always trying to screw Jamie's bitch.

- Oh, yes, that filthy whore of a species is always on his,

aren't you Woolfi, you dirty dog!

- I think we should memorialize his efforts, actually,

but be careful, Jorisz, 'cause he's a biter!

He'll have your prick or your ass, one of the two.

- Mind the glassesl - All right! All right! Ha! Ha!

Everyone ready?

What this needs is Carl.

Carl, put Hendrickje on your lap,

but no fumbling.

She's far too young and far too respectable.

- I'm almost a woman. - He's almost a man;

that's what I am worried about.

We're out to salute

the daughter of the King of England,

who's married to the King of Holland!

- He's not a king, goddammit!

- As near as - goddammit!

- I'm a Republican! - So you are.

- When you're drunk. - Sit down, Jorisz. Finish your beer.

- I am not posing for a picture supporting monarchy.

I hate the House of Orange. - So do we all.

- It's a horrible colour, for a start!

Oldenbarnevelt forever!

- Can I sing? - Sing away, canary.

Kemp, come back! They're singing your song!

Oh, Geertje, I'd like to see you singing!

- Get your hands off me, you dirty bastard!

- Whoa! - Don't worry, you'll get paid!

You always do! - Shut up!

- Goddammit. I'll do it. Stop your sulking.

- I'm not sulking. And do what?

- The goddamned painting of the militia

pretending to be mighty soldiers.

Oh, that.

- What? What do you mean, "Oh, that?"

I thought that was what you wanted!

Goddammit! It was your idea.

You put me up to this! - Did I?

- And I know I'll live to regret it.

- Then don't do it.

Simply don't do it. It doesn't matter.

- Well, now you're being petulant.

- You've lost the commission anyway.

You've apparently upset Rombout Kemp.

Uli's acting very nervous lately,

and he's drinking a lot with the Banning Cocqs.

Do you know 100 guilders is not so much.

You could get at least 120 a throw,

painting 20 of them.

Then we can fix the foundations so the house doesn't fall over.

- Oh, God! It won't fall over, for Christ's sake.

- It would take care of Titus for some time to come.

You know Uli even said you shouldn't do the militia.

- Why ever not? He used to be so keen.

- He keeps on saying

you ought to talk to the man in the red cloak,

and then decide. - Who's the man

in the red cloak? Uli is getting cold feet.

He's losing his nose for a bargain.

- I don't think so.

Something serious is worrying him.

- What did you mean, "Take care of Titus?"

- Ahem. It's certain that I'm on the way out.

No. No, you're not.

Come on, get up! Out of this bed at once!

Let me kiss your belly, that'll rouse you.

- Oh, for God's sake, don't start that again!

I'll end up on the floor, and the floor's cold.

- For Jesus's sake, if the floor's cold, I'll buy you a fucking carpet.

I'm in disgrace.

- Why?

- For attempting to make love to my wife?

- Were you hoping to make a baby?

- Not necessarily.

- It is strange, isn't it,

how it all happens?

- Is it? - I've watched it happen.

The men come to the orphanage,

and some of the older girls -

Judith, she's about 13-

are taken to the bedroom overlooking the garden...

...and they stay there for an hour or so.

I have stood in the gallery and watched.

There is some laughter, it's true,

but mostly, it's all done very quietly,

and then there are tears.

But Judith often comes back with some flowers,

or a new ribbon,

and once, she was given a Passover cake,

which she shared with me.

And once...

my father gave her a silver coin.

- Your father? Kemp?

- Oh, yes. Don't worry.

He took off his white collar at the door.

I don't think Judith knows he's my father.

She just thinks of him

as an old grandfather from Haarlem.

- You're supposed to be an angel

and not know about such things.

What is that bruise on your face?

- I said I wasn't going to do what Judith's doing

for at least another year,

not until I start being a woman, that is.

Otherwise, you end up like my sister.

She had an accident with a pot of scalding water.

She will never be beautiful again.

- This rain never stops.

Geertje's at Titia's with Titus.

- Probably not. - Hmm?

She'd have left Titus with Titia

and gone to the guardhouse round the corner,

more likely with Jorisz.

She'll come back smelling of tobacco

and other unmentionables.

- Hendrickje's gone home to buy linen.

I gave her 10 guilders.

Carl and Gerard are at the theatre.

They want to paint actors.

Isn't that what you do?

- Annette and Femke are fetching milk.

Christina and Kirde are sewing at Katia's.

Pieter is reading to his mother in Praed Street.

Susanna is praying no doubt at St. Swithin's,

and Caspar and Jan are fishing.

- In the rain? - Mm-hmm.

- Their mother will kill me if they catch another cold.

- Balthasar, well,

he has gone to the cemetery

to whisper to his father's corpse.

And David?

- David? Well, you know David.

He's probably asleep somewhere, in a barn with a horse.

We...

...we are alone.

- In this big house,

with far too many servants.

Rich.

- Fat.

- Tired.

- Happy?

- Not so happy.

You're ill,

and I am...

miserable that you're ill.

- What will you do if I die?

- You're not going to die.

- What will you do when I die? - I could die before you.

Oh!

Then where would we be?

I'd have to sell this house.

Say goodbye to paintings and pictures.

Move back to Leeuwarden with Titus.

How about "The Militia"? - Oh, let's not talk about it.

Hell! I confess I'm beginning to warm to it.

You were right.

What's keeping me interested is all the invented conspiracies.

- Maybe the conspiracies are not so invented.

- Well, Kemp ought to be castrated,

that hypocritical, lecherous old wolf.

Apparently, he's using the orphanage

as a child brothel.

Engelen should be booted out of the Kirchmarsal.

He's buying houses in the Jordaan,

and then burning them down to claim the insurance.

Visscher...

has gone into tobacco after saying he wouldn't,

and forcing down the price, and...

there's a new thing.

Borst says...

that I am giving away...

military secrets.

Apparently, I'm not supposed to show the enemy

how to load and fire the new muskets.

So I'm painting the muskets upside down...

...to confuse!

Because it will.

It will confuse the Spanish in Madrid.

Oh, yes, and, and...

and Valladolid and Santiago de Compostella.

You see now what a patriot I am.

Someone back from somewhere.

- Tell them to close the windows in the balcony,

or the dye will run on the new curtains.

- They've shot Hasselburg!

Someone's shot Hasselburg!

In the eye!

Th-they shot him through the right eye!

Into his brain!

He's dead!

- Hasselburg was killed with a bullet in the eye.

Blinded.

A painter would sympathize with such a death.

- So would Samson.

- He was blinded in two eyes,

but he brought down the temple.

- He had great strength.

- There might be equivalent great strength in seeing.

You could bring down the Temple.

- Temple. What Temple?

- Samson was a witness. - Before he was blinded.

- You could be a witness, too. - Witness?

- I think I might introduce you to the mourners.

This is Carl,

Hasselburg's son.

- Well, indeed, we have...

more than a little passing acquaintance.

Don't we, Carl?

Carl is very fond of my favourite servant,

Hendrickje.

Sir, in your great grief,

I offer you condolences from myself and my family.

- Thank you, Rembrandt.

And how is Hendrickje? - She is very well,

and at present, kissing babies.

