Lust for Life (1956)
Anthony Quinn: Paul Gauguin
Photos
Quotes
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Paul Gauguin : I'm talking about women, man. Women. I like 'em fat and vicious and not too smart. Nothing spiritual either. To have to say 'I love you' would break my teeth. I don't want to be loved.
Vincent Van Gogh : You really mean that, Paul.
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Vincent Van Gogh : Please don't go. You don't know how alone feels!
Paul Gauguin : I know about loneliness! Only I don't whine about it!
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Paul Gauguin : With all your talk of emotion, all I see when I look at your work is just that you paint too fast!
Vincent Van Gogh : You look too fast!
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Vincent Van Gogh : Look Paul, when I painted the night cafe, I tried to show evil: the most violent passions of humanity.
[begins drawing on the table at which he and Paul are sitting around at the cafe]
Vincent Van Gogh : I painted it blood red, dark yellow, the green billiard table in the middle, four lemon yellow lamps with a glare of orange and green, and an atmosphere of pale yellow sulfur like a frenzy. I tried to show a place where a man can ruin himself... go mad... commit a crime.
Paul Gauguin : What's all of this talk about Arlesian women? I haven't seen a good one yet.
Vincent Van Gogh : They must have heard you were coming and they locked them up.
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Paul Gauguin : [Addressing a small group of his artist acquaintances] The fact is, my dear friends, that you are not painters. You are, uh, tattoo artists. You are chemists with little pots of paint. You cover canvases with colored fleas. You are so busy imitating each other's tricks, you've forgotten what painting is about. You all make me sick.
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Vincent Van Gogh : What do you paint, then?
Paul Gauguin : What's in my head. Art's an abstraction, not a picture book. A painting is a flat surface covered with lines and colors arranged in a certain order.
Vincent Van Gogh : But Theo - I mean, Paul, what about the arrangement that exists in nature?
Paul Gauguin : I choose to disregard nature.
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Paul Gauguin : [satirically] Hey Vincent! Look
[points to a painting on the wall in the cafe/bar]
Paul Gauguin : , a masterpiece, straight from the salon. See? 'Symbolism'.
[they laugh]
Paul Gauguin : Huh, better setup in here before the Louvre grabs it.
[Vincent introduces him to Rachael and he sits down with them at the table]
Paul Gauguin : Haha... oh Vincent, why do I do it? Now here I pride myself on my sense of logic and order, and inside I'm a savage. I have this, th-this attraction to violence.
Vincent Van Gogh : Violence makes me sick. I have too much inside me, I'm afraid of it.
Paul Gauguin : Ah, that's why I let it out before it hurts me.
[takes a drink and snickers]
Paul Gauguin : Last winter in Martinique, I got into a fight with some sailors. I was in the hospital for a month
[chuckles]
Paul Gauguin : ... but it was worth it. Even that piddling brawl out there made me feel better than I have in weeks. And I know why: because suddenly there's something in front of you, something you can hit at. He stands there, you smash his teeth in, or he does it to you - either way it's alright: there's a *decision*.
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Paul Gauguin : If it's one thing I despise, it's emotionalism in painting.
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Emile Bernard : What doesn't make you sick, Paul, besides your own work?
Paul Gauguin : Would you really like to know? That.
[he points to a wall with a number of Japanese paintings]
Paul Gauguin : Look at that. The clarity, the calm. The Japanese paint as simply as we breathe.
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Vincent Van Gogh : I don't want control! I'm not afraid of emotion. When I paint the sun, I want the people to feel it revolving, giving off light and heat. When I paint a peasant, I want to feel the sun pouring into him like it does into the corn.
Paul Gauguin : Is that what you do when you overload your brush? When you slap paint on like putty? When you make your trees writhe like snakes and your sun explode all over the canvas? What I see when I look at your work is that you paint too fast!
Vincent Van Gogh : You look too fast!
