All language subtitles for Leibniz - Chronik eines verschollenen Bildes 2025 German EAC3 1080p WEB H264-SiXTYNiNE EN

LEIBNIZ
CHRONICLE OF A LOST PAINTING

ON OCTOBER 12, 1704,
CHARLOTTE, QUEEN OF PRUSSIA,

WROTE A LETTER TO HER MOTHER,
ELECTRESS SOPHIE OF HANOVER...

"Dear Maman,

It may seem strange to you

that I should so desire

a portrait of Leibniz.

The memories of my happy days
in Hanover

increasingly fade
with every passing year,

and I long to return
to the days

when I,
as his student,

could rush to him,
my Court Counselor Leibniz,

and receive answers

to my countless queries.

Today is yet another day
on which

I lack the courage
to face life,

and I long to have
our philosopher,

at least as a painting,
in my porcelain cabinet.

It would afford me the opportunity
to beset him with my questions

and to dream up
his answers.

Have you then commissioned Mr. Delalandre
to paint the portrait?

Did he consent?

Is it indeed

completed?

Dear Maman,
forgive me my melancholy.

Society at Lietzenburg

and superficial life
at the local court are so tedious.

At times,
it suits me not

to be the queen
of the joyless Prussians.

Your ever-loyal

and obedient

loving daughter,

Charlotte."

HERRENHAUSEN PALACE
MID-NOVEMBER

Not exactly a studio.

The academy easel
in the light.

The painting table there.

Spanish chest here.

The backgrounds

over on that wall.

Milanese trunks
here and there.

Pigments and tinctures
on the right.

Grinding slab and maulstick holder
on the side,

the maulstick to me.

Brushes,
charcoal pencils,

palette beside the

pigments.

The stool

there.

Precisely.

Pierre Albert Delalandre.

How gratifying that you have
accepted my invitation.

Well, an invitation from Your Serene
Highness. Who could fail?

But I was expecting a salon
overlooking the garden.

We are here in the gardener's house
of our esteemed Leibniz.

I heard he was a philosopher and did not
intend to portray him as a gardener.

Oh no.
No, no, no.

They are
in his own hand.

The Leine Canal.
The great fountain.

These are the designs
for the parterre en broderie.

Charlotte and I wish

that they be included
in his portrait.

For seven years
he worked here as master of our gardens,

and raised the horticultural art
to new levels.

We often visited him
as he was working,

my daughter and I.

His spirit
animates everything here.

The background
has long since been readied.

- So?

You wanted to show us
your selection?

The presentation.

The silk sheen
is my own creation.

I use incarnadine, which other
painters use only for human skin.

The red in the doublet:

natural vermilion from Spain.

You should know,
Maitre Delalandre,

if there is one color
certainly not suitable for our Leibniz,

it is red.

Anger, agitation, love-delirium.

Unthinkable.

The wig

was painted hair by hair
and shine by shine.

People will take him
for a French courtier.

Is that what we want?
No.

Well?

It is not him.

But it is worthy of him.

I hear the Court Counselor
appreciates Parisian fashion.

Yes.

What do you think?

It is not him,
but it is worthy of him.

Gold and silk lace,
the specialty of my workshop.

It requires work, diligence
and expensive pigments.

The green is of the finest malachite.
- One is receptive.

Proceed.

"With every hour uncherished,

a part of life doth perish."

"Dearest Charlotte,

You find me
the happiest person in the world,

having been chosen by you

to appear in a portrait

that is to enjoy the boon
of being constantly in your dear presence.

How I am delighted to fulfill at once
this wish for Your Majesty

and imbue the painting with all my
thoughts, completed and incomplete,

for our daily dialog

as to the why of whys
of all things in creation.

Please forgive your old teacher
the inkling of a doubt

as to whether the art of painting itself
can ever be able

to grasp the actual truth
of a person,

that is,
the uniqueness that distinguishes us.

It is easier to philosophize
about the language of angels

than it is to understand

what a person
and his image is..."

Court Counselor?

Please. I cannot draw your eyes
if you close them.

Can you try to look neutral?

A neutral expression.

Neutral.

And more...

more internalized.

Good.

Think of nothing at all,
if possible.

Not quite so rigid,

your gaze, please.

That's good.

And a little attention to your...

That's it.

And now not quite so grim,
but rather...

No. Just...

Or perhaps instead
think of something sad.

That is good. Yes.

And the distant gaze
a little more specific.

Could you again try

just completely neutral?

That's good, yes.

But not wide-eyed if possible.

Yes, that's good.

Remain thus, please.

Perhaps your nose
not quite so stuck up, right.

Attention, double chin.

Tilt your head forwards a little
if you can.

Good, yes.

Proud but not arrogant.

Exalted,

not presumptuous.

Court Counselor.

You are smiling.
- I am smiling?

A smile devastates dignity.

I was thinking of
Her Majesty Charlotte.

