All language subtitles for Episode 3 - Paris Capital of the World

[instruments rattling]

[film reel clicking]

[suspenseful music]

[cart squeaking]

[air whooshing]

[horn blowing]
[steamboat chugging]

[cart sputtering]
[footsteps pattering]

[rockets whistling]

[firecrackers popping]
[bells chiming]

At the Bateau-Lavoir in 1906,

Picasso painted a
revolutionary work:

the "Demoiselles d'Avignon."

Guillaume Apollinaire
had become an art critic.

After publishing several books,
he began to live by his pen.

Max Jacob remained
in the shadows.

Georges Braque had taken
his place beside Picasso,

and the two artists
were exploring

a new form of art
together: Cubism.

[light music]

In 1911, the "Mona Lisa"
vanished from the Louvre.

The investigation led
the police to suspect

Guillaume Apollinaire of
stealing the famous work.

The poet was thrown into jail.

Then Picasso was called
in for interrogation.

In the end, the
case was dismissed.

It was during those
troubled times

that Marie Laurencin broke off
with Guillaume Apollinaire.

[door slams]

Picasso left Fernande for Eva,

taking her with him to his
new quarters in Montparnasse.

War broke out and finally
separated the companions

from the old Bateau-Lavoir days.

[camera shutter clicks]
[soft music]

While waiting to be posted,

Guillaume Apollinaire
fell in love with Lou.

They had a short but
intensely passionate affair.

Then he went off to war.

[intense music]

The front inspired him
to write marvelous poems,

which he addressed to Lou,

and then to Madeleine,

a young woman he met on a train

when he was
returning from leave.

He fought with
extraordinary courage,

sustained by poetry and love.

[explosions booming]
[gunshots popping]

But one day in 1916,

shrapnel from an exploding
shell pierced his helmet.

"Oh, how lovely war is,"
he wrote in "Calligrammes."

[passionate music]

The poet collapsed and
lost consciousness.

[explosion banging]

[explosion banging]

[explosion banging]

[explosion banging]

[gunshots popping]

[explosion banging]

Guillaume Apollinaire
was wounded

in March 1916 in
Berry-au-Bac, France,

and evacuated to an aid station.

Fragments from a 150mm shell
were lodged in his temple.

The head physician of the 246th
Regiment bandaged his head.

They gave him his canteen
and put him to sleep.

[explosion banging]

The next day, in an
ambulance that took him

to the hospital in
Chateau-Thierry,

his wound was incised and a
few shards were extracted.

[solemn music]

After a few days, he was brought

to the Val-de-Grace
military hospital in Paris.

[patients faintly chattering]

[metal clanking]

10 days later, he
underwent a trepanation

and an operation
for a brain abscess.

On April the 11th, he sent
a telegram to Madeleine.

The operation had gone well.

[gentle music]

A few weeks later,

he received a visit from an
unknown woman, Jacqueline.

She was free and available.

[birds chirping]
[cheerful music]

He took her to live
in his apartment

on Boulevard Saint-Germain.

She became the new
beloved little fairy.

[birds twittering]

[train brakes screeching]

When he recovered, Guillaume
Apollinaire found himself

in a Paris that he
did not recognize.

The street lamps and
car lights were masked.

Windows were decked with
anti-bomb blast tape.

Cafes and restaurants
closed early.

The art dealers had left town.

The galleries were closed.

And the foreign
painters were starving.

The money some of
them used to receive

could no longer
enter the country.

[brooding music]

Most of the artists
from Eastern Europe

lived in La Ruche, or The Hive,

an artists' enclave that
was for Montparnasse

what the Bateau-Lavoir
had been for Montmartre.

It was created by
Alfred Boucher,

an academic sculptor
and patron of the arts.

After the Exposition
Universelle in 1900,

he had bought some of
the fair's pavilions

made by Gustave Eiffel,

and rebuilt them in a vacant lot

near the Vaugirard
slaughterhouses.

A number of studios
surrounded the main building,

the former Wine Pavilion, whose
roof looked like a beehive.

[enchanted music]

The painters who lived there
paid next to nothing in rent.

Its circular floors resonated

with the songs of the Italians,
the discussions of the Jews,

the sobbing of models
in the Russian studios.

[residents faintly chattering
in foreign language]

[woman laughing]

In this hive of artists,

Chagall lived like an
exile before the war.

He worked late, always alone,

and received very few visitors.

He painted naked
in front his easel,

eating nothing but
the head of a herring

on the first day of the week,

its tail the next,

and surviving on bread
crusts until Sunday.

