1 00:00:15,648 --> 00:00:17,980 When did he get the commission? 2 00:00:18,885 --> 00:00:21,979 I think it was around the 11th of September, 3 00:00:22,388 --> 00:00:26,017 when everyone was saying, "Nobody ever thought of that!" 4 00:00:26,459 --> 00:00:27,483 Yes. 5 00:00:27,994 --> 00:00:32,158 But you can't expect the word "think" to be understood in the same way. 6 00:00:32,565 --> 00:00:34,328 More the opposite. 7 00:00:34,700 --> 00:00:36,964 You learn the word "think," 8 00:00:37,370 --> 00:00:38,598 or rather how to use it, 9 00:00:39,005 --> 00:00:43,635 under circumstances you don't learn to describe. 10 00:00:44,644 --> 00:00:48,580 Ask someone to give a look of doubt or pleasure, 11 00:00:48,981 --> 00:00:52,917 and then hide his face so all you can see are the eyes. 12 00:00:53,319 --> 00:00:56,447 The eyes are where the expression seems concentrated. 13 00:00:56,856 --> 00:01:00,724 You'll be surprised at how differently the expression 14 00:01:01,127 --> 00:01:02,685 can be perceived. 15 00:01:03,696 --> 00:01:06,130 You see emotions, even sadness, 16 00:01:06,532 --> 00:01:10,491 hidden joy, boredom. But you can't reach any conclusion. 17 00:01:10,903 --> 00:01:12,962 It's not the appearance that changes, 18 00:01:13,372 --> 00:01:16,068 it's the interpretation. 19 00:01:19,445 --> 00:01:20,605 Look at that person, 20 00:01:21,781 --> 00:01:25,046 and picture him. 21 00:01:25,451 --> 00:01:27,919 Representations depend on will. 22 00:01:28,321 --> 00:01:31,586 Representations, not images. 23 00:01:31,991 --> 00:01:33,856 Let's look at the difference. 24 00:01:34,293 --> 00:01:36,693 Trying to see something. 25 00:01:37,096 --> 00:01:38,791 Trying to picture something. 26 00:01:39,932 --> 00:01:42,662 In the first case, you sort of say, 27 00:01:43,069 --> 00:01:44,934 "Look right there." 28 00:01:45,338 --> 00:01:46,771 And in the second, 29 00:01:47,173 --> 00:01:49,334 "Close your eyes." 30 00:01:49,742 --> 00:01:52,734 You could say that the sound you imagine 31 00:01:53,145 --> 00:01:56,273 is in a different space than the sound you hear. 32 00:02:10,496 --> 00:02:12,123 Vaud 33 00:02:12,531 --> 00:02:14,761 is a country of passivity 34 00:02:15,368 --> 00:02:16,562 and a country of resistance. 35 00:02:17,536 --> 00:02:19,504 Vaud forms 36 00:02:19,905 --> 00:02:21,873 a harmonious, complete whole. 37 00:02:22,642 --> 00:02:27,375 It could live on its own, with no need for the rest of the world. 38 00:02:27,780 --> 00:02:31,147 Vaud is a whole, a real country. 39 00:02:31,550 --> 00:02:33,575 People say, "the Vaud country." 40 00:02:33,986 --> 00:02:36,420 It's better than a canton, or a province. 41 00:02:36,822 --> 00:02:40,451 It's something else. And that country's other half, 42 00:02:40,793 --> 00:02:43,853 its beloved... - Its fianc�e... 43 00:02:44,297 --> 00:02:46,765 ...is France. The other half, the opposite. 44 00:02:47,166 --> 00:02:51,068 If you venture across the big puddle... 45 00:03:09,422 --> 00:03:12,619 If you venture across the big puddle... 46 00:03:13,025 --> 00:03:16,688 ...or go up to Paris, like the people from Marseille in 1789. 47 00:03:17,096 --> 00:03:19,792 You must take care not to forget anything. 48 00:03:20,132 --> 00:03:23,067 You mustn't forget that the French were the liberators. 49 00:04:16,255 --> 00:04:18,780 You must take care not to forget anything. 