If you smile lovingly,
people will wonder what it concealed.

Don't you dare
paint conjecture.

Even as a child,
Charlotte only sought the truth.

She always wanted to know
the why of the why,

and never
the maybe of maybe.

But an artist senses...

- Your job is not to sense,
but to portray.

Affections,
vanities and amours

lead to a visage without manly dignity.
- Manly dignity!

One makes a fool of oneself
in a pre-painted doublet and invented wig.

What a wonderfully
dignified portrayal.

Court Counselor, please.
- All you need is my nose.

It can be studied
even if I am bareheaded.

Excuse me, Your Honor, but a man's bearing
is changed if he is in a wig.

Yes, submissus.

Because the brain ducks beneath
and one's thoughts scrape and bow.

No, because only in this way
does the figure become complete.

In complete communion
with the fleas.

Court Counselor, please,
we must carry on.

The recipe for this tincture is not yet
complete, but I am working on it.

He who has no face

has not been born,

but is a monad
sleeping in God.

Maitre Delalandre,

do you believe that white
is the color of God?

With respect,
white is not a color.

Sir Isaac Newton opines

that all colors
are united in white.

I do not know the gentleman,
but he cannot be a painter.

He steals
other people's thunder.

Let us continue the comedy:
On with the masquerade.

For Charlotte.

I need incarnadine:

Cochineal red, lead white,
Cassel brown.

You are to have
a young and healthy complexion.

Yes,
that's what they call "the truth."

Maitre Delalandre, what is to you
the highest degree of resemblance?

When a gentleman I've painted says,
"Yes, it's me."

Good.
He sees himself in the likeness.

But does he recognize
his ego?

The two of you
will be mistaken for each other.

He who mistakes himself
is not himself.

His portrait cries,
"Look here, that's me."

It may cry thus.

But is he his image?

In other words:
Does the image know him?

Does it cry:
healthy skin, or

does it cry:
an upright being?

Does it cry:
A beautiful doublet, or

does it cry:
a fulfilled life?

All have been satisfied
at every court in Europe.

You paint an external self
that dissimulates for you,

i.e. a fiction,
thus a lie.

If you please: I is I.

No, no.

The self is the I

as it was, as it is, and as it will be.
That's what I call a portrait.

You are obviously no artist.

That takes imagination.

Patience.

Talent.

Her Majesty in Berlin desires your
likeness for her own edification.

Do not think of her,

think of the approaching spring.

Have the honor of blossoming.

You are smiling again.
A tree does not smile, it simply blossoms.

I have never blossomed.

Imagine you paint me
very accurately,

you captured
my skin's tone,

my shortsighted eyes,
the rotten teeth, the gout in my foot,

well,
the whole lot.

Does that make it me?

I have never painted rotting teeth.
- Does that make it me?

Not flesh and blood, but...
- And not...

thought, fate,

inspiration,

memory,

pain, hope, loss.

And above all,
loneliness.

And yearning.

My art reproduces
appearance and fate

one-to-one
on canvas.

Not even my mirror image
is identical with my appearance.

One egg is as the other. For example.
- No.

Two eggs may be so similar that even
an angel could not distinguish them,

but they differ at least in that
one is this and the other that.

Is this

brush

identical to the other?

The same marten hair,
the same thickness, length, width

the same ferrule,
the same cut, the same handle.

No difference.

But it's evident
that this brush,

we'll call it A,

is this brush:
A is equal to A.

And therefore B is equal to B,
is that true?

Of course.
It goes without saying.

One is a brush,
the other its spitting image.

That is not proven.

True is a proposition whose negation
leads to a contradiction. Ad exemplum: A

is not A.

And B is not B.

That would be curious.

And evidently false.

True, conversely:

A equals A, true.
B equals B, true.

A equals B, not true,
as it would lead to the contradiction

that A is not A
and B is not B.

Therefore A cannot be B
and B cannot be A.

Captious, with respect.
One can paint with both equally.

That's how
it seems to you.

But not even two drops of water
are the same.

Because each reflects the whole of
creation but is only identical to itself.

So what then is the true image
of a human?

Good Lord.

I don't know
what's riding you.

I create a portrait,
you are on the wall.

The work of art carries you out of here
into the Berlin Palace.

All palace dwellers want to be painted by
me, but you are stubborn as a donkey,

and want to be considered
a philosopher.

Now stand on the pedestal
and let me practice my art on you.

Have you ever thought
about what you are doing?

I am rescuing mortals

from oblivion.

That is to be feared.

You're sneaking your way into history
on the back of my nose.

You are the weight
at the feet of angels.

That you will recant
when the time comes.

By no means.
I retire.

Leaving you to your wrinkles
of contemplation.

The portrait!

I will tell
Her Serene Highness

that painting this subject
proved impossible.

You are no lover of art.

But the greatest lover of truth!

Cantor.

Finished already?