Uh, where is Egremont?

Where Hasselburg was Egremont was also,

and I understand Egremont will now be captain?

- Egremont is gone. - Gone?

- This is Hasselburg's successor,

Captain Frans Banning Cocq,

Lord of Purmerend and Ilpendam.

May I, Captain, introduce the painter

who will shortly be memorializing us all?

- Oh, sir, a pleasure.

- Sadness to meet on such an occasion,

and I trust you have not started your painting,

and therefore not obliged to make any irritating changes?

- Maybe since the subjects have changed,

we should change the painter?

- Ooh! Do you think so, Willem?

- How would it have been if you'd been obliged

to paint the portrait of a one-eyed captain of the militia,

lying on his back in a coffin

dressed like a grandmother in bed?

- And this is Banning Cocq's brother-in-law,

and this is Banning Cocq's nephew.

- I have never met a painter before.

- I have been told that a painter's hands

are always stained with the materials of his trade.

- Oh, no, no, no. As you see, Clement,

Rembrandt has the hands

of a gentleman.

Are you a gentleman, sir? - If I am not,

then I can paint any man to look like a gentleman.

Indeed, such is the nature of painting

that I can paint even a prick like you

to look like a gentleman,

and as such, any man to look like a painter.

- If you want to be a military man, you have to sweat a little!

It's not all drinking and costume and whoring.

Now, here look,

if you want to get in to be in a military...

- Sit still.

Hold this.

- You must not look at Marita's face.

If you do, she will run away and hide.

She did that last week and we found her up a chimney.

- What happened to her face?

Straighten your arm.

- Kemp did it.

- Rombout Kemp?

- He caught her...

with her dress above her head with Horatio,

who had his thingy between her legs.

He said that she was very, very wicked.

So he threw the pot of scalding water in her face,

to stop her being a temptation, he said.

- My God! That's terrible.

How old is Horatio?

- He's 13.

He's going to be a soldier.

He can fire a musket,

though he doesn't know really how to.

And he loves me.

We are going to run away together.

To New Amsterdam.

Manhattan Island.

In America.

- Rembrandt is asking us to be stand-ins

to a collection of rich merchants' sons

playing at soldiers!

When have they ever fired a shot in anger?

- When are they ever likely to fire a shot in anger?

Bought commissions, bought titles,

and bought uniforms.

They ought to be shot, all of them.

- Maybe that's what they have started doing already.

- Bang, bang, bang!

Hasselburg is dead.

- I used to trade bulbs from Turkey.

That's how I started,

but the bottom fell out.

Now it's carnations

from Alexandria.

Just as versatile as tulips.

Just as colourful.

Just as variegated.

Just as decorative.

Ma.

Ma.

And they smell.

Tulips never smelt.

Except when they went bad, but it's not the same.

The market's all right, but not brilliant.

You could buy them off me, if you like.

I'll give you...

a goodish price.

Hmm? Hmm?

Where the hell have you been?

Hey! Look at that!

What do you think? Huh?

Do you think I look and feel like a flower-seller?

From Paree?

A Huguenot escaping from the pogroms?

Like Descartes hiding

from being a French soldier,

living incognito in Amsterdam,

learning to be Dutch -

double Dutch, even!

Trying very hard indeed to assimilate,

like all foreigners. What do you think?

- I think you're a fake, Bloemfelt.

I saw you at the theatre the other evening,

and not in the audience, on the stage.

You're an actor. - Oh!

- And I know your moustache to be fake, too.

And this, of course, is not your house, is it?

I mean, this is Egremont's house.

- Mm... Till he gets back.

I'm looking after it for him.

- Well, well, well,

all is not as it seems,

is it, Bloemfelt?

I mean, shall I paint you

as the flower merchant Bloemfelt?

As the actor Bloemfelt?

As the pretend soldier Bloemfelt?

Or as Lieutenant Egremont?

- I should do as you normally do, Rembrandt.

Your paintings are always full of actors

posing and stalking about.

And like all actors,

you're always peering in a mirror

to see how you look.

All the world's a stage, eh, Rembrandt?

You're going to put us all on a stage in your painting?

- Oh, it's wonderful.

You did it at last.

Oh, you do listen.

- Thank you! Let me kiss you.

- Where did you get it?

- I walked to Jaffa,

I got a camel to Jerusalem,

I climbed Mount Ararat.

Yes, I sailed the whole Sea of Galilee.

- Where did you get it, really?

- No, that would be telling.

- Oh, look it's beautiful!

Oh, I want to be buried in it!

- What? Tatty and moth-eaten by then.

Pieter sold it to me. He says it's from Cadiz.

- Where's Cadiz? - I dunno.

- Fetch the globe! Where is Cadiz?

Hello.

Come on! You must all sit on my magic carpet.

- Well, with all of us on it, it won't fly away.

Come on, bring your wine.

Sit here and here. Balance it and stop it tipping.

- Feet, feet, feet, feet, feet.

- Rembrandt, hurry up. - All right, all right.

- If you don't sit down, we'll fly away,

and you'll be left behind! - I'm checking the filth.

- Up you get. - Oh, me coccyx.

So where is Cadiz?

- Well, I have to say, it's in the Keizersgracht.

- What? - Mm-hmm.

- In Amsterdam? - Well, I said to Pieter

to get me a Turkish carpet for you,

and he knew that Banning Cocq's father

lived for several years in Alexandria and Jaffa,

and he had a collection. So we did a deal.

"Pontius Pilate Washing His Hands"

for the Dutch Turkish carpet,

courtesy of the Cocqs.

- There was surely a hidden meaning there.

I would say so!

- That family is full of secrets and conspiracies.

- Titia, how do you know that?

- The biggest public secret

is that Captain Frans Banning Cocq,

Lord of Whatever,

is hopelessly in love with Willem van Ruytenburch,

Lord of Whatever.

- Oh! What? That little runt? Fuck!

Titia!

How on earth do you know that? - Has our little Willem

got his promotion, then?

- Apparently his father was somewhat peculiar

in that direction as well.

Too many years going native in Arabia,

where he shared certain favours with a bailiff.

- Or a "caliph". - A caliph, like you!

Well, I don't care.

I like this carpet very much. - Good, good.

- So does Titus. He just sicked up on it.

- Oh, Titus!

- Well, that's it, christened then. We can't turn it back now.

If Titus thinks it warrants his vomited breakfast,

then that's it. Settled.

- Yes, the English say

the Dutch...

are getting taller all the time.

- That seems not to be the case, though,

with little Willem. Do you think?

- Little?

Little?

You think Willem is little?

Do we look so different together?

Well, maybe if...

Well, if you...

dress him in yellow and white -

hmm -

with a tallish hat and perhaps a feather,

and I'm dressed darkish, maybe in black, like this,

that would compensate a little, don't you think?

But I mean we don't want to look like a bride and groom,

now, do we?

You're hearing me, Rembrandt?

- Oh, you're making all your negatives sound to me like positives.

I think I'm hearing you very well.

- Oh, good, that's very good.

So perhaps you might be the excellent man for the job.

But, um...

...there is my brother-in-law,

Andries de Graeff, to remember.