[bells softly chiming]

[residents chattering
in foreign language]

La Ruche's residents
often congregated

in a canteen in the
Impasse du Maine

that wasn't subject
to the curfew.

Behind the bar, a tiny
woman would be cooking.

[man speaking in
foreign language]

Marie Vassilieff was a
Russian painter and sculptor

who had studied under Matisse.

[group speaking in
foreign language]

She made doll
portraits out of felt

that she used to
sell before the war

to the fashion designer Poiret

and to well-off Parisians
living on the Right Bank.

Her sculptures,
incorporating fabric,

twisted wire, and Bakelite,

were as innovative and
fanciful as she was.

[women speaking in
foreign language]

Her soup kitchen was
filled with artists

living in Montparnasse,

those who had survived the draft

and outlived the Bateau-Lavoir.

They paid just a few
cents for a bowl of broth,

some vegetables,
sometimes a dessert.

The richest among them
could also treat themselves

to a glass of wine or three
Caporal Bleu cigarettes.

[women chattering
in foreign language]

[lively music]

People ate, sang, and
played the guitar.

They conversed in Russian,
exclaimed in Hungarian,

and laughed in every language.

[patrons faintly chattering]

[men laughing]

[siren blaring]

When the air raid siren sounded,

they just sang a little louder
to drown out fear and danger.

[siren blaring]
[lively music]

[gate clacking]

[metal creaking]

[horns honking]
[tub thudding]

[whistle blowing]

When they weren't at
Marie Vassilieff's,

the artists could be
found in the cafes

on the Carrefour Vavin,
the Dome and the Rotonde.

[upbeat music]
[women laughing]

[bicycle bell ringing]

[pedestrians softly speaking
in foreign language]

They could sit there
for hours on end,

sipping their cafes
creme, coffee with milk,

the drink of the poor,

not good enough to be
downed in one gulp,

not bad enough to
be left in the cup.

It was hot and cheap.

[patrons speaking
in foreign language]

[men laughing]

At the Rotonde,

the La Ruche crowd could
even wash in the sinks.

Libion, the owner,
was kind and generous

to the struggling artists.

He told the waiters
not to insist

on drinks being
regularly ordered.

And if one of the
customers was out of money,

Libion was even known
to chip in himself

in order to help out.

That was how he financed
the French lessons

that Chaim Soutine
took at the Rotonde.

The painter paid his tutor

with cups of coffee generously
offered by good old Libion.

[man speaking in
foreign language]

At the Rotonde, Soutine was
like Quasimodo with a fever.

He would sit at the back
of the café with his tutor

and repeat the words
she taught him,

fending off the cold in
a tattered gray coat.

He wore a hat with
a turned-down rim

that hid his shiny black hair,

and gazed out from underneath
with his burning eyes.

[women laughing]

Soutine looked
everywhere, at everything,

to see who loved him,
who didn't love him,

who would buy him a coffee
or offer him a cigarette.

[man speaking in
foreign language]

[men laughing]

He was freezing to
death, he was starving.

[flies buzzing]

He often went through the
neighborhood trash cans

looking for old clothes
or a cracked boot

that he might be able
to exchange for a
herring or an egg.

Soutine had never learned
the art of good manners.

[metal pinging]
[solemn music]

[pedestrians speaking
in foreign language]

Soutine was Jewish.

He had grown up in the ghetto
of Smilavichy near Minsk.

[children laughing]

He was the 10th child
of a poor village tailor

who beat his son whenever
he found him drawing.

In the Jewish ghettos
of Russia and Poland,

art was above all religious.

Hasidic law condemned idolatry

and, therefore,
any representation
of the human face.

"Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image,

"or any likeness of any thing
that is in heaven above,

"or that is in
the earth beneath,

"or that is in the
water under the earth."

[men praying in
foreign language]

When he was 16, Soutine
transgressed the law

by painting a portrait
of the village rabbi.

The punishment was immediate.

He was locked up by the
butcher of Smilavichy

in the cold room
and brutally beaten.

[blows thudding]

[metal creaking]

And so turkeys, rabbits, ducks,
chickens, carcasses of beef,

all skinned and rotting,

would find their way
into Soutine's paintings.

[metal clacking]

The only way to find freedom,

as well as to get away
from the anti-Semitism

and limited openings at official
schools, was to leave home,

and that is what Soutine

and all the Eastern
European artists

who arrived in Paris a few
years before the war did:

Kikoine, the grandson
of a Lithuanian rabbi,

Kremegne, Mane-Katz, Chana
Orloff, Kisling from Poland,

Archipenko, Zadkine,
and many others.

[train chugging]

They all belonged
to the Paris School,

which was soon to become
famous throughout the world.