That's what I call
swift painting.

In a sense.

Today's mail.

Cantor.

Court Counselor?

For how many years
have I been trying to understand you?

Nine.
- Eleven.

But for nine years,
I've written when you have said:

"Liebfried, take a note."
- Yes, so nine it is.

Time I raised your salary.

TWO MONTHS LATER

Electress,
Your Highness once herself suffered

from having to pose for portraits
day after day.

Yes.

As the princes all over Europe
were fighting over me.

Almost more over my portrait
than over my hand.

I met all the Dutch painters
who were making names for themselves.

And their apprentices.

I remember how

my legs ached
from posing for hours.

In full regalia.

I would go to any lengths
for the sake of your daughter.

But Delalandre wanted his canvas
to be taken for my very self.

I know little enough about me.
He knows nothing.

And Charlotte

wants to see me in the picture
and not his template.

Agreed.

But you will see: This young artist
sees you quite differently.

Before I invited her,
I examined her paintings and spoke to her.

She was forced to live in Delft
disguised as a man.

The painters' guilds there are
obstinately masculine.

But you trust us women
to have spirit and skill.

Without question
and in every respect.

She expects you to speak to her,
teach her.

She is a paragon of curiosity.

And who are you?

Liebfried.
- Mr. Liebfried.

Mr. Cantor.
Liebfried Cantor is my name.

Mr. Cantor,
it is a pleasure.

We take the holder,

and because
of its firmness and heaviness

the pigment
becomes one with the oil...

This, dear friend,

is Mijnheer Finn van de Meer
from Delft.

A young,
highly favored talent,

he is already considered
a master in his Delft guild.

And he is to paint me
Dutch-style now?

To which end
he accompanied me here.

Well, if he has won your favor,
a favor I have long enjoyed myself,

then he and I
have something in common:

the good fortune
of your esteem.

Certainly.

You will find his art
refreshing.

Can he speak for himself?

Or did he become a painter
so that he does not need to?

No.

French?

No.

Latin?

No.

Dutch?
- Of course I speak Dutch.

I have difficulties with that.

Does he speak German?
- Yes.

My mother spoke it.

Your mother?
- My mother.

Be gentle, dear friend.

Was I not gentle?

Is that the canvas for my portrait?
- Yes.

But what a dark background.

I paint
from dark to light.

You will doubtless know
the master Rembrandt,

and Caravaggio from Italy:

Chiaroscuro.

Always going
from dark to light.

That is beautiful.

From dark to light.

It's how we should live.
As close as possible to the truth.

I invited Charlotte
to visit us.

What joy of hope.

I promise to serve art in every way.
- Good.

Then I will leave you alone
with Mijnheer Finn van de Meer.

Well,
have you already joined the painters?

Not yet.

I see.

And now I am to stand on a stool
so that you can paint my nose?

No.

No.

First we seek the light.

There isn't much of it here,
but it will do.

My name is not Vermeer.

But rather van de Meer,

Like my mother, who never
revealed to me who my father was.

Here.

This is the place.

So?
- Mr. Cantor?

Please bring me
the white chalk.

This is the place
for the Court Counselor.

Every day
at this hour.

Understood.

In which direction am I to look?
- To me.

And without a footstool?
- A stool will not make you tall.

Nor will the legs.
It's the head.

Posture.

Character.
The inner self.

But the inner self
is very lively.

It can't stand still when it sees itself
observed. It always needs its say.

We don't need the hourglass, Liebfried.
Make a note: Just as all things

that we look at

are set in motion.

You doubtless know:

"The Art of Painting"

by Master Vermeer.

Yes,
I believe I heard about it years ago.

The muse in the painting in the blue dress
with the trumpet.

Her model
might be my mother.

You understand?

Vermeer and his muse?

She came from Germany.

In Delft, she

married the merchant
van de Meer,

who soon left her a widow,
and his...

his old friends

came and went
at our home.

Lens grinders.
- Lens grinders.

"Dukmacher."
- Dukmacher. What is Dukmacher?

Canvas.
- Ah.

Canvas maker.

Canvas maker.
Dukmacher.

I was already painting
as a child.

Houses.

Canals.

Ships.

I have never painted.

But I scribbled a lot:
bucket chains, screw mechanisms,

ellipses, cones, hyperbolas.

The generous Electress

calls you
a universal genius.

Were you one
as a child?

As a child?

As a child,
I was a child.

You now wear
a pictorial expression.

Remember.

Please.

My dear father

lay sick unto death.

He had taught
at the University of Leipzig.

I was seven years old.

He called me to his
deathbed and pushed

a bundle of keys
across the feather blanket.

And said

very weakly,

"My son,

I herewith hand you
all knowledge in the world.

Use it well."

I didn't understand.

Then I recognized his keys to the
Universitas Library and I went there,

started reading,

and taught myself Latin

from an edition of Livy
with pictures.