50 00:04:19,191 --> 00:04:21,853 You mustn't forget that the French freed the country 51 00:04:22,228 --> 00:04:24,822 from the Alemanns. - Right. 52 00:04:25,231 --> 00:04:28,564 With the left-over soldiers Napoleon had. 53 00:04:28,901 --> 00:04:31,267 It was the only time the tyrant of Europe 54 00:04:31,670 --> 00:04:34,264 freed instead of enslaving. 55 00:04:34,673 --> 00:04:38,040 Mainly so no one would touch his buddy Dufour. 56 00:04:38,444 --> 00:04:41,174 Still, there were all those trees of freedom. 57 00:04:41,580 --> 00:04:45,072 And even today, fatherland and freedom embrace on the flag. 58 00:05:01,901 --> 00:05:03,994 So can we put the question now? 59 00:05:04,403 --> 00:05:06,337 I think we have to. 60 00:05:06,739 --> 00:05:09,572 Why Aim� Pache, 61 00:05:09,975 --> 00:05:13,536 who is never mentioned in art history, and never will be? 62 00:05:25,891 --> 00:05:29,827 Why did the Expo people commission that big painting from him? 63 00:05:32,765 --> 00:05:34,790 You have to start at the beginning. 64 00:05:35,835 --> 00:05:39,532 Take a walk at Granges-Sainte-Marie, past M�tabief. 65 00:05:39,939 --> 00:05:41,133 Yes. 66 00:05:50,015 --> 00:05:53,348 So it's between the Orbe Valley and Granges-Sainte-Marie, 67 00:05:53,752 --> 00:05:57,153 where the border passes through fir trees along the future 68 00:05:57,556 --> 00:06:01,322 Lausanne-Paris railroad line... - And Paris-Lausanne! - Exactly. 69 00:06:01,727 --> 00:06:04,787 ...that the future painter of the big painting was born. 70 00:06:05,197 --> 00:06:09,691 It still hangs in the back room of the Caf� du March� in Rolle, 71 00:06:10,102 --> 00:06:11,967 at Manigley's place. 72 00:06:17,810 --> 00:06:19,368 In those days 73 00:06:19,745 --> 00:06:21,906 cinema was dying. 74 00:06:22,314 --> 00:06:25,750 In the villages, they still showed its last reels. 75 00:06:34,193 --> 00:06:35,683 Aim� Pache's mother... 76 00:06:36,028 --> 00:06:38,690 ...whose brother had run the "Eldorado" in Geneva... 77 00:06:39,098 --> 00:06:42,431 ...clearly remembered the feeling that the picture 78 00:06:42,835 --> 00:06:45,133 was, above all, mystery. 79 00:06:54,413 --> 00:06:58,577 The father was an ex-trade unionist from La-Chaux-de-Fonds 80 00:06:58,984 --> 00:07:01,976 who'd been in the Communist International, 81 00:07:02,388 --> 00:07:04,686 along with Humbert-Droz and old Forel. 82 00:07:05,691 --> 00:07:08,524 After the Moscow trials, he gave up the workers' struggle 83 00:07:08,894 --> 00:07:13,797 and married the daughter of a railroad man. A girl from Savoy. 84 00:07:15,100 --> 00:07:17,728 He just said, "I'm leaving." - She just said, "Take me with you." 85 00:07:18,137 --> 00:07:22,073 He just said, "The bed's narrow." - She just said, "We'll manage." 86 00:07:22,474 --> 00:07:26,706 And the two of them lived humbly on the future Paris-Lausanne line. 87 00:07:27,112 --> 00:07:29,171 I already said that. - Not exactly that way. 88 00:07:29,582 --> 00:07:31,516 They immediately started to squabble 89 00:07:31,917 --> 00:07:35,478 over who'd watch the tracks and who'd go to the caf�. 90 00:08:02,314 --> 00:08:05,442 Once Aim� Pache went to the Casino in Yverdon with his father. 