[men speaking in
foreign language]

[whistle blowing]

Soutine was the
poorest of them all.

At 20, he was already
overcome by anguish

and devastated by life.

He never painted
on fresh canvases,

but covered over old
or poor paintings

that he bought at the
Clignancourt flea market.

[shoppers faintly chattering
in foreign language]

[intense music]

When he was unhappy
with the result,

which was almost always,

he would rip up what he had
just finished with a knife.

The Montparnasse painters
passed the word around.

No one should criticize
Soutine's paintings

because if they did,
he would destroy them.

[canvas ripping]

When he ran out of materials,

he would retrieve his
lacerated canvases,

take a needle and thread,

sew the mismatched
pieces together,

and begin painting
the deformed faces,

twisted limbs and monstrosities

that were the mark
of his genius.

[soft music]

[man speaking in
foreign language]

[men speaking in
foreign language]

[man singing in
foreign language]

When the door of the Rotonde
opened and Modigliani came in,

Soutine's face would,
for once, light up.

He would lose interest
in learning French

and, instead, follow the Italian

as he walked among the tables.

[patrons speaking
in foreign language]

Modigliani was the exact
opposite of Soutine.

He was 10 years older, but
looked five years younger.

[patron applauding]

[men speaking in
foreign language]

He went from one group
to another smiling

with a long scarf
floating in his wake.

He was very handsome,
affable, playful.

[man speaking in
foreign language]

He would sit down
opposite a stranger,

push away the cups and saucers,

and begin to sketch a portrait

without asking for
the person's consent.

[man speaking in
foreign language]

[man singing in
foreign language]

He would finish it in a flash,

and hand it to his
model with a flourish.

"It's yours for a
glass of vermouth."

[men speaking in
foreign language]

Unlike Modigliani, Soutine
was not at ease with people.

He supported himself by carrying
crates in train stations.

He gave away nothing
because he had nothing.

Soutine was dirty.

One day, a doctor
actually discovered

a nest of bugs in his right ear.

[bugs buzzing]
[dramatic music]

[women laughing]

He didn't have much
success with women.

He didn't know how
to approach them.

In Paris, he went to brothels.

[engine sputtering]

[women giggling]

[women chuckling]

He chose the ugliest girls,
those with deformed features,

their skin reddened by
alcohol and a harsh life,

like the women in his paintings.

[women laughing]
[intense music]

Modigliani's only
wealth was his drawings,

but half of Montparnasse
had one of them.

When he didn't exchange them
for a glass of something,

he gave them away.

His generosity was legendary.

[church bell ringing]

Modigliani was Italian,
and he never forgot it.

In Paris, he always
missed his country,

but once in Tuscany, he would
want to return to France.

Invariably, he repeated that
he found his strength in Italy,

but that he could only paint
when he was in torment.

And torment, for him,
was Montparnasse.

[horn honking]

[man speaking in
foreign language]

[pedestrians softly speaking
in foreign language]

[soft music]

Modigliani was courageous.

When war was declared,
he wanted to enlist.

[metal scraping]

The military authorities
refused him for health reasons.

He felt great despair
over this rejection.

That did not prevent
him from expressing,

loudly and clearly, his
anti-militaristic spirit.

One day he was beaten
up for insulting

some Serbian soldiers
passing through Montparnasse.

[body thuds]

Modigliani was always freshly
shaven and very charming.

His clothes may have
been old and threadbare,

but he wore them like a prince.

[birds chirping]
[dog barking]

Soutine had only one friend:

Modigliani, who had
taken him under his wing.

[gentle music]

It was he who instructed him
to chew with his mouth closed,

to refrain from sticking his
fork into his neighbor's food,

as well as not to snore when
he fell asleep in restaurants.

For Soutine, Modigliani
was like a brother.

The two men were
completely different,

but they shared some
very strong bonds.

Like Soutine,
Modigliani was Jewish.

He was even known, occasionally,
to punch an anti-Semite.

Like Soutine, he
destroyed things,

both his paintings as
well as his sculptures.

Both of them shared the same
desire for independence.

They did not belong to
any clique or school.

They both had to struggle
against the same enemy

that was ravaging
them from the inside.

Soutine suffered from a
tapeworm and stomach pains

that would turn into an ulcer.

He swallowed extraordinary
quantities of bismuth,

which did little to relieve
the pain that plagued him.

[sugar sizzling]

Modigliani drank.

Whenever he had a few
drinks under his belt,

he would sing in the streets

at the top of his lungs,
harangue passersby,

and whirl around wildly
on the sidewalks.