And then Greek script.

And when I went to
Latin school the next year,

I could concentrate
fully on mathematics

because I already knew
the languages.

Your face is now
utterly different.

Other thoughts
in your eyes.

I don't know.

You're a different person.

How beautiful.

I thank you
for this insight into your soul.

Gladly.

I think

every person has a window, but one can
only see into it if that person opens it.

Or all art
is in vain.

Yes,
that's a beautiful observation.

It fits with my monads.

Your... monads?

They are the smallest

units in the cosmos.

Living,

substantial atoms.

LATE AFTERNOON

The conception
of a painting's composition

demands that we allow
our imagination

the freedom to take flight
enthusiastically

without consulting reason.

Just as we run through
variants of the possible in fiction

to sharpen
our sense of reality.

Finally,
it is reason

that must examine, correct
and smooth the work of the imagination

that something good and beautiful
might be produced.

Something good

and beautiful?

My imagination

is a house of demons.

You say painting goodness

is difficult?
- Yes.

Devils are easier than angels.

Evil takes precedence
over good.

Are you certain?

Experience.

You presumably don't
agree with me that

we live in the best
of all possible worlds.

Then

we wouldn't have to pray
when we're in danger.

Can you imagine the Creator
as anything other than perfect?

Then I would like Him
to give me free peace.

You should paint "Free Peace"
on the cemetery gates,

because only the dead
no longer murder one another.

But now, seriously:

God cannot have created anything worse
than what He recognized in His perfection.

For His perfection excludes

failure
as well as error and ill will.

One might say

his perfection compelled him
to create the best of all possible worlds.

The best of all
possible worlds.

How I'd like
to believe that.

With all my heart.

But how then do I explain
all the evil in the world?

That there are worlds
where there is no unhappiness

is not particularly original,

and I doubt
they would be better.

Even the best of all possible worlds
has to be less perfect than its creator.

Otherwise it would be
God itself.

Evil serves
this distinction.

I think He could have left
the distinction to us.

And He did. He did.

If evil did not exist
and all were ever perfect

there would be no need to choose
between good and evil.

Our ability to choose
is what constitutes our freedom.

So without evil,
there is no freedom.

Without freedom, the world would not be
the best of all possible worlds.

What are you doing?

I think
they'll end up being

demons.

They always come
when I'm at a loss.

Don't be discouraged.

Mr. Cantor?

Mijnheer?
- Will you render me a service?

What is it?
- Four pig bladders.

From the butcher's. Well-scraped and
very dry. The kind he uses for sausage.

Pig bladders?
- Pig bladders. That's quite an order.

I imagine they help against demons.
- No.

For storing paints.

How so?

I cut squares out
of the soaked bladder skin,

spoon freshly prepared paint
onto them,

gather the corners
and sides at the top,

tie them tightly,

and thus have
a small supply.

A pinprick in the side
and I can squeeze as

much as I want from
the bag onto the palette.

Wonderful.
It could hardly be improved.

I have to be frugal.

A large painting
takes a lot of paint.

Liebfried, get a move on,
off to Butcher Klingebiel's.

Pig bladders
to the glory of painting!

Four pig bladders.
- Yes, I'm not joking. Off you go.

Shall we think a little
together?

The last of
today's daylight.

May I ask you
a question?

It's getting too dark
for painting.

Why is there something at all,
and not nothing instead?

Nothingness scares me.

Not knowing
is what scares me.

What is the reason for the existence
of a pig's bladder, anyway?

The pig.

And its reason?

The sow and the boar, I suppose.
- And theirs?

The same.

And so on.
To the first link?

Of course.
- But in the beginning?

There must have been a sow and a boar
that were the very first.

That could be.

But what...

was the reason
for the first ones?

Who can know that?

There must have been a reason
for each and everything

for which there was
no causal reason

beyond itself.

You mean

the very most

primary cause
of all other causes?

Precisely.

The sufficient reason.

And if I don't know?

Everyone and no one knows.

What if I don't know
that I know it?

Well...

we'll postpone the discourse
until tomorrow

or the day after,
or the day after that.

What I don't know...

I can paint.

Yes?

MID-JANUARY

Please excuse my tardiness.

It was upon waking that I realized
you require a double-sized canvas.

By the time I had
sawed and wedged the frame,

stretched the canvas
and laid primer upon it...

Why does my figure
now require a frame twice the size?

Your mind.

With all due respect,
you are not exactly tall.

But I could hardly sleep
following your great ideas.

Then, in my dream,
I slid in ice skates

straight into the Oude Kerk church

onto the tomb slab
of Vermeer,

with its coat of arms from the
Guild of Saint Luke in the church floor.

Then I suddenly woke up

and wondered
where he is.

Me?
- Vermeer.

Where he might be.

Well, no longer, yet still is.

His paintings exist:

"The Art of Painting"
and "The Girl with a Pearl Earring."

