“The Crazy Love of Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel”, on France 3: story of a devouring passion

FRANCE 3 – WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 15 – 9:10 PM – DOCUMENTARY

Consuming passion, exclusive love, threesome: on this day after Valentine’s Day, “Secrets d’histoire” is in tune by attacking the devouring affair which united Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel for twelve years. From the first look, in 1884, at the marble depot in Paris, where the renowned sculptor met the work of the young sculptor twenty-four years his junior, until the separation, desired by Camille Claudel, the internment of the latter in 1913 and her death in 1943.

“There is for [Rodin] a before and an after Camille Claudel », declares in a tone of evidence Véronique Mattiussi, responsible for the historical collection of the Rodin Museum, in Paris. From the magnificent Château de l’Islette, built in 1530 on the banks of the Indre, in Touraine, which sheltered the fiery escapades of the two lovers, Stéphane Bern took the opportunity to devote a large first part to this “before”: how the young man confronted his father to let him study drawing; how, despite his talent, he failed the Beaux-Arts competition three times to finally enter La Petite Ecole in Paris; his meeting, in 1864, with Rose Beuret, a submissive and diligent seamstress, who will give him a son whom he will refuse to recognize.

Testimonies and fictional sequences

As usual, the documentary alternates testimonies (brief, for the rhythm), visits, encounters, archives (beautiful colorized films) and fictional sequences. Honestly, we dreaded the latter, so much the Camille Claudel by Bruno Nuytten, in 1988, embodied by Isabelle Adjani and with Gérard Depardieu as Rodin, made an impression. Perhaps aware of the risk, “Secrets d’histoire” called on two character actors: Lou Gala (Chamois, why i live) and Louis Bernard (What the hell have we all done?), which manage to render the strength, even the violence, of the protagonists.

If Camille Claudel will be the passion of Rodin and Rose Beuret the love of his life, the sculptor exists above all by and for his art. This is why the screenplay revolves around his pivotal works: The Age of Brass, standing bronze accused of being a “cast from life”; THE Bust of Victor Hugo ; The Gate of Hell (to be seen again at the Musée d’Orsay); The Thinker, a rare example of a work better known than its author. Finally, his Balzacon the verge of abstraction.

Camille Claudel also benefits from a biography in pictures, much shorter but with an unprecedented focus on her luminous Little Chatelaine (visible at La Piscine de Roubaix) and on the work of memory undertaken by her great-niece, Reine-Marie Paris, since 1958. Without this woman’s fight for her grandmother, Camille Claudel would have remained in oblivion where her mother dumped her by committing her with this comment: “I am very happy to know [internée], at least she can’t harm anyone. »