All language subtitles for along.the.coast.1958.1080p.bluray.x264-bipolar_track3_[eng]

A rugged shoreline, and azure...

...constitute the Côte d'Azur,
the French Riviera.

The English lent their name
to landmarks here:

the Promenade des Anglais...
- Nice.

- ... the Hôtel des Anglais.
- Menton.

... the Eglise anglaise,
or the English Church...

and the British Pharmacy.

COASTING
ALONG THE COAST

We won't be filming the natives.

Cogolin.

In the popular imagination,
they're always old and charming.

Let's leave them
to the ox and the ass.

Our subject is the crowd:

the tourists, the curious,
the emigrants, the enthusiasts.

Those who one day
discover the coast

and gather here
to spend their leisure time.

In 40 years, Nice's population
grew from 100,000 to 240,000.

104,762 imported sleepers
overpopulate it nightly.

Cannes awakens
with 32,003 emigrants,

and Saint-Tropez,
a village of 4,000 souls,

registers 50,000 in August.

What are they all looking for?
And when did they first arrive?

The first to come seeking a cure
may have been Cornelia Salonina,

a Roman empress who,

for her fragile health
and shattered nerves,

spent the winter
at Cimiez's thermal baths.

Nice.

The first tourist was perhaps
Cardinal Maurice of Savoy,

who at 50 shed his robes

to marry his niece,
Princess Marie-Louise, aged 14.

Their bridal chamber
is still visited today.

2 Rue Jules Gilly, Nice.

They spent the winter there,
thus inventing "swallows tourism,"

which promises,
in any season, not just the sun

but the wild palm...

the mimosa...

the lone cypress...

groves of cypresses...

the maritime pine...

the pink laurel...

the prickly pear, which Moroccans
call "the Christian fig"...

and the century plant,

which lives 100 years,
flowers once, and dies.

In the 1800s,
a trip from Calais to Nice

meant 16 days in a stagecoach,
stopping at 107 stations.

Cannes, the 107th stop,

surged in popularity
due to the plague,

which closed the gates of Nice
to Lord Brougham.

Charmed by Cannes
during his quarantine there,

he stayed over 40 years.

Many English followed,
including Queen Victoria.

English dukes,
Russian grand dukes,

many titles,
and even a few names.

Dante Alighieri...

Italian consul in Nice.

Émile Zola...

honeymooned
at the Hôtel de Paris in Monaco.

Friedrich Nietzsche...

conceived Act 3 of Zarathustra
around the village of Eze.

Lucien Guitry...

barnyard animals...

and the garden
in St.-Pons-les-Mûres.

One partly sunny morning
in Monaco,

a student resembling
Guillaume Apollinaire.

And Colette...

who resembled
a Saint-Tropez cat...

wrote Break of Day.

Giraudoux, in Porquerolles...

invented Suzanne and the Pacific.

Painters too ennobled the Riviera.

In Joseph Vernet's paintings...
- Antibes.

...one can see the tower
of the Château Grimaldi.

In the Château Grimaldi,
one can see Picasso's paintings.

A painter and ceramic artist,
Picasso worked year-round.

On the coast he has just one
serious competitor in painting and firing:

the sun.

The sun's chariot
rises up from the sea.

It carries humanity along
on its fiery course,

leaving it exhausted at night,
to be reborn the next morning

and begin again
its cyclical travails,

which require surmounting
modesty and boredom,

at the risk of losing one's head
or one's skin —

the latter judged
by the much coveted suntan.

At this point,
it's best to cover up.

Need gives rise to beauty...

and coverings become fashion.

In search of the sun,
they found oblivion.

Where are they?

Far away.

Far from the coast.

Far from everywhere.

It's called exoticism.

A pagoda-shaped shop?

It's Sunday in Beijing.
- Fréjus.

A Sudanese mosque?

Africa beckons.
- Fréjus.

A dome?
It's the Orient Palace.

Menton.

A Persian house?
The Arabian Nights.

Monte Carlo.

A Russian church with carriage:

Moscow, 1900.
- Nice.

A bather...

a metro station:

Paris, 1900.
- Cannes.

Finally, the most exotic of all:

the exotic gardens.

A favorite site for nature lovers

longing for the silence
of the plant kingdom.

They never bother
remembering the plants' names.

They'd rather
the plants remember theirs.

They write their own name,

or the name of a beloved,
hoping she'll appear.

If they can't see, touch,
or speak to Bardot,

they can come drink
in Saint-Tropez.

Their appetites change
via a process of natural adaptation.

In Cannes they come to eat

when they've failed to see
Sophia Loren at the Festival.