It was as if he wanted
to tell me in a dream

that the reason for art
is art itself.

Do you understand?

Your art
has its reason in you.

No.

Long before I existed.

From the beginning, God is the sufficient
reason and the greatest artist.

You don't want to understand me.
- I do.

No.
Mr. Cantor,

my portrait
must achieve

that in it
you survive yourself.

Is something wrong
with your eye?

No.
It's a hindrance.

We painters must transform space into
plane. Two eyes are one too many.

Thanks.

Court Counselor,
your light is here.

Please.

The first thing I was taught
was that a true image

requires patience.

Impatience
summons the demons.

I never had any patience.

If a thought was unyielding,
I jumped to the next.

They say I'm like a tiger:
What I don't catch

on the first, second
or third pounce, I let go.

Let us wait for nothingness.

Me, too?

Your thoughts
always seem to be

with Her Majesty in Berlin.

Charlotte often visited me
in this room

when I was constructing the canal
to supply water to the Great Fountain.

At the time,
she was almost still a child,

but already
a mathematical genius.

I would indeed be pleased if some aspect
of her were to be found in my picture:

Her esprit,

her philosophical talent,
her wisdom,

her youth.

I could pose you so that
one can also see you in the mirror.

One Leibniz is enough.

Of course.

But what if the reflection
didn't show you, but Her Majesty?

Your genius
would appear in her form.

The Queen of Prussia,
as educated by you,

would comprise
your reflection.

Optically impossible.

Not in art.

You are amazing,
Mijnheer van de Meer.

FIVE DAYS LATER

"Maman,

I'm sending you this letter urgently
to inform you:

Friederich has finally given his consent
to my Carnival journey.

I will be with you
in Hanover in February.

Oh,
if only it were already February

and I at your side,
discussing our friend of thoughts.

Strictly between us:

I love this man.

And yet I am sometimes angry
that he only lets me

access the outermost
of his thoughts.

We have even discussed
the language of angels,

and he promised to write a book for me
about God's perfection

and human freedom.

But I sense
that he keeps his essence

locked up within himself.

Who may peer
into the soul of such a mind?

And me?

Will my life suffice
for all my questions?

This is my acquisition
from Holland.

She is to paint
your portrait of Leibniz.

Her name is
Aaltje van de Meer,

and she is as talented
as her name suggests.

Your Highness.
- Please stand.

The House of Orange
need not bow to Prussians.

If you can render
a facsimile of our genius

as were he in the flesh
before me,

you will have done more
than I have ever dared hope.

May I take a look?

It is not yet finished,
Your Majesty.

That we respect.

Spare yourself. Please.

I can visit
whenever you want.

Art will just have to wait.

You send for me,
I come hurrying.

And if you wish, I'll read to you
from my Theodicy, it's almost finished.

It is? Fantastic. How often I recall
our lessons and your loving patience!

My child,
you're burning up.

Maman.

- If you'd just have
patience with yourself.

I shall ensure it.

Now you have met
Prussia's queen.

A dark shadow
lay in her eyes.

Charlotte.

It's just a cold,
as so often in Hanover, Maman.

You should be in bed.

But the opera,
Maman.

No, impossible.

The ball.

Finally,
the pigs' bladders.

For art.

And for the Court Counselor,
your mail.

My name is Aaltje.

Aaltje van de Meer.

A lady painter without master's
certificate from the guild.

There is a lot of jealousy
in the painters' guild.

And vanity.

But if women were admitted to the guilds,
the cockerels would fight each other less.

And yet
they prefer to admit unimaginative men

with mediocre brushes.

Forgive me.

I thought
you would trust only a man,

and implored Her Highness the Electress
to keep my secret.

Sophie's great, soft heart.

And you forgive me?
- Forgive?

I am vindicated.

Liebfried

spirited women
are more capable than men

to further science and peace.

Why not art as well?

Bladder number nine.
Good.

Cantor,
we need the blue paint.

A WEEK LATER

Might I be of assistance?

Where did you leave
the Court Counselor?

He was
in his dressing gown.

He is concerned about the health
of Her Majesty,

who, despite her fever,
yesterday celebrated

her arrival with a large banquet.

Pity.
Here comes the new light,

and finds him not.

Master Leibniz is thus to be
completely enveloped by light.

I now know him better.

He is light itself.

He is like...

like the sun,
I do believe.

How right you are.

A question lies in the shadows,
no one cares, he shines a light on it.

The next day he has the answer
and implements it at once.

Though I know no Latin,
I understood his principle,

which you have already heard:
Theoria cum praxi.

If you only knew
all his inventions,

you'd have taken
a much larger canvas.

What else

would have to be in the picture
so as to do him justice?

What should I mention?
- Everything.

All the things he asked me
to write down quickly:

For example,

the underwater ship.

A ship
under the water?

Or a sailing sled driven by the wind,
gliding over the icy wastes of Russia

while the sled dogs sit atop,
gathering strength for windless stretches.