91 00:08:05,818 --> 00:08:07,786 There he saw his first naked woman, 92 00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:10,213 and that did something to him. 93 00:08:20,699 --> 00:08:24,066 It wasn't the woman, it was already the painting. 94 00:08:36,649 --> 00:08:38,207 Could be. 95 00:08:38,617 --> 00:08:43,247 As an old revolutionary, the father didn't believe in the power of images, 96 00:08:43,622 --> 00:08:45,089 but more in words. 97 00:08:50,796 --> 00:08:54,596 Father, I want to write to my girlfriend. 98 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:57,491 Go ahead. - I want to say... 99 00:08:57,870 --> 00:08:59,861 I don't know how to put it. 100 00:09:00,272 --> 00:09:03,469 ...that we missed the train, but we still had a good time... 101 00:09:03,876 --> 00:09:07,903 Write, "I don't know how to put it, but I want to say 102 00:09:08,313 --> 00:09:10,042 that we missed the train..." 103 00:09:10,449 --> 00:09:13,748 But that's what I said. - Exactly. 104 00:09:14,119 --> 00:09:18,613 Is that how you write? - Yes, that's how you write. 105 00:09:19,024 --> 00:09:21,584 What if I run out of things to say? 106 00:09:21,994 --> 00:09:24,519 Then you stop writing. - But I have to finish up, 107 00:09:25,798 --> 00:09:29,734 say goodbye, that all's well. - So write, "I have to finish up, 108 00:09:30,102 --> 00:09:32,730 goodbye, all's well." 109 00:09:33,739 --> 00:09:37,732 Father, can you disguise a message? - Sure. 110 00:09:38,143 --> 00:09:39,701 What's the best way? 111 00:09:40,112 --> 00:09:44,173 Stick as close to the truth as you can. 112 00:09:44,583 --> 00:09:45,709 Father, 113 00:09:46,118 --> 00:09:49,576 what's the best way of knowing if someone is trustworthy? 114 00:09:49,988 --> 00:09:53,424 You ask him, "What have you read?" 115 00:09:53,826 --> 00:09:56,158 If he answers, "Homer, Shakespeare, Balzac," 116 00:09:56,528 --> 00:09:58,792 then he's not trustworthy. 117 00:09:59,198 --> 00:10:02,895 But if he answers, "Depends what you mean by "reading'," 118 00:10:03,302 --> 00:10:05,361 then there's hope. 119 00:10:08,674 --> 00:10:11,609 What does the wind do when it's not blowing? 120 00:10:17,049 --> 00:10:21,247 The past is never dead, but the years pass. 121 00:10:21,653 --> 00:10:24,645 The father is buried at Tannay, the mother at Yvoire, 122 00:10:25,057 --> 00:10:27,048 on the other side of the lake. 123 00:10:27,459 --> 00:10:30,622 Facing each other in death. 124 00:10:31,029 --> 00:10:33,122 Freedom and fatherland. 125 00:10:33,532 --> 00:10:36,797 All alone now, Aim� Pache starts painting in oils. 126 00:10:37,202 --> 00:10:39,033 He doesn't know how, he's learning. 127 00:10:40,139 --> 00:10:41,538 First, a tree. 128 00:10:41,907 --> 00:10:43,738 And another tree. 129 00:10:44,109 --> 00:10:47,340 Then fruit, then blood, the blood of the country, 130 00:10:47,746 --> 00:10:50,681 of Abraham Jean Daniel Davel. 131 00:10:51,049 --> 00:10:52,380 Content and form. 132 00:10:52,751 --> 00:10:54,742 Fatherland and freedom, 133 00:10:55,120 --> 00:10:59,682 as he saw them from his window, out over the rooftops. 134 00:11:00,192 --> 00:11:03,252 The father here, the mother over there, 135 00:11:03,662 --> 00:11:08,292 and in between, the waterline he'll later learn from Rothko. 136 00:11:08,700 --> 00:11:11,100 He thinks you have to do things the hard way, 137 00:11:11,503 --> 00:11:14,165 because experience is the only truth. 