That business of the returned painting

wasn't very good, was it, Rembrandt?

We understood he, uh...

We understood he threw the glove at you, so to speak.

A challenge,

so to speak?

You know, he tends to be touchy and tetchy, I suppose.

- Well, it's not too late for you to change your mind,

and I would hate to have to sue you for non-payment,

like your brother-in-law,

who you must know lost his case.

- Ah! So who's making a challenge now?

Huh-huh. Well, you know,

Andries warned me all about you, you know,

putting special meanings in your paintings.

I mean, what he was asking for was honesty.

You interpreted the honesty for drunkenness.

Is that right? Hmm?

Rembrandt?

And since he's my brother-in-law,

and very, very wealthy...

...I understand several of us paid you already?

Isn't that right?

- The red sash, I think, and the black suit.

Let's see? Good.

Um... and I think we'll have a gesture,

a gesture like a Roman officer.

Not Greek.

Mm-hmm. There. There.

And the...

That's it.

Flat-soled shoes,

this, I think.

Oh, and "The Man in Black".

Ha-ha. And you've...

you've picked up the glove, so to speak,

for your brother-in-law?

- Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

I think so...

- Hmm. - Yes.

Well, as long as you make Willem look very grand, eh?

He'll be pleased. As of course shall I.

We shall, I'm sure, Willem and I,

look very splendid together. Very splendid.

- Look what we found for you.

She's a present.

A beauty. An exotic.

Her name is Ispidie, from the Gold Coast,

and she hasn't caught pneumonia or influenza yet,

but I'm certain she surely will, eventually,

and then she'll die.

They just don't survive very long.

- You can take her and then draw her,

or whatever you do.

- What do you do?

- You're so wealthy now.

You could probably buy her entire tribe.

Though if she's only got six months to live,

it might not be a good idea.

- I'm sure painting alone

never made you so filthy rich.

- Tell us what you really do to make all this cash.

- Are you a sort of pimp, Rembrandt?

- I have known some pimps here and there,

some of them were quite well off,

but, uh, I would never say they were rich.

Really rich.

See, the problem with pimps

is that they don't live so long either.

They die of the pox or the knife of a jealous lover,

or with their eyes scratched out.

- Are you a ship speculator?

For I am told you are lousy with money.

- When people owe me money, I'm ruthless.

I just can't stand debtors.

If you can't play the game like the rest of us, then out.

- I understand the money side of things

is more in your wife's line. - We gave her 50 each.

I suppose that's half of it now.

Or has it gone up again?

I need a good position in that painting.

No Holland corners,

and if I don't look like I would like to look like...

then 50 is all you're getting.

- I hear that Wormsmark...

- It's Wormsdyke.

...has included you...

in his deal with the Sunflower.

- And I understand...

that that is Egremont's ship.

Do you know where he is?

- Egremont? - Mm.

- Good Lord, no! He's finished.

He's disgraced himself. He'll probably stay abroad.

Probably somewhere where they speak French.

Madeira. Tunisia.

She speaks French.

Don't you, darling?

She may be black,

but she's very, very talented.

Remember, Rembrandt, six months at the latest.

Then you have to pay for the coffin.

And the Calvin crowd,

they don't really like blacks in their cemeteries.

Do they, Ispidie?

- Look...

I paid 20 guilders for these.

I need to wear them!

My wife will complain if I don't

and my life won't be worth living.

- Now... - I wore this at the Queen's visit!

- If I put you in this stuff,

you're going to have to lose the beard,

because they want clean-shaven.

I could give you a dog to carry. - What the hell for?!

I don't like dogs, and they don't like me!

They bite me.

I insist we wear these.

I'm paying, for God's sake!

- This - wrong colour.

Too dull and no shine.

- If they're good enough for the Queen of France,

they're good enough for me,

and should be good enough for you!

- Look, if you wear this stuff,

then I'm going to put you in the shadows,

otherwise you'll look like a catamite in a kardomah.

Next one? - Well, what the hell is that?

- Well, the first's a bum-boy, and the second I'm not sure.

I got it from Wormscheldt. - It's Wormskerck!

- Ah. Mm-hmm.

There... Now, this...

Ahem-hem-hem.

How's Egremont doing?

- Pfft!

Disgraced. - Oh?

- Why do you want to know?

He disappeared.

- Disappeared? What? He was so loud a man,

I doubt he could disappear so... easily.

- Disgraced, drunk in charge of firing.

He drank too much. - Oh?

- He's got relatives in Virginia.

- Oh. - Maybe he's gone there.

He was the one that ordered the shot

that killed Hasselburg.

- Now that, to me,

does not at all sound likely.

Fire!

Clear!

Ferdinand. Ready?

Fire!

Clear.

Gerard. Ready?

Fire!

Clear.

- You've forgotten the order to aim.

Who's doing the aiming?

- Well, surely the shooter aims his own musket?

- You would've thought so. - Not without a musket stand.

All right.

Well, let's try it again. Uh, now, Hendrickje!

And Liefe! Mind the way, please,

we're going to try again.

Hameron, let's try another one.

Now, bear with me. Aim...

...and fire.

So you see, you see, that without a musket-stand,

the aimer is in full control

of the trajectory of the bullet.

So, in order for this to work, the aimer -

let's say Geyle or Jongkind -

has to be in close association

with the lieutenant who shouts the orders to fire.

- Which is Egremont. - Mm-hmm.

- Egremont is in this conspiracy?

- Well, Jongkind said that Egremont was drunk

and waved his arm indiscriminately.

- But Jongkind said that Egremont

wasn't looking at any target.

- Has he been made a dupe? Where the Hell is Egremont now?

I've asked around, but get hazy answers.

- I've heard a rumour that he may be in Genoa.

- Jongkind says Virginia.

- That is a long way to travel in six weeks.

What's he doing there? - Well, everyone says the same:

Shame, guilt, disgrace. He's in hiding.

- He's on a ship belonging to Engelen.

- Virginia? Tobacco!

Engelen is after a slice

of the Virginia tobacco market!

- But it was an accident.

"Dereliction of duty". - Well, I'm absolutely certain

that Egremont had nothing to do with it.

We must paint him into the picture.

Now, now, is there a likeness of him in Amsterdam?

- Yeah, well, he was supposed to be painted by Pinkenoy,

so perhaps the Hague? - Mm-hmm.

- The shot was fired behind Engeland's head.

Matthias said the sound made everyone jump,

so it could not have been expected.

- Fired by a 12-year-old boy. Too young to be a soldier.

- It could be Horatio Eiken. - Hmm?

- He's from the orphanage.

He was out that afternoon shooting,

the afternoon it was pouring with rain?

Marita says he came back wringing wet and shivering,

and wouldn't talk. Then Dirk came in later

and told everyone that Hasselburg was dead,

and Horatio told him to shut up,

and then locked himself in the privy.

Dirk told me the details. He said they'd caught him

and told him to keep his mouth shut and not report what he had seen.

Only he bit Jongkind's wrist and escaped.

- Well, Jongkind said his wrist was bitten by a dog.

Where is Horatio now?

- He's on a boat belonging to Engelen,

somewhere off the Azores. He left a note for Marita.