[deep music]

[man faintly singing]

He would sometimes fall
asleep in a dumpster,

and the garbage men would
pick him out the next morning.

[flies buzzing]

He suffered from
a pulmonary lesion

that he had
contracted as a child,

and which had turned
into tuberculosis.

[dramatic music]

He was racked by
terrible fits of coughing

that wore him out.

The works of both
of these painters

express the inner torment
that inhabited them.

For a long time,

Modigliani struggled through
his bouts of illness,

seeking to achieve his dream,

the one and only thing
that truly mattered to him:

to be a sculptor.

But stone was too expensive

and buyers were few
and far between.

[man coughing]
[metal clanking]

But above all,

the dust that came
from striking the stone

was making its way
painfully into his lungs.

Modigliani carved,
and he coughed.

[bells softly chiming]

[wood creaking]

Holidays taken in the sun,
in Livorno or elsewhere,

didn't change anything.

His health prevented him

from becoming the sculptor
he dreamed of being.

[intense music]

So he turned to painting.

His works from the war years
and those that followed

always seem to contain a sense
of that unfulfilled desire.

They're like
sculptures on canvas.

These pure forms,
elongated faces and busts,

the extended arms,
necks, and bodies,

are strangely reminiscent
of the heads he sculpted

between 1906 and 1913.

[patrons laughing]

[men speaking in
foreign language]

When Guillaume Apollinaire
came through the door

of the Rotonde, he
encountered a scene

that offended his
patriotic sensibilities.

[patrons speaking
in foreign language]

Modigliani was shouting
out anti-military slogans.

Soutine was grumbling, stark
naked beneath his coat.

Derain, who was on leave, was
making little cardboard planes

that he threw straight
into other customers' cups.

[men speaking in
foreign language]

[paper plane rumbling]

Max Jacob was there, too.

He still lived in Montmartre,

but he had established his
quarters in Montparnasse.

The Rotonde was his
new Lapin Agile.

He rushed over to
greet his old friend

from the Bateau-Lavoir.

He admired Lieutenant
Apollinaire's
magnificent uniform

decorated with the medal
of the Cross of War,

and shouted out with joy
when Guillaume showed him

the official documents granting
him French nationality.

[men speaking in
foreign language]

[woman speaking in
foreign language]

[patrons speaking
in foreign language]

[paper plane buzzing]

He was concerned
about the head wound,

which was covered by
a leather bandage.

After that, Max talked about
his war training duties.

He had served as a
civilian ambulance driver

for one month in Enghien.

[birds chirping]

At that time, the wounded
were still quite rare,

and he spent 30
days in a garden,

surrounded by tearful
wives and mothers,

putting his poems and
manuscripts in order.

He was still laughing about it.

But not Guillaume,
Max found him changed.

He had become anxious
and irritable.

[man laughing]

He criticized the selfishness
he saw all around him.

Life in Paris seemed
so far removed

from the horrors of the front.

Naturally, they
talked about Picasso.

In low voices, because the
painter was in mourning.

Eva had succumbed
to tuberculosis.

A few of them had gone
to the cemetery with him.

[rain pattering]
[woeful music]

Eva had tried to hide her
condition from her lover,

who panicked at the
sight of illness.

She was afraid he
would leave her.

But Picasso was faithful to her.

He remained by her side
until the very end,

going with her on her
regular visits to the doctors

and the clinics where
she was treated.

It was Modigliani
who told the story.

At the time, he was
still friends with
the Spanish painter.

That was before
that winter's day

when Marie Vassilieff
had thrown a dinner

in honor of Braque, who was
returning injured from the war.

Woo!
[silverware clinking]

She made a drawing
of the evening.

[guests faintly chattering]
[cymbal crashing]

Marie Vassilieff had invited
the creme de la creme

from Montmartre
and Montparnasse.

She had also invited a
young English poetess,

who had just left Modigliani,

and who arrived arm in
arm with her new lover.

[cymbal crashing]

Modigliani was not amused.

The machine guns were drawn.
[whistle blowing]

[intense music]

[guests chattering
in foreign language]

[gun clicking]
[shot screeching]

Blaise Cendrars, who had
lost an arm in Champagne,

raised the other one to
the health of the pugilists

while Matisse, imperturbable
behind his glasses

and his beard, tried
to calm things down.

Max Jacob was the referee.

A terrified Juan Gris eyed the
maniacs going at each other

like two furious cocks.

[dramatic music]

Modigliani was finally
pushed out ingloriously

into the street, with
the help of Picasso.

After that, relations
between the two painters

were never quite the same.

Modigliani was not aware

that a rumor was going around
the cafes in Montparnasse.

