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Open your mouth so we can hear you.
I can't follow you.
You're not listening.
You're going too fast.
Let's start over with the first notes of the song.
Stop! The Master has signaled.
The Master would speak.
Speak, Master.
Each note should end...
dying.
ALL THE MORNINGS OF THE WORLD
Dying... your bowing's too hard.
Remember, with each stroke of the bow
someone you love
vanishes into the shadows.
Mysteriously they fade from sight,
leaving tears in your eyes.
You play too uniformly!
Music is like a hunt.
You must spur when you sight the stag.
Chew firmly when you devour it!
Hold back a moment before your climax.
Music's goal is to transport the soul...
To make you giddy!
To move us!
The aim is sweetness.
Shadows...
Give me...
In the shadows...
What do you wish, Master?
A viol. Give me a viol!
He will play! A viol for Mr. Marais!
Give him yours. Move aside!
Leave, all of you! Go away!
No, Brunet, let them stay!
I want everyone to stay.
Marin Marais is giving his lesson.
Sit down.
Close the shutters!
Austerity!
He was all austerity and rage.
He was as mute as a fish.
I am an imposter...
No, Master!
...and I am worthless.
I ambitioned nothingness...
I reaped nothingness...
sugar,
gold,
and shame.
He was music.
He viewed the world in the bright flame of the torch
we light for the dead.
I never plumbed the depths of his desire.
I had a teacher,
and the shadows took him.
He was called Monsieur de Sainte Colombe.
In the spring of 1660,
one afternoon,
he was at the bedside of a friend
who wished to die
with a glass of wine, and music.
That same spring afternoon,
Madame de Sainte Colombe died.
Sir... Madame...
He couldn't get over his wife's death.
He loved her.
That was when he composed "Tomb of Sorrows".
He gave lessons on the viol, then the rage in London and Paris.
He was a famous teacher.
And a religious reformer.
He had 2 daughters.
Toinette! Madeleine! Mr.de Bures is Here!
Mr.de Bures frequented reformist circles.
He taught reading, arithmetic the Bible, basic Latin.
Sainte Colombe had taught his girls the notes and keys.
His wife's memory never dimmed in him.
Her image was always before him,
her voice forever whispered in his ear.
Gradually, he shut out the world.
He sold his horse and withdrew into his music.
Toinette, come back!
Shut up in his cabin, he practiced up to 1 5 hours a day.
He devised a new way to hold the viol between the knees.
He added a 7th string To give it a deeper voice
and a more melancholy tone.
He perfected his bowing by lightening his grip
and pressing only on the horsehair with 2 fingers,
which he did with great virtuosity.
It was said he could imitate the full range of the human voice
from a young woman's sigh to an old man's sob,
from Henry IV's battle cry
to the soft breath of a sleeping child.
Sainte Colombe feared a man alone couldn't raise two girls.
He was stern, but a poor disciplinarian.
He locked them in the cellar, Where he forgot them.
When he raged, Madeleine was like a ship
that quickly capsized and sank.
His joys were sometimes mysterious.
He was full of confusion.
Where's Mommy?
You must be good, and hardworking.
I miss your mother. She was a joy! I'm no talker.
She could talk
and laugh.
I take no pleasure in language
nor in the company of people, or books.
But I love you both,
and that's enough.
Their father saw less and less of them.
He remained in his cabin, on his stool.
Songs and laments arose under his fingers.
When they haunted him, he opened his red music book
and jotted them down to be rid of them.
When Madeleine was big enough to learn the viol,
he taught her the positions, chords, arpeggios, ornaments.
Me, too.
Neither bed without supper, nor days in the cellar consoled Toinette
for being too small to play the viol.
One morning before dawn, Sainte Colombe rose,
followed a stream to the Seine,
then went on to the Dauphine bridge.
He spent all day with Mr. Pardoux.
For Easter, in the garden,
Toinette found a ghostly, Bell-shaped package.
For years they lived quietly, for music.