Which she keeps wrapped in a tear-stained handkerchief

tucked in her bodice.

- Is it not curious that both Horatio and Egremont

are not in Amsterdam?

- I don't understand.

Why would Horatio agree to do this?

- Oh. - Marita says he was forced to.

- Blackmail.

- Freedom from Kemp.

- Kemp set him up?

- Kemp caught Horatio and Marita together...

doing things.

- They were 12 and 13, for God's sake!

- Marita said she loved him. - And Kemp says rape.

- No, they were going to take a passage to New Amsterdam,

the Dutch settlement in America!

- Kemp accuses Horatio of throwing scalding coffee

into Marita's face.

- Perhaps he wanted it to appear like an act of jealousy.

- Well, if Horatio did not do what the conspirators wanted,

he is accused of rape.

- Marita, like Marieke, is Kemp's daughter.

- What?

- Yes, she threw herself off the roof of the Westerkerk.

- We cannot blame Horatio. He was planted.

- The plotters know who he is, and now I can show so do we.

We can include him in the picture.

Not by using his face,

but by using his name:

Horatio Aiken.

Oak.

Oak leaves.

- That's not Banning Cocq's hand, is it?

It looks like it doesn't belong to the arm.

- Is that an observation, or a criticism?

But you're right. It's not his hand.

That belongs to Piers Hasselburg.

- Geyle looks smart in his red suit.

Though the red of his nose matches the red of his jacket.

Has he been drinking?

- What's Woolfi the dog doing there?

- He's barking at Jorisz. Can't you see him?

- Well, he's usually doing something dirty -

makes a change he's only barking.

- Matthias doesn't look like he knows what he's doing

with that musket.

- Oh, so what's new? He's so near-sighted,

he can't see two feet beyond his face.

- And Bloemfelt's grown a moustache!

- Ah, Bloemfelt says that when he's clean-shaven,

he's himself,

and when he wears a moustache, that's a signal he's acting.

Isn't it, Titus?

So we can see...

We can see in this, he's acting, isn't he?

- Then it seems to me

they should all be wearing moustaches.

Because it looks like they're all acting.

- Come on, let's have a little. - No!

Shh-shh-shh.

Oh, what have you got under here?

Oh, now, no, no, no. Listen. Shh-shh-shh.

- Will, no!

Goosing the servants?

Did he get his dirty fingers on you, Hendrickje? Huh?

The master fumbler.

All big, empty breeches. - Shut up, van Rijn.

- Bad-boy son of a rich man who got his money from spices,

then bought a title, gave it to his son

to squander in fucking squalor?!

Mr. Lord Vlaardingen, the bought-title man -

how much is that?! 30,000 guilders

from the good burghers of Rotterdam,

because they needed a new fucking roof for the town hall?!

- Shut your bloody mouth, Rijn, Leiden fucking miller.

- Let's have some manners,

and let's have some fucking courtesy in my house,

you queer cunt.

You inherited a bought title

to improve your station in life.

Pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves,

in exchange for a poppycock badge of merit

and a charter signed and sealed with wax crimson

somewhere in the misty marshes of the Maas,

which nobody has even heard of...

Vlaardingen?! Fucking hell. Vlaardingen?!

Vlaardingen?!

Where is Vlaardingen, Hendrickje, do you know?

Vlaardingen? Who are you? Where are you?

"Wherefore art thou, fucking Vlaardingen?!"

- Shut your fucking mouth, Rijn. You're out!

You're dismissed.

You'll not get a fucking penny from me.

- Too late, Ruytenburch! You're in the picture!

Led there by your bold captain,

who always wanted to fumble your balls,

suck your cock, and finger your arse!

- You are a disgusting little miller's pig

from God-knows-where! - "God-knows-where!"

"I'm a disgusting little fucking miller's pig

from God-knows-where!" Well, we're off.

Here we come. Here we come. We're facing off,

and I'll ram you through your fucking queer balls, cad!

What was it your Banning-Cocq said?!

"Fire!"

Because I know. I know.

Now, you're out of here! And out of my fucking kitchen

before I call Kemp and the city fathers

and have you arrested for molestation of a child underage!

- You wouldn't dare! And besides, Kemp's in it, too.

- Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah - conspirators together.

Try me.

- Leave us!

- Yes! Oh, yes, you better go, Hendrickje,

because Little Willem in his high-heel fucking boots

is going to try and bribe me now,

aren't you, Willem, eh?! Eh? Eh? Eh?

Well, come on, then, Vlaardingen!

Come on! How much?

How much?

I think...

I have you by the short and curlies.

- Hendrickje, there's something Rembrandt ought to know.

You must tell him to come and buy meat here himself.

- Oh, whatever for? There's lots of comings and goings going on.

You're like a conspirator. - We should get back now.

- Oh, Femke. I'm talking.

- Although you could come, if you like.

He seems to let you know everything.

- Everything? What do you mean?

- Do you, uh...

do you ever...

do you ever get away from the house?

- If I want.

What are you saying? - Nothing.

It's... it's just...

if you ever had any free time,

and, you know, I was wondering...

- Wondering what?

- If I could... see you.

- Well, you're seeing me now.

I'm a very busy and valued servant.

I can't be seen loitering around with you.

- If you're going to stand here forever,

I'm putting the shopping on the ground.

- But I am often in the backyard and in the garden,

and it has a gate without a lock.

- In the mud. - Oh, shut up.

There is no mud. - And the blood.

- You do that, and I'll box your ears, madam!

You can come and watch me shelling peas, or picking radishes,

or looking for lice in Titus's hair.

You could come and watch me pluck the chicken.

- The emblem of my father's regiment.

- Well, you see, that could be the excuse.

- Hendrickje, will you please get rid of these people?

This is a private bedroom, not a public drinking house,

or a goddamn Reformed church chapel!

- Shh!

Look, it's for Titus, and it's for you.

If you remarry, I want him to be safe.

- I am not going to remarry! - If you remarry,

half of everything we have together should go to him when he's 16.

Look after him for me carefully.

Very carefully.

I shall never forgive you if anything happens to him.

My ghost will come back and haunt you forever.

He's our investment.

We made him together.

Let's invest in him together.

I never want him to end up in that orphanage.

- You should listen to her.

They sometimes do it to little boys.

They did it to Horatio. - For Christ's sake!

- Thank you.

So...

...how's the painting?

- It's almost finished.

- Satisfied? - Yes.

- Then I can go.

- What?

- Well...

I only stayed around long enough

to see you finish the job I encouraged you to start.

You can put the money away somewhere safe,

all 4,000 of it.

Half of what I accounted for

is in the red-lacquered tea-urn in the kitchen.

That's 300 with my stockings in the chest under the bed,

and Uli's got the rest. - Uli?

- He won't cheat you.

I made him promise.

With that little nest egg, Titus can go to Italy to study.

And I...

get a good funeral.

- Oh, Saskia.

- I want to be buried on the west side,

a long way from Sweelinck. He was a noisy man.

I want some peace.

And get Geertje to put me in woolens.

It's cold in that church.

The sun only reaches so far, they say,

with that plot you bought for us all,

and it'll probably be damp.

Oh, God, no.