It was said that,
during a bombardment,

Picasso, spurred by inspiration,
but lacking a canvas,

had covered over one of the
Italian painter's works,

a still life made with a knife.

[men speaking inn
foreign language]

[engine sputtering]

Picasso lived on
Schoelcher Street

near the Montparnasse Cemetery.

[door slamming]
[bird squawking]

The studio's bay window
looked out over the graves.

It was a relatively large room,

cluttered with tubes,
palettes, and brushes.

The Spanish painter
tended to stock up

because he was always afraid
of running out of materials.

[brush scratching]
[siren blaring]

He painted all the time,
not only paintings,

his style was now closer
to Ingres than to Cubism,

but objects, chairs
and walls, as well.

He couldn't stand blank spaces.

[pedestrians faintly
speaking in foreign language]

He rarely left his studio.

[men speaking in
foreign language]

In cafes, he was often
insulted by soldiers on leave

who did not understand why
such a robust young man

was not out fighting
on the front.

[children chattering
in foreign language]

At the bar of the Rotonde, a
young man of 26 was listening.

When he heard Picasso's
name, his ears perked up.

On his dangling feet,

he wore aviator boots tightly
laced up to the ankle.

His red trousers fell impeccably

over the little buckles
in yellow leather.

His black tunic
was very striking,

and even more so the
painted purple helmet

that the young man
twirled nonchalantly

over a fine white-laced wrist.

[patrons chattering
in foreign language]

Jean Cocteau was
back from the war.

He had first been assigned
to the Supply Corps in Paris.

Then he had obtained a
transfer to an ambulance unit

under the command of the
Count Etienne de Beaumont.

An extraordinary experience
and very beautiful.

[bright music]

[camera shutter clicking]

[pedestrians faintly
chattering in foreign language]

[engine sputtering]

Jean Cocteau's greatest
desire, since his return,

was to be loved.

And more specifically
to be loved by Picasso.

He would, at every opportunity,
offer him little gifts,

trying to lure the artist
into his golden net.

He wrote him letters filled
with tragic limpidity.

"My dear Picasso,

"you must paint my portrait
soon because I'm going to die. "

[pedestrians faintly
speaking in foreign language]

[light music]
[birds chirping]

He was finally able to get
through the door to the studio

on Schoelcher Street.

What he saw dazzled him.

[door slamming]

And so he pursued his
dream of bringing Picasso

into the realm of
the avant-garde arts
he was cultivating.

[pedestrians faintly chattering]

[quirky music]

When he came to Montparnasse,

the finest ornament on his lapel

was the shimmering gem
of the Ballets Russes.

[bright music]

Serge Diaghilev's aim, when
he founded the company,

was to break away from classical
ballet by bringing together

choreographers,
painters, and musicians.

At the Theatre du
Chatelet, before the war,

two pieces choreographed
by Nijinsky

had taken Paris by storm:

"Afternoon of a Faun" with
music by Claude Debussy

and "The Rite of Spring" with
a score by Igor Stravinsky.

[audience applauding]
[audience cheering]

Cocteau's idea was to
create a similar sensation,

but around a realist
ballet that he was writing

with Erik Satie for
Serge Diaghilev and
the Ballets Russes.

He told Picasso about it,
then he set up a meeting.

And finally, miraculously,
Picasso agreed.

[audience faintly chattering]

On May 18, 1917, "Parade,"
a one-act ballet,

opened at the
Theatre du Chatelet.

The scenario was by
Jean Cocteau, the
music by Erik Satie,

the costumes and sets
by Pablo Picasso.

[stick thudding]

[audience applauding]
[intense music]

At the start of the show,

there was some
irritation in reaction

to the stage curtain
decorated with harlequins,

a winged mare, and
a circus rider.

But it was nothing
compared to what came next.

[curtain rattling]
[dramatic music]

[metal clacking]
[footsteps thudding]

The monstrous, oversized
characters designed by Picasso

had awkward movements due to
the rigidity of the costumes,

and were accompanied
by mechanical sounds,

sirens, pans, typewriters.

[horse neighing]

[audience faintly shouting
in foreign language]

[metal banging]

[whistle blowing]

Soon, an explosion of
insults filled the room.

"Aliens, shirkers, reds!"

Woo!
[audience member whistles]

Boo!
[audience members whistling]

The society ladies
attacked the artists

with their hat pins.

Some, in evening gowns,
were escorted by gentlemen

dressed in tails or
in grand uniforms

decked out with their
Legion of Honour medals.

[horse neighing]
[dramatic music]

Others wore nurse's uniforms

in order to remind
Guillaume Apollinaire

that he wasn't the only one
who had served in the army.