Then the rifle that can fire volleys
without having to be reloaded.

Or then again,

and strange perhaps,
but useful for citizens in a hurry:

the jumping shoe

with a built-in spring
for a swift gait.

A mattress, hollow, made of leather,
the seams tightly waxed,

that you can fill
with air

so a soldier can lie on it softly
in the field.

Before my time, he built in the Harz
a horizontal wind work, as he calls it:

a windmill that the wind assails from
all directions and without interruption.

Sorry,
am I tiring you?

No.

I can see all that you recount
with my eyes closed.

On one of our journeys,
we had to watch as our inn burnt down.

That's when my master invented the fire
hose, attached to a long leather tube.

To reach the source of the flames:

We had to watch
the inn burn down

because the spray from the wooden pipes
couldn't reach the flames.

On the way back, my master
invented the fire insurance fund,

into which everyone pays,
since it can happen to anyone.

With such funds,
to which everyone must contribute,

widows, orphans,
and in fact anyone struck by misfortune,

could be saved
from starvation and ruin.

That he founded academies in Berlin
and Vienna and in Saint Petersburg

is perhaps inevitable.

But he is more concerned
with alleviating everyday hardships.

Recently,
he came up with a nail

the shaft of which
is slanted upwards like a saw,

so it goes easily into wood,

but not...
- ... back out again.

Yes.

Or the travel chair
on which you sit.

Snap,

snap:

Flat for the coach.
- No.

It can then be reconstituted when required
as a place of leisure and contemplation.

Strictly between us.

Open sesame.

Our black chamber.

Cantor?

Liebfried?

Are you still there?

I'm returning
from the future.

He calls it
his second head.

All of it his?

He's a note-taker.

All his inventions and ideas are
protected here from the ink-fading sun.

I wrote most of them for him
with my own hand.

One single week.

In total, 24,000.
- Concealed in darkness.

Who could know
all this?

And remember it?

This is his most
amazing invention.

A machine
that calculates independently.

He need only still invent
the brush that paints by itself.

One sets the required calculation,
cranks the handle,

and the machine adds, subtracts,
divides, multiplies, as required!

Twenty-four times thirteen.

Twenty-four.

The two in the tens.

The four in the ones.

Transferred to the reckoner.

Twenty-four.
- Times two.

With one turn of the crank.

Forty-eight.

Forty-eight plus twenty-four

a third time.

Four plus eight

are twelve.

The one carried over.

Two plus four are six,
plus the one carried over.

Seventy-two.

Three times twenty-four

plus ten times
twenty-four.

Crank the ten through once,

multiply by a second crank.

Three hundred and twelve.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Court Counselor.
- Don't bother with that damn thing.

Damned how?
- It's treacherous.

It let me down in London.

It first behaved well
at the Royal Academy,

then skipped
at a thousand.

It jammed.

Embarrassed me.

And Europe's best watchmakers
can't fix its stubborn fault.

But I'm working
on a much better machine now.

It functions
exclusively in the mind,

and works only
with zeros and ones.

No.
- Yes.

And two and three,
what becomes of them?

Two is now written
one and zero.

And ten and thirteen?

One-zero-one-zero is ten,
one-one-zero-one is thirteen, it's simple.

Can I count that way too?
- Of course.

Only I don't have the time
to introduce you to binary today.

I actually only came
to apologize.

Charlotte isn't feeling well.

Please.

Just one attempt.

I've discovered a light

that will reach you
from two sides at once.

Please.

Here.

Liebfried,
please get up on the stepladder.

We must adjust
the angle of the light.

Excuse me.

That's our garden.

Tree, leaves, branches.

A camera obscura.

I'm familiar with it. Not on this scale,
but the principle is the same.

Come here.

You are touching the light.
- You, too.

What do we have bodies for?

The mind is dark
and its bottom sinister.

We need bodies
so that our minds can touch the light.

Only through the body
do our souls find visible expression.

Inside, darkness reigns

in which we toss and turn incessantly
like a sleeper.

Through the body,

we awaken to the light

and are released from pain.

Remain as you are.

Your Majesty.

Your Majesty.

Your Majesty.

Leibniz.
- Your Majesty.

Do you have a few minutes for me,
please?

You should rest.
- Yes, in just a moment.

Is something troubling you?

As you know,

I invited
John Toland to Lietzenburg.

Against my advice.

We were discussing
John Locke,

whom he admires.
- That does not surprise me.

He talked
about the soul.

I asked if it was
independent of the body.

He said no.

Would it live on after death?

He said no.
Even the soul consists of atoms.

And everything that has come into being
also disintegrates.

Toland.

He would do better
to be more reticent.

His treatises,

which he borrows from Lucretius
and calls philosophical,

are novels.

But the soul,
Leibniz.

What do you say?

