After a stream of films about user-friendly artists such as Monet, Goya and David Hockney, the estimable Exhibition on Screen series tackles the slightly tougher subject of Paul Cézanne, taking its cue from the touring Cézanne Portraits show which is nearing the end of its run at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Because of the show’s organisational history, there’s an interesting transnational flavour to the comment, with curatorial input from France (intense) and the US (scholarly) alongside the careful Brits.
The format of these films is by now well-established, operating with watchmaker-level precision: slow, swooping shots of the artist’s environment, letters and the like voiced with full throated emotion (here by the familiar molten-honey tones of Brian Cox), and leisurely inspection of the paintings themselves in situ.
As the title indicates, the theme here is biographical rather than purely aesthetic – though there is a nice balance between the two, as the development of Cézanne’s figure-painting (surely a more accurate term than portraiture) reflects his wider journey from Courbet and Zola-inspired naturalism toward the formalist, near-abstract work with colour planes that proved so influential on the cubists and future generations. Portraits of a Life is particularly good at illustrating the transitional period of the 1870s and 80s, when Cézanne slowly inched his way out of impressionist-style representation to a more revolutionary method of grappling with tones, colours and planes – as well as the materiality of paint – to render his ideas on canvas.
While, as a film, Cézanne: Portraits of a Life is not exactly pulling up trees itself, stylistically speaking, its engaged commentary (including contributions from Cézanne’s great-grandson Philippe) and accretion of detail mean this is an excellent primer for the artist’s work, whether or not you can make it to the exhibition. This is a film that thoroughly repays careful listening and looking.
• Cézanne: Portraits of a Life is rereleased on 29 November in cinemas.