[men faintly shouting
in foreign language]

[audience members whistling]

Boo!
[audience members whistling]

[audience members
faintly shouting]

The critics blasted "Parade."

"Kraut art," Diaghilev
was pilloried.

Accused of insulting
French taste,

of lacking talent,
skill, and imagination,

Erik Satie responded by
telling the newspaper columnist

for the "Carnet de la Semaine,"

"My dear sir and friend, you
are an ass, if I may say so,

"and what's more, an
ass without music."

[solemn music]
[explosion booming]

Meanwhile, in the plains
of northern France,

the bodies were piling
up in the trenches.

[explosion booming]

The decimated battalions
began to revolt

and called for an
end to the bloodshed.

The French President Poincare
appointed Philippe Petain

Commander-in-Chief
of the armies.

Petain immediately
had 49 rebels shot

in order to set an example.

♪ Om

49 soldiers on top

of the 29,000 men
who had been killed

during the battles
at Chemin des Dames.

[explosions booming]
[air whooshing]

[solemn music]
[bird squawking]

[dog barking]

[birds squawking]

[train whistle blowing]

Five weeks after "Parade,"

the Renee Maubel theater in
Montmartre featured a work

by Guillaume Apollinaire,
"The Breasts of Tiresias,"

with a description that would
soon become very meaningful,

a surrealist drama.

[balloons screeching]

The play told the story of
Therese who becomes Tiresias

by changing her sex and
taking on the power of men.

It rejected the
conventions of the past,

and advocated a role for women
comparable to that of men.

Once again, the press panned
it, and the public as well.

The work was accused
of being Cubist,

Apollinaire's name was
dragged through the mud.

However, "The
Breasts of Tiresias"

was the major avant-garde
event of that year, 1917.

In order to pay tribute
to Guillaume Apollinaire,

Andre Breton, who was in the
audience, and Philippe Soupault

would take up the term used
by the poet, surrealist.

The day after the performance
of "The Breasts of Tiresias,"

Apollinaire was posted
to the press office

of the Ministry of War,
to the Censorship bureau.

[typewriter clacking]
[scissors snipping]

[paper rustling]

[water sloshing]

He was living with Jacqueline,

who had definitively
supplanted the images

of all of the lovers
that had come before her.

[light music]

As for Picasso, his
canvases were now taken up

with the towering,
radiant, majestic figure

of Olga Khokhlova.

She was 27, she was Russian,

the daughter of a colonel
in the Czar's army,

and a ballerina with
the Ballets Russes.

[air whooshing]

Picasso had met her in
Rome through Diaghilev.

And Diaghilev said to him, "A
Russian woman, you marry her."

Guillaume was the
first to tie the knot.

On May the 2nd, 1918, he
married Jacqueline Kolb.

[church bells ringing]

A religious ceremony was held

at the Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin
Church in Paris.

[men praying in
foreign language]

Two months later,

at the town hall in the
city's 7th arrondissement,

Pablo Diego Jose Francisco
de Paula Juan Nepomuceno

Maria de los Remedios
Cipriano de la Santisima

Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso
married Olga Khokhlova.

[witnesses applauding]

Picasso's witnesses were
Guillaume Apollinaire,

Max Jacob and Jean Cocteau.

[witnesses faintly shouting
in foreign language]

Picasso was a
different man that day.

His friends from the
Bateau-Lavoir hardly
recognized him.

He was wearing a suit and a tie,

with a pocket handkerchief
and a watch chain,

an outfit he would
adopt from then on.

[child speaking in
foreign language]

Modigliani had also
met his soul mate.

Nicknamed Coconut because
of her very pale skin,

Jeanne Hebuterne was
beautiful and fragile,

detached and impenetrable.

[rain pattering]

Her expression was usually
one of infinite sadness,

masking a gaze that was
striking and profound.

[air whooshing]

[bells chiming]

Out of love for Modigliani,

she had broken off
with her parents,

who were devout Catholics

and who did not accept
their daughter's liaison

with an artist who was
Jewish, impoverished,

and much older than she was.

She was 19, he was 35.

[choir singing in
foreign language]

[rain pattering]

Zborowski, Modigliani's
art dealer,

found them a small
artist's studio

on Rue de la Grande
Chaumiere in Montparnasse.

[birds chirping]
[broom rustling]

[cat purring]

[cat meowing]

The painter slept there,

but spent most of his
time working next door

at his dealer's place.

[paws pattering]

[men excitedly chattering
in foreign language]

The staircase in the building
where Zborowski lived

was always full of people.