Your Majesty,
it seems I started with you as

a philosopher and
am ending as a theologian.

But...

But the soul, Leibniz.

God alone can destroy it.

He who created it.

It forever retains traces

of all that has ever
happened to it,

but cannot always
recall them.

These traces
are independent of the body.

The soul

is a mirror of the universe.

It is a special expression
of divine omniscience.

And consequently immortal.

The whole cosmos
is the body of God.

But...

But how is it immortal?
And where?

As a sleeping monad,

and part of the great monad God.

And where?

Everything unfolds
into the greater as into the smaller.

Constantly.

There is no end
to the unfolding

among the stars
and in the atoms.

The One ever again
contains the Whole.

Enough room

for waking and sleeping monads,
I say.

I'm saved.

Without doubt?

Yes.

Then you should rest now.
Immediately.

May I accompany you?

Yes.

THE NEXT DAY

She was here all night.

Then perhaps the picture is...

We're not allowed to.
- Just a glance.

The Court Counselor
as a letter writer.

White scraps of paper covered with numbers
spilling from people's mouths,

as if they no longer wanted to discuss
but instead only count

so as to end the dispute.

She's virtually painted my
mathematical characteristica universalis,

which even the Emperor in Vienna
could not understand.

Here, the reflection...

Charlotte's dear reflection.

We arrived only a moment ago.

I was able to paint by candlelight
until eleven struck,

before convincing the night watchman
of the innocence of art

and the impatience
of Her Highness the Electress,

then slept,

woke after dawn,
applied fresh paint,

and as I wondered

what your monad of God
might mean,

and how I should paint

that everything is somehow

contained in everything
and yet not connected,

I fell asleep
over the question:

How can the abstract

become a picture?

Through the recognition
that the abstract is concrete.

But I don't just have to recognize your
ideas, I also have to find forms for them.

If you'll allow me, I can recommend to you
my personal wake-up exercise.

One names

as rapidly as possible
all the objects that one...

sees,

and repeats the exercise in several
languages: Flemish, German, French.

And to increase the effect,
you can spin around

while so doing.

But then you must loudly and clearly
enounce the names of the objects.

Brush, canvas, window,
fireplace, wall, travel chair,

chaise longue, blackboard,
staircase, wall,

wig, orangery, glass, wall,

dark chamber,
canvas, light, window,

brush,

blackboard, fireplace,

chair, chaise longue.

I'm dizzy.

But it did indeed
wake me up.

I bring you the Queen's regards.
She is resting.

The doctor came early this morning.
He bled her.

She is feverish,
is breathing heavily.

How sorry I am
to hear it.

Nevertheless, she wants to attend
the banquet and the opera this evening.

She wants to see me at her table.
The fever's making her euphoric.

I am worried.

You will not find me
dancing for joy today.

In our picture, I'm trying to preserve
the hours we have spent together.

For all times.

In vain, dear artist.

Time does not exist
on the plane.

Movement and event
are time.

It does not exist on its own.

No tomorrow,

noon, evening,

yesterday?

Because we call them that.

Because the sun moves with the whole
universe around the monad of God,

and we move around it.

Distance is space,

distance covered is time.

Do I understand you correctly?

Not only

is a still life
devoid of time,

but every painting is
as soon as I have finished it?

In two dimensions,
an immobilized moment.

Liebfried, a note:

A picture

is without space,

motionless,

and therefore

the frozen present
of an earlier point in time.

Unless I agree
with Mr. Newton

that time runs around in the picture
yet also comes and goes.

I can make little of that.

If I might contradict you,

I think

a picture doesn't contain

just a moment
of frozen present,

but rather
a lot of past time.

Being which?
- Yours.

Mine.

Mr. Cantor's.

In other words the time

we spend

while the picture is created.

All this time,
what should I call it,

the "painting time,"

is contained
in the picture.

And the time
that our earth needed

to form the lapis lazuli from which Cantor
ground the blue paint for me.

Right?

Please continue.
- Well,

if then our time,

the time of all of us,

is contained in the picture,

and in paint the earth's time
required for the pigments...

The implication?
- Would then your portrait

be a frozen present, as you put it?
I think

it is far more
a collected past.

In the painted picture,

in the painted canvas,

even in the frame,

is all the time
we have spent on it.

If there is time
in the picture,

there should also be space
between the objects in the picture

which there is not.
- But there is.

What else is perspective?

And if Her Serene Highness
Queen Charlotte

every day seeks the advice of your
portrait in her porcelain cabinet,

are you not present

even though you have passed into the
picture and are not in the room yourself?

Would that not mean

that your portrait

is both past and present
simultaneously?

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1705

Court Counselor.

Liebfried,

the clamp.

Of course.

The Queen is unwell.

He and the Electress
shared the vigil.

Now he's in agony
from the gout in his leg.

With this clamp,
he inflicts pain to his left

leg if his right is
suffering from gout.

Like that?
- Harder.