No...

you can't.

You're not going anywhere.

Come on.

I want you now to make me some China tea.

Yes?

Get Hendrickje to bring some hot water,

and Geertje to iron the long hose.

I want to go to heaven with warm feet

and no garter marks on my calves!

And I want to take my Turkish carpet with me.

- Egremont!

You're supposed to be on your way to America,

or Cadiz, or Algiers,

or Manhattan, Calcutta, Macao.

- I find it exotic enough here.

All the world comes to Amsterdam.

- I am going to put you in the picture.

In the painting. Where you should be.

- Where do you sleep?

- Pardon?

What is it to do with you?

You're very forward.

What's my bed, Carl, to you?

- Now you're being silly.

In the house?

- I sleep with Femke and Luce and Gemte

in the big bed in the attic,

next to the chimney, where's it's very warm.

- Do you ever walk about the house in your underclothes?

- Oh, stop it, Carl, you're being ridiculous.

- Does he see you like that? - Carl, you're now being offensive.

- It's Hasselburg's helmet.

It's Greek...

and antique.

- I doubt very much, though, whether it's gold,

but it is very fine.

- Do you ever pose for him?

You know, without any clothes on?

- All right...

you've gone too far!

- I was drunk, it is true,

but I was not there.

It was raining cats and dogs.

You remember that afternoon?

I was sure the gunpowder would never go off.

Target practice was a waste of time.

I sat in the tent...

with some of those washerwomen.

They were rained off too.

And, Rembrandt,

we got so drunk, I could not stand up.

Mind you, neither could they.

We all sort of ended up on the floor,

among the washing.

I gave no orders to fire.

It was Clement Cocq,

Cocq's brother-in-law.

Cocq is not exactly a coward,

but he's a pawn,

a handsome pawn,

and he is besotted with Willem.

And Willem, with those little shits,

Floris and Clement, they set up the order to fire!

Willem will gain more...

than the lieutenant's position from this.

Though he's tainted all round, and knows it.

That's why he's so determined to show he's a lady's man,

overeager to suggest he could have nothing to do

with what Cocq wants!

Now he can be blackmailed.

In fact, they can all now be blackmailed.

You could blackmail them.

- Be reasonable, Saskia.

I have to finish this drawing, for God's sake.

Saskia, if you are around no more,

then I shall have to look at myself more often in the mirror.

All right, a mirror was never so far away, I know.

Saskia.

Saskia, for fuck's sake!

We have not come all this fucking way together

for you to goddamn drop out on me now.

Come bloody back, at once!

Saskia, you go, and I'll lose bloody everything.

Saskia?

All right, let's say I give in and agree that you are dead.

This drawing...

says you're still breathing.

Doesn't it?

Does it?

It's curious. This drawing...

forever and ever, will go on saying that you are sleeping.

Forever and ever.

Can you tell from a drawing if a body is dead,

or simply asleep? Which is more correct,

Saskia?

Your body?

This drawing?

Saskia...

Oh, Saskia!

Carl, what are you doing here?

- I don't want you to paint me in the picture.

- You're already in it. - I don't want to be in it.

You must take me out. - Whatever for?

Carl, if I can't put your father in, I can put you in.

- No! I think you're disreputable.

You're old enough to be her grandfather!

I've seen the way you look at her.

- Carl, don't be stupid.

What's happened? What's the matter?

- I meant what I said. - Mm.

Ah, Tobias.

Thank you for coming.

Come. Come.

I can't paint you out, Carl.

It's sad that you feel the way you do -

or maybe we can put you more in the shadows -

but, Carl, you and Hendrickje must be friends again. Hmm?

There's enough unhappiness in this house tonight,

without you making it more so.

You're very young.

Next month, in a few weeks,

you'll have other enthusiasms,

and your world is not Hendrickje's world.

Marita, come, hold this.

We can show Kemp

that we know about his pot of scalding hot water.

- No.

I couldn't.

- Very well. Uh, Marieke,

carry this for your sister.

Be her champion. Hmm?

Now, Carl, kiss Hendrickje. Hmm?

And then for your sake, as well as for ours, you must leave.

This painting is dedicated to your father. Mm?

This painting is the way it is because of your father.

Come. Come.

Well, my little fat, hysterical friend.

- Who you calling fat?

- The circle circled.

She's dead.

- Yes, she is.

- You made your bed with her.

- I did. - No, you didn't.

I made your bed with her,

and then you pissed in it!

- What, I did? How so?

- You got mighty.

- You mean I left you.

- Now this is how it goes from here.

I take over. - Fuck off!

- I've seen the painting,

and you're in trouble, you fool.

- How come you've seen the painting?

- I can see what you've been doing.

- How come you've see the painting?

- I've had that door locked for four weeks!

You must've snuck in!

- Jorisz took me in via the roof. - Sneaky bastard!

- You have got to destroy it and start again,

or else I can't take care of the circumstances.

You are painting your death warrant!

- You can't take care of the circumstances?

What the fuck has it got to do with you?

- Everything, you fool!

I'll go down with the rest of them!

I tried to warn you with de Roy,

"The Man in the Red Cloak" -

though he might have his own little agenda -

and you wouldn't listen!

- I think I've listened very much, fucking well enough!

Why don't you... fuck off?! You fucking turncoat cunt!

Fuck you! I didn't want to do

this fucking painting in the first place!

If you've got your mucky fucking hands dirty,

it's your fucking problem!

Now, fuck off! This is my wife's funeral!

Fuck off!

Fuck off!

Fucking queer fat Polish cunt!

Fuck off!

It is curious, gentlemen, is it not,

that paintings are normally silent?

Now, however, we can give this painting,

this picture,

this image...

sound.

"The Calling out of the Militia

for the Fifth Company of the Musketeers,

Amsterdam".

There is, of course...

another sound.

Steady...

Aim...

Fire!

I and this painting accuse you gentlemen

of being responsible...

for the painting's major sound,

a musket shot.

Where...

did... the bullet go?

I accuse you gentlemen...

of murder!

What bloody fucking arrogance.

You arrogant little dauber!

- Fuck! Bloody hell!

- Rembrandt, you're being absurd!

You agreed, we agreed...

- You have a bloody cheek! - Yes, you go too fucking far!

- You simply have not fulfilled the terms of the contract.

- 18 members of this guild paid you good money

to see ourselves represented suitably in a group portrait.

- You couldn't even accomplish that.

- Yes, where is Willemsen, Leijdeckers and Cruysbergen?

- And who the hell is that?

If I'm not mistaken, that looks like bloody Egremont.

He wasn't there!

- Oh, shut up, you fool, of course he was there!

- No, he wasn't. He was drunk and incapable,

and screwing some washerwoman on the mess-tent floor!

- And him with his hat on goddamn backwards?

- And what is that little ugly girl

doing there?!

Dressed for a party

I wasn't invited to?!

- You do not load a flintlock like that,

making me look like a real prat!

- It's so goddamned dark, you can't see anything anyway!

Bring on some candles!

- That does not resemble shadow so much as simply dirt!

- You not trying to be Italian on us,

are you, Rembrandt? - Where's Uylenburgh?

He ought to be here. He's to blame.