138 00:11:14,573 --> 00:11:18,236 And you have to get it wrong a lot to not get it wrong anymore. 139 00:11:18,977 --> 00:11:21,969 You could say, the eyes are freedom, 140 00:11:22,381 --> 00:11:24,246 the hands are fatherland. 141 00:11:29,955 --> 00:11:32,583 A spot of color under the brush, 142 00:11:32,991 --> 00:11:35,186 then another spot beside it. 143 00:11:35,594 --> 00:11:38,722 They sing together like the strings of a violin. 144 00:11:39,164 --> 00:11:42,531 But they are too many for him, and too varied. 145 00:11:43,635 --> 00:11:48,095 There are all sorts of colors in nature, but he still can't choose. 146 00:11:48,507 --> 00:11:52,375 One night he dreams his mother returns him to his father. 147 00:11:52,778 --> 00:11:55,303 He discovers an old school notebook 148 00:11:55,647 --> 00:11:59,083 with a mysterious sentence from an essay: 149 00:11:59,484 --> 00:12:02,942 "Neither the sun nor death look themselves in the face." 150 00:12:03,355 --> 00:12:06,950 Now that his parents are dead, he finally understands. 151 00:12:07,359 --> 00:12:08,348 How? 152 00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:12,355 The notebook is full of scribbles, but this I can read: 153 00:12:12,764 --> 00:12:16,097 "A noun is proper when it has but a single sense." 154 00:12:16,501 --> 00:12:17,934 And a little farther down: 155 00:12:18,337 --> 00:12:20,635 "What makes the sun the sun?" 156 00:12:21,039 --> 00:12:22,336 And farther down: 157 00:12:22,741 --> 00:12:26,438 "The sun is an example of a supremely sensitive being, 158 00:12:26,845 --> 00:12:29,075 because it can always disappear." 159 00:12:30,682 --> 00:12:34,982 "Nature at its most natural has what you need to get out of yourself." 160 00:12:35,387 --> 00:12:36,319 And then: 161 00:12:36,755 --> 00:12:40,156 "Bring nature into the picture." 162 00:12:40,792 --> 00:12:42,919 Initially, he stuck with what Kandinsky wanted. 163 00:12:43,262 --> 00:12:48,256 The image was primarily mystery and danger. 164 00:13:39,685 --> 00:13:42,313 And then he goes away: Freedom. 165 00:13:42,721 --> 00:13:45,155 And then he comes back: Fatherland. 166 00:13:45,524 --> 00:13:49,984 And he goes away again. The big city, the lights. 167 00:13:50,629 --> 00:13:53,223 Following the example of his elders, Edouard Rod, 168 00:13:53,632 --> 00:13:56,260 Cingria, Ramuz and Auberjonois... 169 00:13:57,502 --> 00:14:01,700 A performance in Lausanne of Sartre's "False Noses" made his mind up. 170 00:14:02,107 --> 00:14:05,440 "Poor and lost, like flowers between the rails 171 00:14:05,844 --> 00:14:07,709 in the haphazard wind of journeying," 172 00:14:08,113 --> 00:14:10,513 wrote Rilke, translated by Adamov. 173 00:14:11,350 --> 00:14:13,477 In Paris he lives heroically. 174 00:14:13,885 --> 00:14:16,513 Short on money, tall and skinny, 175 00:14:16,922 --> 00:14:20,790 cooking in a small hotel room on the Rue du Cherche-Midi. 176 00:14:21,193 --> 00:14:23,718 Now and then the luxury of a boiled egg. 177 00:14:24,096 --> 00:14:25,893 He goes to all the exhibitions. 178 00:14:26,298 --> 00:14:28,596 In the Louvre, he copies the old masters: 179 00:14:29,001 --> 00:14:33,438 Delacroix, Chardin, the Dutch painters, C�zanne. 180 00:14:33,839 --> 00:14:36,603 A picture you could put in a death cell, 181 00:14:37,342 --> 00:14:39,572 without it seeming horrible. 