[man whistling]

All the Montparnasse artists
could be found there.

[man shouting in
foreign language]

As Modigliani went up
to his dealer's place,

he would pass a model
coming down the stairs,

run into Apollinaire,

who would meet Jean Cocteau

when he went to visit the
painter Moise Kisling.

[lively music]
[tenants excitedly chattering]

[tenants laughing]

Kisling was Polish,
he was 25 years old.

He had come to Paris a few
years before the war began.

Like many others,

he had answered Blaise
Cendrars' appeal and enlisted.

[church bells ringing]

He was badly wounded in
the Battle of Carency

and subsequently discharged,

awarded the Cross
of War with palms,

and most important of all,

he had received
the supreme reward

that all foreign
artists fighting in
the trenches coveted:

French nationality.

[patriotic music]

Back in Paris, Kisling
hung around Montparnasse.

[metal screeching]

[dog barking]

[men speaking in
foreign language]

He was a jubilant reveler,

dressed in torn
overalls and sandals

that served him in
many a sidewalk battle,

while the curls he had worn
when he arrived from Krakow

were now no more than a memory.

[pedestrians speaking
in foreign language]

The door to his studio
was always open:

after nine o'clock in the
morning for the models

that filed in behind his
easel one after another;

in the afternoon and
evening for his friends.

Frehel and Argentinian
tangos resonated

throughout the building.

The gramophone
was never at rest.

[lively music]

At the Rotonde,
one autumn evening,

Kisling noticed a
young 18-year-old girl

wearing a man's hat, an
old patched up cloak,

and shoes that were
much too big for her.

She sat down at Soutine's
table and talked to him.

Kisling observed
and listened to her.

The girl had a special
kind of beauty,

a mixture of sassy
humor, vivaciousness,

and unabashed language that
was reflected in her smile

and in her gestures.

Kisling asked Libion,
"Who's that new whore?"

[glass clanking]

[men speaking in
foreign language]

[match sizzling]

Kisling went up to her, "What
do you do for a living?"

"I show my tits to old men

"behind the Montparnasse
train station.

"Two francs for a look, five
to touch, and that's it."

The room roared with laughter.

When things had
quieted down again,

Kisling hired the girl as a
model for a three-month period.

And that is how Alice Prin,

known as Kiki and then as Kiki
of Montparnasse, started out.

[playful music]

She'd go on to
become a legendary,

world-renowned figure, the
queen of the neighborhood,

the artists' lucky charm,
who would pose for Foujita,

Man Ray, Soutine,
Derain, and many others.

[excited music]

On November the 3rd, 1918,

Guillaume Apollinaire
lay down on his bed

below the painting that Marie
Laurencin had made of him

with Max Jacob and Picasso.

His wife, Jacqueline,
was worried.

The poet was running a fever.

The doctor, who was sent
for by Jean Cocteau,

diagnosed him with
the Spanish flu.

[brooding music]

It was a fatal disease.

Brought over from
the United States

by the American
Expeditionary Forces,

it had infected Europe.

It killed faster than the war,

taking 25 million lives
in just two years.

On the Chemin des Dames,

the generals signed truces in
order to evacuate its victims.

In Paris, there were
lines of hearses

going one after another
to the cemeteries.

[carriage rattling]

[carriage rattling]

Guillaume Apollinaire saw
his death approaching.

On the front, he had
dealt with it every day,

and he had not been afraid.

[explosions rumbling]

Now, he was seized by panic.

He begged the doctor
to save his life.

He was only 38 years old.

He was too young to die.

He didn't understand.

He had survived a piece of
shrapnel piercing his skull.

He couldn't die
from a mere microbe.

Friends came to visit.

And then came back.

Max Jacob would
not leave his side.

There were flowers in his house.

[ominous music]

A leaden gray sky hanging
over the rooftops.

At 202 Boulevard Saint-Germain,

death came on
November the 9th, 1918

at five o'clock in the evening.

Guillaume Apollinaire
was laid out on the bed

in his officer's uniform
with his kepi beside him.

Had he had time to hear the news

that was spreading like wildfire
that day all over Paris?

The Kaiser had signed
his abdication.

The war would be over.

More than eight
million were dead,

20 million had been wounded.

[heavy music]

Under a canopy bearing
the French colors,

the poet was taken to the
church of Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin,

then to the Pere
Lachaise Cemetery.

A section of the 237th
Territorial Battalion

performed military honors.

[crowd faintly shouting
in foreign language]

The armistice was
signed, the war was over.

[crowd faintly shouting
in foreign language]

In the streets, the crowds
celebrated the victory

with cries of,
"Death to Guillaume!"