He's the fucking producer! - That's right!

- Why don't you bloody well go to Italy

and look at some paintings like everybody else?

And if you haven't been to Italy,

what the fuck do you know about Italian paintings anyway?

- Look at Wormsditch! Look at the way you've done him up!

He looks like a clown in a commedia dell arte farce!

- That is Bloemfelt!

That's Wormskerck, not Wormsditch!

And I'm dressed in red, with tassels,

that look as though they decorate my wife's bed!

- And look at Ockersen! Look, where did he get

that helmet from? - It belongs to Rembrandt.

Ockersen is so broke,

he could never even afford a helmet.

- It's out of Rembrandt's little cabinet of curios,

bought in some flea market on the Jordaan.

All his clothes are out of date.

No one wears a helmet like that except outside of a theatre.

We are meant to be the militia coming to defend the city,

and it looks like we look like

a bunch of fucking out-of-work actors

trying on the wardrobe!

I say...

let's burn the fucking thing!

You are for it, dauber.

Your credit has been blasted.

- So...

what then, Mr. Painter,

is this little painting telling us?

That Banning-Cocq is a faggot

itching to get his hand on Willem's prick?

That Willem is a womaniser with a big cock?

That Kemp has a bastard daughter,

maybe two,

and there is a murder in our midst?

Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad.

Can you hold that for me? Four "not bads,"

but what, I wonder, have you done in the end?

You've pushed a bunch of ordinary and fallible

and undistinguished citizens out of the guardroom

and onto the streets.

But in the end, the effect is just...

well... silly.

Unless, of course,

that's what you wanted to do all along.

Are you being satirical, van Rijn?

Is this a satire?

You refused to go to Italy,

because you could not stand the heroics of Italian painting.

Are you mocking us, Rembrandt,

by bringing empty Italian heroics to us?

You must know that our little Dutch Republic

just can't handle this sort of stuff.

We want to hear Dutch spoken in our streets.

We want foreigners to behave,

and a Republic tempered by assassination

is not the Dutch way.

We do not assassinate like this.

Like, like...

like Italians, like Romans.

Or do we?

Will we?

In your attempt to make an accusation,

you've made a silly, messy caricature,

which everyone is going to forget,

or no longer understand.

The context, as always, is rapidly going to disappear,

even if they ever understood it in the first place.

You can depend that, despite all this,

there will be no justice here.

Captain Hasselburg remains dead,

his wife remains grief-stricken,

his son, Carl, bitter,

and the public verdict is?

"Accidental death during artillery practice".

Three of those accidental deaths

have happened every week in Holland for the last three generations.

You can settle scores privately

by painting evil and chicanery and murder,

but, watch out, they will certainly try

to settle scores privately with you, too.

Watch out, Rembrandt.

- Just look what that little Leiden bastard has done!

- Who's the child?

- Oh, Marieke,

Kemp's illegitimate,

carrying the pot of scalding coffee

that ruined her sister's face.

She carries the musketeer's cockerel,

hanging upside down ready for plucking and fucking.

- Oh, cock-a-doodle-doo!

- St. Peter Kemp in the farmyard denying Christ three times,

but there's never any denying of Kemp's little peter.

- Three squawking birds:

Engelen, Jongkind and Kemp.

- Cock-a-doodle-do! - My dame has lost her shoe!

- My master's lost his piddling stick! - And doesn't know what to do!

- I'm sure I cannot piss forward or backward,

and yet I am wet before and behind.

- We're going to pretend

to like it,

because the deeper accusations are far more dangerous.

He has made the militia company look incompetent,

holding their muskets like...

well, like fairies.

- You're going to like this painting,

and everybody is going to remember

how much you like this painting,

and all of those who make a case

that nobody complained about this painting

are going to be right!

No buts! - No disagreements.

- Ah... - Listen!

We stick together in this, or we are found out and ruined!

- This is not the way to do it.

One for all and all for one. - Shut up, Wormskerck.

- It's going to hang in the militia hall as planned,

and everybody is going to say how much we like it.

- Hang a painting on a wall,

and in three weeks, it will be forgotten.

- Everything it's supposed to say

will be forgotten as well.

- So I have paid 60 guilders

for the privilege of being forgotten?

- I'll give you your money back.

Make a fuss, you're likely to lose everything.

Rembrandt may be cock of the roost just now,

but he's unstable.

- Expensive unfashionable house falling down around him.

He's going to have difficulty selling it.

- Call in his debts.

Nobody can stand a debtor in Holland.

- Destroy his livelihood. - Blind him.

He can have an accident.

- Burn the bloody thing! - No, no, no, we sew him up!

- Ruin him.

- He's very susceptible to women.

- Humiliate him. - Disgrace him.

- The reformers will not commission a fornicator.

- The Amsterdam Calvinists think sex with a woman

is like kissing a shit bucket.

- In five years, he'll be forgotten,

crawling back to Leiden

to hide away among his father's flour sacks.

- And when he's gone, we can get rid of the thing.

Take it down for cleaning,

never put it back.

Roll it up.

Lose it somewhere.

- We, uh...

we have a suggestion.

- This is me with Geertje.

She's a professional widow,

all cunt and arse and thrusting tits.

The slut.

The delightful slut.

Doesn't wash.

Smells like a sailor, talks like a sailor.

- I'm a trumpeter's daughter.

Bomp-baa-dee-da!

Hold my trumpet.

Blow my trumpet.

Let me blow your trumpet.

See?

Mm.

He's crying.

- Leave him.

It'll do him good to cry a bit.

- No, it won't. Go and fetch him.

- He's stopped.

- She was a dry wet-nurse, so to speak.

No children of her own. Never had.

Her husband had died years before.

We always thought she had a lover

in the military depot at Amstelveen.

She'd been around in my house for years,

a sort of slightly grumpy midwife-servant,

and Saskia liked her.

They both came from Leeuwarden,

they spoke Friesian together,

Titus took to her.

And then one night,

several months after Saskia died...

I saw her undressing in the scullery to wash,

and...

was...

gripped...

by the sight of garter marks on her calves.

So...

pirouette around a bit.

Show me how you dance.

Can you dance a little?

You show me.

- I don't dance.

I'm a short, stocky...

plump sort of a man.

I don't dance.

- We all noticed.

A miller's son.

No better at bottom than me.

- It's true mills and trumpets both need wind.

Wave your arms around.

Like a mill.

- Like this?

- That's not bad.

That's good.

Hmm. Stand... on the other foot.

- Everyone's an excuse for a painting.

- What better excuse can you think of?

For everyone. For anyone?

Here.

Try this.

It smells.

- It's beaver.

- What's a beaver? - North American water-rat.

- What's this all for?

What are we going to do...

you and me?

After we've posed?

And danced?

We are the soldiers

Of Amsterdam

We are the soldiers of Amsterdam

- She had been married before,

to a soldier.

She knew all the tricks he had taught her.

She practised them on me.

My brother is a soldier

Who plays the trumpet

And my husband is a bugler

Every night I hid my prick,

my head, myself, in her.

If my prick was not in her cunt,

it was in her arse, her mouth.

If it was in none of these places, it was in her hand.