182 00:14:39,978 --> 00:14:42,173 He mixes timidly with the younger generation. 183 00:14:42,547 --> 00:14:45,948 He's seen with Fautrier, Hartung, Manessier... 184 00:14:46,351 --> 00:14:49,218 And with Wols, the poor devil. 185 00:14:50,522 --> 00:14:53,616 In a Europe not purified, but corrupted, by suffering, 186 00:14:54,026 --> 00:14:57,587 not at all exalted... ...but humiliated 187 00:14:57,963 --> 00:15:00,158 by its newfound freedom, 188 00:15:00,565 --> 00:15:04,057 Aim� Pache discovers his own gifts. 189 00:15:04,469 --> 00:15:06,494 He asks very simple questions: 190 00:15:06,905 --> 00:15:10,341 With reality shattered by Braque and Picasso, 191 00:15:10,742 --> 00:15:16,112 all that's left for the newcomer is colors, rhythms, bits of wreckage. 192 00:15:16,515 --> 00:15:19,609 It takes strength to overcome philosophical storms 193 00:15:20,018 --> 00:15:21,781 and social violence. 194 00:15:22,187 --> 00:15:24,917 You have to endure to be able to return. 195 00:15:25,323 --> 00:15:30,260 Aim� Pache encounters light and focuses it on his darkness. 196 00:15:30,662 --> 00:15:32,186 He walks a lot. 197 00:15:33,165 --> 00:15:35,861 The disturbing moment when night descends, 198 00:15:36,268 --> 00:15:40,534 the eyes of the streetlamps opening with a blue shadow, 199 00:15:40,939 --> 00:15:44,534 in which more and more people mingle. 200 00:15:44,910 --> 00:15:49,472 Aim� Pache finds himself in the prehistory of the visible. 201 00:16:17,409 --> 00:16:20,901 One summer evening, after a Lamoureux concert, 202 00:16:21,313 --> 00:16:25,079 he notices a girl who looks like Annabella in Ren� Clair's "14 July," 203 00:16:25,484 --> 00:16:27,611 a long dress, taking the metro. 204 00:16:28,019 --> 00:16:31,113 A young girl, in evening dress, alone in the metro. 205 00:16:31,523 --> 00:16:33,957 Unheard of, such freedom! 206 00:16:34,359 --> 00:16:36,122 At that time. 207 00:16:36,528 --> 00:16:38,758 But not an unheard-of freedom. 208 00:16:39,164 --> 00:16:42,224 He asks for her hand, she gives him her arm. 209 00:16:42,634 --> 00:16:44,966 A girl with a boy. 210 00:16:45,370 --> 00:16:48,862 He decides to return home. She accepts. 211 00:16:49,274 --> 00:16:53,074 She rests her head on his shoulder, because love is a burden. 212 00:16:53,478 --> 00:16:55,776 A girl with a boy. 213 00:17:30,949 --> 00:17:32,780 O return to the homeland! 214 00:17:33,185 --> 00:17:36,552 O return of the one who no longer needs to be a guest! 215 00:17:36,955 --> 00:17:40,118 Aim� and his beloved move into the Pink House, 216 00:17:40,525 --> 00:17:44,222 still on the main rail line, but now on the other side of the tunnel. 217 00:17:46,431 --> 00:17:49,025 Claire's beauty is Claire herself. 218 00:17:49,434 --> 00:17:53,803 "Claire" is written on her face and in the shape of her arms. 219 00:17:54,172 --> 00:17:57,608 What pleases me about her mind is visible on her lips. 220 00:17:58,009 --> 00:17:59,840 I knew that by looking at her. 221 00:18:00,245 --> 00:18:04,875 O universal time, when everything was ours and was returned to us. 222 00:18:05,283 --> 00:18:09,617 O universal time, when nothing is mute for the eyes of the child. 223 00:18:10,021 --> 00:18:12,114 The Pink House, the child, 224 00:18:12,891 --> 00:18:15,382 who Pache often paints as an infanta. 225 00:18:15,794 --> 00:18:18,194 Note that he doesn't call his pictures anything. 