Paul Gauguin : Whatever you say, brigadier. Maybe you're right. Maybe we need another drink.
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Paul Gauguin : How long have you been in Paris?
Vincent Van Gogh : Over a year.
Paul Gauguin : How can you stand it? I can't work here. It *strangles* me.
Vincent Van Gogh : But where would you go?
Paul Gauguin : Brittany. There's a place up there I can stay. It's just a hole, but it's all I can afford.
Vincent Van Gogh : Wouldn't you miss your friends in Paris?
Paul Gauguin : Friends? A woman or two maybe. When you start as late as I did you find yourself measuing who and what you give your time to. Friends, comforts, family - if they interfere with your peace to work you cut them off. And you spend the rest of your life wondering if it was worthwhile.
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Vincent Van Gogh : Paul!
[approaches Paul painting]
Vincent Van Gogh : It doesn't seem to work. It doesn't work. Paul, could you come over and take a look?
Paul Gauguin : Vincent, I'm trying to catch this light.
Vincent Van Gogh : I remember what you said; I softened my colors, I try to control them - then I loose it.
Paul Gauguin : [slightly irritated] Go back and try again.
Vincent Van Gogh : [points at Paul's work] That's what I mean! Look how pale and thin that sky is. You use the same brush strokes all over. It's got no texture, no energy - it's all *flat*!
Paul Gauguin : [gets up angrily] That's the way I see it! *Flat*!
[Vincent walks away]
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Paul Gauguin : [talking to the inspector after Vincent's self inflicted ear related accident] You might as well know, that man's unbalanced. Don't take my word for it, ask anyone around. Last night he got worse. Just by being here seemed to drive him out of his mind. If I'm here when he comes to and he sees me after all that's happened, it could be fatal to him.
[finishes packing his bag]
Paul Gauguin : Will you need me for anything more?
Inspector : No I guess not.
Paul Gauguin : I'll notify his brother.
[picks up his bag and leaves as the scene fades out]
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Paul Gauguin : You see, down there the sun invades you, gets into your blood. Not that Martinique was a paradise. Between hunger and fever, I was lucky to get out alive. But if I could, I'd go back there tomorrow.
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Paul Gauguin : Vincent, painting is for painters.
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Paul Gauguin : Vincent, I've just spent a year beating my brains out. I've sacrificed everything: execution, effect, all the things that come easiest to me, for a style. A style that'll convey the mood of what I see... the idea, without regard for concrete reality.
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Paul Gauguin : Oh, it's still the same. Nothing's changed since I left here a year ago.
Mme. Tanguy : That's right. You owed us 112 francs then - and you still do!
Paul Gauguin : Tanguy, remove your wife.
Pere Tanguy : [to his wife] Get in the back.
Paul Gauguin : This man is absolutely correct, Tanguy. You cannot handle painters and woodpeckers, too.
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Paul Gauguin : It's direct, it's vigorous. What's your name?
Vincent Van Gogh : Vincent van Gogh.
Paul Gauguin : He has a statement to make and he makes it. Theo's brother?
Vincent Van Gogh : Yes.
Paul Gauguin : Glad to know you. It's honest. It owes nothing to anybody. Nothing.
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Paul Gauguin : Let's get this place in order.
Vincent Van Gogh : Show me the paintings.
Paul Gauguin : That can wait. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's confusion, mental or physical.
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Vincent Van Gogh : Millet's one of the few artists that ever really captured the human spirit. Here. In the dignity of toil. Millet uses paint to express the word of God.
Paul Gauguin : Then he should have been a preacher, not a painter.
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Vincent Van Gogh : I painted them for you.
Paul Gauguin : That's very friendly of you, Vincent. That's very friendly.
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Paul Gauguin : No wonder they call you crazy around here. Come on, Vincent, let's get out of here. Give it up! You can't paint in this gale.
Vincent Van Gogh : I've done it plenty of times.
Paul Gauguin : Yes, and I've seen the results.
