Cinématon n°100 : Dominique Païni

Paris, 1964. The Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti, one of the most accomplished and respected artists of his generation, asks his friend, the American writer James Lord, to sit for a portrait, assuring him that it will take no longer than two or three hours, an afternoon at the most.

An account of the life and work of legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune (1920-97), the most prominent actor of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema.

The life story of Italian violinist and composer, Niccolò Paganini, who rose to fame as a virtuoso in the early 19th Century.

Jacques, a young man with artistic aspirations, spends four nights wandering Paris with a young woman, whom he rescued from suicide.

In the French Riviera in the summer of 1915, Jean Renoir, son of the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste, returns home to convalesce after being wounded in World War I. At his side is Andrée, a young woman who rejuvenates, enchants, and inspires both father and son.

Set in Paris in 1919, biopic centers on the life of late Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, focusing on his last days as well as his rivalry with Pablo Picasso. Modigliani, a Jew, has fallen in love with Jeanne, a young and beautiful Catholic girl. The couple has an illegitimate child, and Jeanne's bigoted parents send the baby to a faraway convent to be raised by nuns.

Walter is told by his boss, Sara, to deliver an urgent letter to Henri de Corinthe. On the way he finds a beautiful woman he had been eying in a nightclub, lying in the road, bound up. He takes her to a villa to get a doctor, and ends up being locked in a bedroom with her. While she is making love to him, he has visions of surrealistic images from René Magritte's paintings. In the morning, the girl, Marie-Ange, has vanished, the villa looks derelict, and his neck is bleeding. Was it all just a nightmare?

Famed but tormented artist Vincent van Gogh spends his final years in Arles, France, painting masterworks of the natural world that surrounds him.

The wife of a famous composer survives a car accident that kills her husband and daughter. Now alone, she shakes off her old identity and explores her newfound freedom but finds that she is unbreakably bound to other humans, including her husband’s mistress, whose existence she never suspected.

The former famous painter Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife on a countryside residence in the French Provence. When the young artist Nicolas visits him with his girlfriend Marianne, Frenhofer decides to start again the work on a painting he long ago stopped: La Belle Noiseuse. And he wants Marianne as model.

In 1890 Paris, Moulin Rouge is a nightclub where crippled artist Toulouse-Lautrec feels like he fits in. In the following years, he meets two women who provide an opportunity for him to find true love.

Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as she confronts her identity and life.

Henri Serin (Jean-Pierre Marielle), an umbrella salesman, leads a quiet life between his work, his family and his passion for painting. During his many business trips, Henri indulges in a few amorous escapades, which provide a welcome change from the tiresome daily routine his bigoted wife locks him into. One fine day, Henri decides to drop everything and live on love and fresh water. He ends up in Pont-Aven, where he meets Émile, a local painter imitating Gauguin, with whom he shares his drinking and other feminine attractions.

On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.

Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.

In 1895, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was the most famous writer in London, and Bosie Douglas, son of the notorious Marquess of Queensberry, was his lover. Accused and convicted of gross indecency, he was imprisoned for two years and subjected to hard labor. Once free, he abandons England to live in France, where he will spend his last years, haunted by memories of the past, poverty and immense sadness.

Drunken, has-been rock star John Norman Howard falls in love with unknown singer Esther Hoffman after seeing her perform at a club. He lets her sing a few songs at one of his shows and she becomes the talk of the music industry. Esther's star begins to rise, while John's continues to fall. She tries desperately to get John to sober up and focus on his music, but it may be too late to save him.

When French painter Pierre Bonnard met Marthe de Méligny, he didn’t know this self-proclaimed aristocrat would become the cornerstone of his life and work. From this moment, she became more than just a muse for the “painter of happiness”, appearing in more than a third of his work. Together, they reached their artistic fulfillment thanks to a colourful love, different from the standards of their time, nurturing the great mystery around their relationship. Based on a true story.

In London, barrister Anthony Keane takes the case of Maddalena Paradine, a beautiful woman accused of poisoning her blind husband. Though happily married, Keane becomes infatuated with his enigmatic client and convinced of her innocence. His obsession clouds his judgment as he builds a defense implicating her servant, André Latour—an act that leads to devastating consequences both in court and at home.

In 1973, a young gallery assistant goes on a wild adventure behind the scenes as he helps aging genius Salvador Dali prepare for a big show in New York.