226 00:18:19,231 --> 00:18:21,426 Instead, painting calls him. 227 00:18:21,833 --> 00:18:25,769 And then the little girl dies, bitten by a viper. 228 00:18:26,238 --> 00:18:29,401 Gradually the mother loses it, as they say. 229 00:18:29,808 --> 00:18:32,538 One afternoon, when Pache is in the village, 230 00:18:32,944 --> 00:18:36,277 she takes the boat and disappears. 231 00:18:36,681 --> 00:18:39,081 Aim� Pache gives up painting. 232 00:18:39,484 --> 00:18:42,112 For a time he takes refuge in the forest, 233 00:18:42,487 --> 00:18:45,183 because there the trees are alone and together. 234 00:18:47,892 --> 00:18:50,019 Then he returns to the vineyards. 235 00:18:50,428 --> 00:18:53,295 Finally at the water's edge, at a pastor's house. 236 00:18:53,832 --> 00:18:57,268 Along the France road, as they say in those parts. 237 00:18:57,669 --> 00:18:59,967 Sometimes he helps the roadmender. 238 00:19:00,305 --> 00:19:02,068 It's the late '60s. 239 00:19:03,174 --> 00:19:06,109 It was that summer that he began the big painting. 240 00:19:07,445 --> 00:19:11,245 To be new, deep within that which is new. 241 00:19:11,650 --> 00:19:13,845 What's reality, then? 242 00:19:35,473 --> 00:19:38,442 First he puts the children in, then the road, in one sweep. 243 00:19:38,843 --> 00:19:41,903 Three paces back, three paces forward. 244 00:19:43,014 --> 00:19:45,073 And the children appear out of the night. 245 00:20:26,024 --> 00:20:29,084 The road accompanies them to the left. Feet in the fatherland, 246 00:20:29,494 --> 00:20:31,894 eyes in freedom. 247 00:21:03,205 --> 00:21:06,538 In a sense, fear is the daughter of God, 248 00:21:06,942 --> 00:21:09,274 redeemed on Good Friday night. She's not beautiful, 249 00:21:09,678 --> 00:21:13,375 mocked, cursed and disowned by all. 250 00:21:13,782 --> 00:21:15,682 But don't get it wrong, 251 00:21:16,084 --> 00:21:19,281 she watches over all mortal agony, she intercedes for mankind. 252 00:21:19,688 --> 00:21:22,521 For there's a rule and an exception. 253 00:21:22,924 --> 00:21:24,653 Culture is the rule, 254 00:21:25,861 --> 00:21:28,125 and art is the exception. 255 00:21:28,530 --> 00:21:31,897 Everybody speaks the rule: Cigarette, computer, T-shirt, TV, 256 00:21:32,234 --> 00:21:33,667 tourism, war. 257 00:21:34,002 --> 00:21:37,301 Nobody speaks the exception. It isn't spoken, 258 00:21:37,639 --> 00:21:40,574 it's written: Flaubert, Dostoyevski. 259 00:21:40,909 --> 00:21:43,400 It's composed: Gershwin, Mozart. 260 00:21:43,845 --> 00:21:45,836 It's painted: C�zanne, Vermeer. 261 00:21:46,248 --> 00:21:49,274 It's filmed: Antonioni, Vigo. 262 00:21:49,684 --> 00:21:51,276 Or it's lived, 263 00:21:51,686 --> 00:21:53,278 and then it's the art of living: Srebenica, 264 00:21:53,688 --> 00:21:55,883 Mostar, Sarajevo. 265 00:21:56,491 --> 00:21:59,289 The rule is to want the death of the exception. 266 00:21:59,694 --> 00:22:02,561 So the rule for Cultural Europe 267 00:22:02,964 --> 00:22:07,560 is to organize the death of the art of living, which still flourishes. 268 00:22:39,601 --> 00:22:41,569 When it's time to close the book, 269 00:22:41,970 --> 00:22:43,995 I'll have no regrets. 270 00:22:44,406 --> 00:22:46,601 I've seen so many people live so badly, 271 00:22:47,008 --> 00:22:50,068 and so many die so well.