I was distracted...

for hours...

every night,

to escape...

thinking...

of missing you, Saskia.

Ahhh!

I was obsessed with Geertje's body.

I wanted to paint myself as a transgressor.

I was in another drunken,

ribald, sticky country.

Stay still.

Don't move. Let me draw you.

- No! - Stay still!

I'll give you the drawing.

- Then why do it?

- For the pleasure of drawing.

For the pleasure...

of seeing you nicely humiliated.

For the pleasure of me humiliating you

and you letting me.

For the pleasure...

of me acknowledging...

my transgression,

that is surely part...

of what we do together.

Master... servant.

- I look after Titus.

- Well, so you do!

Geertje! Geertje!

- Let me look at it!

- Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!

- I could not,

of course,

let anyone else

envy... my enjoyment.

- Empty bed?

- The child, Marieke, is in labour.

- Who is that?

- She's in disgrace.

- Her face is damaged.

- Someone went out of the way

to destroy her good looks.

She used to have such a pretty face.

- Pretty face...

and still...

has a handsome body.

- Then she will likely be a good candidate for me.

Someone so disadvantaged

is going to work very hard to please.

I would enjoy that.

Perhaps you would like to join me?

Half the price, double the pleasure.

- She's Kemp's daughter.

- A private room...

for three, then,

Mistress... Rombout Kemp.

- Shh. We are not supposed to call me that.

One for you...

- For those poor orphans

more unfortunate than you, Marita.

- One for my friend...

and one for me.

- No lice, no dogs,

no crabs, no peepers.

- Mirrors, hot water,

clean sheets, ribbons.

- Straps,

a towel,

a comb,

a razor,

a knife,

candles...

...a pair of scissors.

- Beer, spirits,

and...

a Bible. - Oh!

- I was a soldier's daughter,

and a soldier's wife.

I was reared for soldiery.

- You make me think the worst

of your husband and your father.

- The very worst you can think of...

is perhaps the least important

of what I would be called upon to perform.

And in your imaginings...

...you have left out a brother,

and a brother-in-law!

When they all found out that I could not bear children,

their lust increased...

...for they never could be frightened

that their excesses would be discovered.

I saw three ships go sailing by

I can smell the sea.

Can you smell my ship? Hmm?

The Leaden Weight?

That was a stupid investment, wasn't it?

Your mother would've told me better.

Marieke!

And where are all your babies?

- I live with Rombout now.

- What?!

- I'm his scullery maid.

I come back to see where I was happy.

I come up here most nights when he has finished with me.

We had a baby.

It didn't have any legs...

...my father's baby...

and it died!

- Come here, little chicken.

Life is tough.

Unfair.

Imperfect.

Brutish.

Disappointing.

And unbearable.

And there is no justice.

And there never will be.

Shh...

I saw three ships

Go sailing by

Sailing by sailing by

I saw three ships go sailing by

At half past 3:00 in the morning

- I liked me in that painting.

I still wear Saskia's earrings when I come up here.

I'd like to see me in that painting again.

Though Rombout says I shouldn't look.

He says it's an evil painting.

I don't think so.

I was very happy with you.

- Jesus, Marieke!

Marieke! No! No!

I saw three ships go sailing by

Sailing by sailing by

I saw three ships go sailing by

At half past 3:00 in the morning

- Enough.

- You've changed.

- Such intense distraction, it wears itself out.

I'm bored of being your victim.

You began to glory in bringing me so close to the ground,

till my nose is shovelling in your shit.

- You were once not so unhappy to be there!

- You're right. It fitted my bad reputation of myself.

I paid you huge sums in jewels,

furs, crockery, to pretend that you were a whore

experienced enough to deserve such things!

I paid you more to make you dare more,

but soon...

you have no more novelties to give.

I had exhausted your entire store of novelties.

And you! You wanted more and more!

You became too triumphant!

Titus walks this house with shit between his legs

and sores around his mouth!

He has fleas,

his shit wriggles with worms!

That's it. You're a slut.

You're a bitch.

You call yourself a nursemaid -

I saw you... in front of the mirror

fixing Saskia's necklaces around your neck.

- You gave them to me!

She can't wear them!

She's dead.

Very dead.

- The original contract for the painting

came from Hasselburg and Egremont.

They went to Visscher and Kemp to arrange it.

Visscher and de Roy came to me.

Once started...

...the other militiamen joined in.

Here is the rest of the money.

I came tonight to hand it over.

Then...

the Banning-Cocqs moved in.

They wanted the prestige of meeting the Stuarts

and arranging the pawning of the English crown jewels.

To be in a good position to do this,

they needed to lead the musketeers when the English...

came to Amsterdam.

Hasselburg had to go.

- And with him...

the inseparable Egremont.

- They were in negotiations

to move both of them to Utrecht

when the Banning-Cocqs, Floris and Clement,

suggested a more violent plan.

They suggested staging...

what they called...

a military accident.

Kemp provided the innocent assassin

from his orphanage,

hopelessly blackmailing

the highly impressionable Horatio

with accusations of illicit sex with you,

and threatening you,

and destroying your innocent dream

of going to America,

and because you did not shut up and behave like a good girl,

destroying your good looks.

- A terrible act of spite

for which may he never be forgiven.

- De Roy...

had discovered

that they planned to remove Hasselburg violently,

and he told me.

He thought the action lacked elegance and finesse.

He was displeased.

It was not necessary.

He discussed it with me.

It affected his sense of fair play,

but, more importantly, his sense of aesthetics.

I threatened to move out and tell you,

through Saskia,

to have nothing to do with the painting.

To be sure you got the message,

I got Jacob de Roy to try to warn you,

because I knew you wouldn't listen to me,

and would likely listen to him.

I foolishly told my friend, Broest,

about my worries and...

Floris and Clement overheard us at the bathhouse

and told the others.

I was tainted,

and implicated.

- Titia, put your coat on

and go and pay those people,

the genuine creditors, waiting outside.

Here are their names.

See if you can get a signature for each piece of paper.

If they won't or cannot sign for the money,

I'll see them in the morning.

- They wanted continuity, solidarity,

a smooth transition of power,

as though everything's normal, nothing had changed.

So they continued the commission with you,

and then you began to work the rest out for yourself,

and stupidly decided,

in your arrogance,

to self-righteously paint the indictment

within the very commission they had paid you for,

and for what end?

They are set now to destroy you,

and they will stop at nothing to shut me up too.

- It's a very sorry mess.

- Marita, you're shivering.

- They cut me.

I'm not a woman yet,

and they cut me to make me bleed.

And now that I am a woman,

they set up clients and I go with them.

And what should I do if I don't agree?!

With my face like this and my family history,

I will never get a husband!

- That's not true. - Kemp has thrown me

out of the orphanage. - Y-you can stay here with us.

- I can't do that!

- Egremont could take you to America.

- Draw my portrait!

Paint my portrait and make me beautiful

once again!

Could you do that?

- Rembrandt hasn't painted anything since Saskia died.

- Then let me be the excuse to start again!

The painting could stand in for my face.

I still have a beautiful body, haven't I? You've seen it.

And it will grow more beautiful as I get older!