That helps?

The pain I inflict on myself
of my own free will

vanquishes the other pain
that means to bend me.

Harder, master?
- Yes.

The Court Counselor
is strong willed.

I see and demand
a court of justice for Europe.

I see it in Amsterdam,

founded by all
and honored by all,

which will raise peace
to a general legal duty.

And before this court,
the kings and

princes will resolve
their disputes per jure,

instead of spilling the blood of their
people on the battlefield.

Charlotte,

I naturally know that none of our elevated
contemporaries will accept any court.

Those that have
will always want more.

Charlotte,

I see that people will be taught
to see:

I see a teatrum naturae et artis

with libraries and arenas,
animal enclosures, temples, mines,

museums and grottoes

into which everyone might gain admission
and see and grasp new things.

In which all of nature,
all of human knowledge,

all monuments of architecture,
all inventions are on display.

Charlotte,

a freely roamable academy

of all creation.

The ability or inability to read

will no longer be the line
dividing life's fortune.

Everyone will see what was and is
and will thus know

and consider
what should still yet be.

As a result,
contemplation will occur as if by itself.

And with such contemplatives,

a general, lasting, good and wondrous
peace will grow, and with it prosperity.

And happiness.

Charlotte,

Yes.

Happiness.

Happiness.

What's that?

They call him Fritz.

What Fritz?

The emu
that lives in the garden.

I can't see him.

Now he's gone.

Sadly,
there is no pain-clamp for the soul.

And so I vanish into the dark.

Court Counselor,
the last time I saw you thus

was after your audience
with Emperor Leopold.

Afterwards, you were ill for a long time.
- Back then. When I failed, as ever.

You were all but appointed
Imperial Advisor.

Yes, all but.

President of the Academy in Vienna
and in St. Petersburg.

All but.

Advisor to the Emperor. All but.
Hence not.

With all due respect,
you forget your Berlin Scientific Society.

Without members and honorarium.
- With you as president.

President Wageless.

You make it hard to lead you
from this vale of tears.

You really had an audience with His
Majesty Emperor Leopold in Vienna?

Seven years ago.

No suggestion was heard.
They were deaf.

For fear that the ponderer
might become pioneer.

The day before the audience, we were
instructed in Spanish court etiquette.

With which, thank God,
we're not familiar in Hanover.

I was drilled
like a circus horse.

You played along with the imperial court
ceremonies as if you were serious,

I could barely contain my amusement.
- I was serious.

Serious?

That pompous farce?

With Your permission,
I will refresh Your memory.

Be seated.

Consider me the court's
Grand Master of Ceremonies.

An actor?

I've never seen you
like this.

Court Counselor Leibniz,

you will execute
your first bow here

when the double doors
to the audience hall open.

You will then enter
with measured steps.

Between the door, which is now behind you,
and His Majesty the Emperor,

who will be sitting up there,
you will bow a second time,

a little lower than the first time,
please.

Not too low!

It must remain possible
to build up to the third bow.

This third bow
you will execute closer to his Majesty,

but at a respectful distance. Far enough
that you cannot expect a handshake.

Here, the deepest expression
of your servility is required.

Your reverence is a single,
deep bow.

Not too long, not too short.

Now.

After your presentation,

you will withdraw from the Emperor,
performing two bows

at a distance of three steps,
but walking backwards. Backwards!

Very few manage
to find the door with their backs.

Avoid a zigzag course
or you'll look peculiar.

A lackey will be at your side
to guide you.

The door
will be opened in time.

You will walk backwards through it
and remain standing there

until the wings
are closed again.

Do I make myself clear?

Yes.

Yes, I...

That's...

My dear, dear Cantor,

that was a most brilliant
performance.

I shudder still.

During the audience,
the Court Counselor brought up

all the matters
that would have served

both the court and humanity.

But during the presentation,
and this is no lie,

he was dragged
backwards out of

the audience hall
by the tails of his coat.

They dragged me out of the imperial barn
like a head of cattle.

That same day,
you were seized by a fever.

Excuse me.

Charlotte.

FOUR DAYS LATER

I feel as if my own life
has been snatched from me.

She is in God's hands.

She is in everything.

I thought
you were on your way home to Delft.

It had to come out.

Out?

Out of my head.

Out of my hands.

In the end,
it was all very simple.

Suddenly my hands knew

that everything about him
can be read in his face.

In his travel chair.

Nothing can stop him.

His eyes
are following me.

Did he just smile?

Take a note,
you say?

Liebfried,
it is only a likeness.

Has God
never betrayed you?

He couldn't do so

even if He wanted to.

He is not free to act
against His own perfection.

But if He is,

in you, dear friend,
He has a superb advocate.

Whom He requires not.

LEIBNIZ
CHRONICLE OF A LOST PAINTING

Subtitle-Copyright: Way Film GmbH
Translation: Thomas Cooper, Matthew Way