And if they can't afford a Matisse,
they visit his grave.

Dead or alive,
celebrities have their admirers.

Cro-Magnon Man, ancient celebrity
and oldest of the dead,

receives visitors
before the Trophy of Augustus...

La Turbie.

- ... the Roman aqueduct...
- Fréjus.

...and the 13 moth-eaten
marble blocks,

destined for the Temple
of Augustus in Narbonne —

alas, sunk in a tempest,
not raised in a temple.

Saint-Tropez.

But let us render unto museums
that which was Caesar's...

and appreciate instead
other inhabited relics,

the most precious of the Riviera:
its age-old trees.

A gigantic elm from Sulla's day.

In Ramatuelle.

- A 1,000-year-old olive tree.
- In Beaulieu.

A bald cypress
from Canada and Louisiana,

from a cutting made
by Monsieur Robert in 1797.

In Toulon.

- A century-old oak.
- In Saint-Cassien.

And the salutary shade
of hackberry trees.

In Cogolin.

In contrast to this somberness,

there's the bright color
of the local markets.

But tourists passing through
prefer the colors in fashion:

yellow and blue.

Hotels too wear
the fashionable colors of the day.

Yellow or blue? Blue wins out.

All women wish to be fashionable.
All women wear blue.

Except the English...

those learning to swim...

and the Germans,
great fans of green.

Camping is the airiest form
of freedom,

and the most wildly ceremonial.

Life is good, lived
with the majesty of ancient chiefs

retiring to their tents.

Campgrounds crowded with bon vivants
lured by the seashore

mirror the campgrounds
of the happily deceased

on the same peaceful shores.

In both cases,
residents vie for prime real estate.

The coast is indeed "the most."

The Riviera is the most
beautiful cemetery in France,

offering unobstructed views
and a sea that's ever new.

The Riviera's dead
are high-class tourists,

their rest well-deserved.

The landscape is as discrete
as a heavy heart without tears...

modest as an arch
without roses...

calm as a field without honor...

childlike as a cradle...

silent as a neighboring forest...

and as surprising as finding,
just over a wall...

a giant Virgin.

Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

The Holy Mother missed her cue
to enter the church,

and the cock fell
from the bell tower

as if knocked over
in this game of boules.

Luck turns at the roulette wheel.

Wheels turn too.

Death surprised Isadora Duncan.
- In Nice.

Jean-Gabriel Domergue
stands ready before his tomb,

built the way others build
less eternal homes,

full of the charm of life.

THE CHARMER

TENDERNESS

FRENZY

FINALLY

The villa is a delirium
of decorative dreaming.

Abandoned gardens,
forgotten villas —

this is cinema.

Blasco Ibáñez's friends...

enjoyed this retirement home
for writers.

Others prefer hotel life.

What makes them prefer
one particular hotel...

is the doorman's greeting.

How familiar he is with you
is the barometer

that tells whether
you're a somebody or a nobody.

Doorman for 20 years
at the Grand Hôtel...

he's still playing the game,

welcoming small-timers

with a nagging nostalgia
for the big spenders.

Where is the formerly
Grand Hôtel?

Where is Eden Roc?

Where is Eden?

The entire coast sighs for it.

The entire coast loves its name.

PEDAL BOATS
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN

There's never enough
to go around.

Forbidden Eden creates a stir.

Nostalgia gives way to a carnival.

The carnival burns.

The earth trembles.

The sun goes mad.
The waters are calmed.

Carnival is dead. Silence reigns.

Silence in reply
to so many questions,

to volcanoes and whirlwinds.

Eden exists.

It's a dawn.

Eden exists.

It's an island.

Paradise was a beach
and a pinecone.

But nostalgia for Eden
is a garden.

It's no longer the Côte d'Azur...

but a transplanted garden...

the notion of a garden,
with flowers, lawns, and colonnades.

Forgetting the nearby sea...

the pond is a lament...

the water lily a lingering sigh.

These are false Eves...

ersatz Adams...

imitation Cupids...

deceptive Venuses...

fake caves and pretend nymphs.

Though these reveries
are shared by all,

the gardens are not for the public.

This fake Eden is not for us...

no more than the real Eden.

And worst of all...

summer comes to an end.

Until next year

Until next summer, so far away

They've locked the sea away
behind a gray horizon

And thrown away the key

Morning glories bloom but for a day

Summer blooms but for a summer

Yesterday was summer,
time for sun and play

Now the dazzling summer
has faded

Now the reveling sun is jaded

How silly and sad

The party is over

Summer is gone