And once the world is finished with my body,

I will climb even higher than my mother and sister,

and I will jump!

- What is wrong?

You have stopped working.

- I will let you into a secret

that you will tell no one.

I have a lazy eye.

This is my good eye...

...and this is my lazy eye.

If you tell anyone, I am destroyed,

for who would employ a painter with a lazy eye?

I entrust you with my most destructive secret.

But now I finally realize what this is all about.

My eye was never lazy.

This eye...

was just waiting.

Waiting nearly 30 years...

to see you,

and now, having patiently waited for so long,

I find it is the better of my two eyes.

This is the eye waiting to view...

a miracle.

And the miracle...

is you.

And now...

this eye...

...must see all of you.

This is me and Hendrickje.

Isn't she lovely?

Twenty years younger than me.

No fool like an old fool.

What more can I say?

How did it happen?

Well, it happened...

when a musket blew up in my face

and she licked the powder from my eye.

- No. I don't think so.

I was 13 years old.

- Well, it happened when I stopped Willem

fumbling her body in a dark kitchen.

- No, I don't think it did.

I was 15.

- Well...

it happened when I was on the roof

watching the night and waiting for the Angel Gabriel

to come from Leiden Way,

and Hendrickje came looking for me

with a candle in her hand.

Candle lights up your face

better than any angel dare hope to be illuminated

in all its innocence and glory.

And then...

I fell in love.

- And I was old enough to know what you were doing,

and it wasn't quite like that, but it will do.

- You have disappointed me, Rembrandt.

I expected something better of you,

something more intelligent,

something more knowing.

Something less local, more universal.

More lasting, so to speak.

- Ever the critical turncoat,

eh, de Roy?

Why did you ever alert me to all this chicanery

in the first place?

So to speak.

- I'm an enthusiastic man of the theatre,

as I know you to be.

I enjoy the plots and the plotting,

the mysteries, the enigmatic figures,

the twists and turns.

The metaphors.

The multiple possibilities and interpretations

from the one event,

and I need a man of talent to make them work for me.

To give me the whole show with some wit and irony,

and, of course,

topped off with some sense of visual spectacle.

Rembrandt,

you have curiously attempted to be real.

Now, we know that that isn't possible.

You have made a frozen moment of theatre.

You have stopped a costume play in action.

They wanted the costume, we know that,

but you encouraged them, and that was to be certain

that we all knew that we were at the theatre,

and at the theatre, all things are possible.

Even dying of love.

If you think about it

for one minute,

the tradition of militia paintings

that you so carefully broke

was a true and honest tradition,

where the participants can say, "Look, we are being painted.

Look, we understand that we are being watched,

and we're looking straight at you,

into your eyes, at you, to prove it.

We are not real, we are in a painting".

That's what they understood, and that is what they wanted.

You have spoilt all that for them, Rembrandt.

You have tried to pretend

that these are real people.

They didn't want that, didn't want it at all.

In your painting,

they hustle and bustle about doing real things -

loading muskets, giving commands,

drum, run and bark -

when all they wanted was to stand still

and be looked at.

"Here is me, here I am in my splendid uniform

as an important member of this important club.

I look at you, you look at me.

I'm watching you and you're watching me".

But you have pretended that the people in your painting

are not being watched.

Which is the definition of an actor?

An actor is a person who has been trained to pretend

he is not being watched.

So all the people in your paintings

are all actors,

not real people at all.

Yet you have got them to do things which are real.

Except, of course -

because you knew what you were doing -

of your little portrait of yourself.

You knew you were being watched,

and you look at us,

within the old tradition of these sort of paintings,

with admirable self-consciousness.

You're giving yourself

an old-fashioned position and responsibility

in a new-fashioned painting

which tries to deny that position and responsibility.

Your painting, Rembrandt, is a pretence,

a fakery, a cheat, a dishonesty,

full of impossible contradictions,

unworthy of a truly intelligent man.

They, of course, knew that they were being painted,

and you knew that they were being painted,

but what do you acknowledge?

Neither.

Why pretend?

Apart from all the other infelicities that demonstrate

you did not fulfill the task asked of you,

your painting, Rembrandt, is dishonest.

So much so,

that this is not a painting at all.

By its very nature, it denies being a painting.

It is a work...

of the theatre!

- He's still around.

He's still among us.

He will never just go away.

He survives everything we can throw at him.

- We should make it our business

that he never survives anything, anywhere, anymore.

- You could separate him from his friends.

You could use Marita as an encouragement.

Persuade him to drink.

Get him to walk home on his own.

- We have heard that yesterday,

the King of England officially declared war

on his parliament.

The English are in a civil war,

and we are certainly rich men.

...witnesses!

- Blind him!

- Scratch out his eyes!

- Some in the future might argue

that Rembrandt had had his day,

and that new fashions in painting had arrived.

Gayer, more expensive, easier, relevant,

more into luxury and splendour

of a well-satisfied little republic.

- To the king!

- And that Rembrandt had been spiteful and critical,

and cynical and over-inventive

in a melodramatic, conspiratorial tradition.

He had learned at the theatre

that really was foreign to the Dutch.

It could have been more English, so to speak,

a tradition of spite and conspiracy,

and secrecy and cruelty and revenge.

- I can't see!

Where's the light?!

I'm blind!

I am blinded!

Open your eyes, you fool!

Ah!

Ah... Ah...

Painted...

darkness.

Miles and miles and miles...

...of painted darkness.

Lit by spasms...

of light.

If you're lucky.

Silence. Amen. - Amen?

- Ah! - Are you all right?

- Hendrickje? Have I woken up?

Was that a nightmare? Oh, God.

I've been seeing the night. I was watching the night.

I was looking into darkness.

I was... I was nightwatching! - What happened?

- Ah!

I met two men on a horse that galloped towards me.

Ow! Galloped towards me...

- Turn your head. Into the light.

Let me look again. - What light?!

They knocked me down, they knocked me over. Ah! Ah...

They kicked me, they poked me in the eyes!

They stripped me, they beat me,

they beat the fucking colour out of me!

- You're all right.

And you're drunk.

- No, I'm not!

No, I'm not.

It's still dark. It's still dark.

Night... Is this a nightmare?

I've been watching the night!

I was seeing... the night!

Now, Hendrickje, Hendrickje,

Hendrickje, now, now, now,

now that I'm perpetually nightwatching,

don't you dare die on me!

Look at me.

Look at me. I am alive enough,

and there's life in my belly.

Stop shouting.

Where is the darkness in it for me? Hmm?

Where's the darkness in it for us?

- The Banning-Cocq conspirators knew

that they were correctly indicted,

and to hide their guilt,

they revengefully embarked on a campaign

to gradually destroy Rembrandt's wealth,

reputation and good fortune,

to persuade the world

that Rembrandt's celebrated group portrait

of the Amsterdam Militia

wasjust an innocent painting

of exuberant soldiers

rallying for musket practice.

Rembrandt...

intelligent and perceptive man that he is...

...though a miller's son, converted to uneasy bourgeois,

still stocking up his money like a peasant,

and trying to make friends in high places like a parvenu,

still sleeping with his servants because he could not sleep

with the women he aspired to be equal to.

He knew otherwise.