[man speaking in
foreign language]

[bells softly chiming]

Under a cold sun, peace
had returned to Paris.

Demobilization was underway.

[snow crunching]

Tourists began to arrive.

First of all, the
American soldiers.

They had known France
in times of war.

Now, after trading in their
uniforms for their suits,

they were returning with
joy and with pleasure.

The bistros on Boulevard
Montparnasse were full.

Every day, Zborowski
would make sure his beard

was neatly trimmed, put
on a well-cut jacket,

and go off to make the
rounds of the galleries.

Modigliani never asked him
about figures or accounts,

just for advances.

To pay for his
drinks, for his meals,

for his bouquets of flowers.

And Zborowski gave
him what he could.

[patrons speaking
in foreign language]

When a potential
buyer showed up,

Zborowski would sell
off Modigliani's
works for a pittance,

letting go of paintings

that would be worth 100
times more five years later.

[woman speaking in
foreign language]

But his goal was to save
his friend at any price.

[dark music]

Modigliani continued to drink.

He drank too much.

And he never stopped coughing.

[glass rattling]

He received his models
at Zborowski's place

or in his studio.

He would draw a line, take a
sip of rum, and begin again.

[liquor sloshing]

When he was done, he would
go around to the bars.

[glasses clanking]

He was sick.

Nobody ever heard him complain
about the tuberculosis

that was eating away at him.

Not even Jeanne Hebuterne.

Zborowski tried to persuade
him to go to Switzerland

to seek medical treatment
in a sanatorium.

Modigliani wouldn't
listen to him.

[church bells ringing]

Yet, death was lurking
in the shadows,

and he must have sensed it.

He drank to ease his
suffering, his pain,

the troubles that had
plagued him for so long.

The war on the outside
had ended over a year ago.

Inside, it was still
digging trenches

and clearing the way
for the final assault.

[metal clanking]
[brooding music]

[rain pattering]

[suspenseful music]

One evening in January 1920,

Modigliani left the
Rotonde with some friends.

[wind whooshing]
[rain pattering]

He headed toward
the Tomb-Issoire,

waited for two
hours in the cold,

then went back towards Denfert,

and sat down under
the Lion of Belfort.

[sinister music]

He was coughing.

He didn't even have
enough strength to drink.

He made his way home,
staggering up the street,

climbed the excessively steep
staircase to his studio,

and collapsed on the
bed next to Jeanne.

He spit up blood.

[men faintly speaking
in foreign language]

On January the 22nd, the
painter Ortiz de Zarate,

who lived in the building,
knocked at his door.

[hand knocking]

He had had no news
of Modigliani.

There was no noise
coming from the inside.

Ortiz knocked again and again.

[hand knocking]

[foot banging]

[door creaking]
[snowflakes pinging]

Modigliani was lying on
the bed, cradled by Jeanne.

He was moaning softly,
calling out for Italy.

[narrator speaking
in foreign language]

An emergency doctor came

and ordered the patient
to be taken immediately

to the Charite
Hospital on Rue Jacob.

[thwarted music]

Two days later, on
January the 24th, 1920,

tuberculous meningitis
won the final battle.

The time was 8:45
in the evening.

[church bells ringing]
[solemn music]

[bird squawking]

The next day, a woman
in black walked across

the snow-covered
courtyard of the hospital.

She had the rolling gait
of a pregnant woman,

Jeanne Hebuterne.

[snow crunching]

She was taken down one
corridor after another

until they reached the morgue.

Jeanne asked to be alone.

She stayed there
for a long time.

[ominous music]

She cut off a lock of her hair

and placed it on
Modigliani's stomach.

Then she left and went
back to her parents' house.

[air whooshing]

[wind chime tinkling]

At three in the
morning, she got up,

crossed the room, stepped out,

and threw herself over the
railing from the 5th floor.

[nightgown rustling]

A worker found the shattered
body early in the morning.

[woeful music]

Friends were notified,

and while Jeanne's parents
watched over their daughter,

Modigliani was buried.

[snowflakes pinging]

Kisling paid for the funeral
and notified the family.

The painters, poets, and models
pitched in to buy flowers.

A large crowd, silent,
closely-packed,

accompanied Modigliani
on his last journey.

Soutine wept in Kiki's arms.

Modigliani was buried
in Pere Lachaise,

not far from
Guillaume Apollinaire.

They had both been part
of the original layer.

They would never see
the struggling artists,

the penniless poets,

their friends from the good
times and the bad times

climb out of the
horse-drawn carts

into the backfiring automobiles

that were driving
straight into the future.

[heavy music]