The time came when, once a month,
Madeleine put a cloth between her legs.
Toinette outgrew her small viol.
The Sainte Colombes' 3-viol concerts were famous.
Royal courtiers like Caignet attended.
They were a fad with the nobility.
An amazing musician!
He plays better than I do.
He does play better than you.
Better than the king's violist.
Sir, you live in ruin and silence.
People envy your wildness.
They envy the green woods above you.
Monsieur...
Because you are a master of the viol,
you are summoned to play at court.
His Majesty has indicated a desire to hear you.
If he is pleased,
he will appoint you as chamber musician.
If so, I'll have the honor of playing beside you.
Sir,
I live my life among gray wood boards in an orchard...
to the sounds of 7 viol strings, and to my 2 daughters.
My friends are my memories.
In my court are willows, streams, whitebait, elder buds.
Tell His Majesty his court does not need a wild man.
You do not understand my request.
I belong to the king's staff.
His Majesty's wish is an order!
I am so wild that I think I belong only to myself.
Tell his Majesty he was too generous when he glanced at me.
I'll be back!
His Majesty,
his court, his musicians...
we'll all be back!
King's messenger!
Disobedience increased the king's impatience
to hear the musicians play.
He sent Caignet and Father Mathieu to him.
You hide your name among turkeys, hens and small fish!
You hide a talent God bestowed on you
in vainglorious poverty!
His Majesty knows your reputation.
It is time to burn your coarse clothes
and accept his bounty,
to procure a periwig!
Your ruff is outmoded.
I am outmoded!
Thank His Majesty.
I like sunlight on my hand, not gold!
My coarse clothes, not your huge wigs!
I prefer my hens to royal fiddles, my pigs to you!
- Monsieur! - Go away!
- Speak no more of it! - You're mad!
You will rot in your rural horror,
rot like a plum in your orchard!
Your palace is smaller than a cabin,
your public less than one person.
The king liked that reply.
He let the violist be, but ordered
the courtiers to avoid his concerts
because he was stubborn and had consorted
with the reformists before the king dispersed them.
The years went by.
The family gave only one recital a season.
Sainte Colombe wrote fewer new airs
in his red book.
He didn't want them printed and subject to public judgment.
He said they were rough improvisations,
expressing only a fleeting moment.
He thought often of his wife of her liveliness,
of her advice, always sound, of her hips,
of her belly that gave him 2 girls who were now women.
Once he dreamed of sojourning in deep water.
He had renounced all he loved on earth.
When he awoke, he recalled his "Tomb of Sorrows",
composed when one night his wife left him to embrace death.
He was also thirsty.
So he played "Tomb of Sorrows".
He did not need to consult his book.
His fingers placed themselves on the strings.
He had other visitations.
My teacher, first fearing he was mad, thought:
if this was madness, it made him happy,
if this was truth, it was a miracle.
His wife's love surpassed his, for it reached him from so far,
and he could not return it.
He asked Baugin, a painter belonging to the guild,
to paint the writing table close to where his wife appeared.
He hid the canvas in his room,
and told no one of the visions.
He thought his anger was fading.
Deep inside,
he felt that something had ended.
That was when a big boy of 1 7, red as a cock's crest,
knocked at his door.
It was me.
Sir, my name is Marin Marais.
My father is a Shoemaker.
At 6 I joined the choir in the church
at the gate of the Louvre palace.
And sang.
For 9 years I sang in the king's choir at matins, services,
high mass and vespers.
Then hair grew on my face and legs,
my voice broke,
I was thrown into the street, as my contract provided.
For the last time, I opened the great gilt door.
I ran down the steep hill to the river bank.
I wept.
The Seine was bright with sunlight.
My dormitory mate, Delalande, still had his voice,
and so he stayed.
I felt alone,
my thick prick hung between my thighs.
I followed the river home.
There, I shut myself into a room above the workshop.
As usual, my father was hammering and scraping.
The hammer blows unnerved and disgusted me.
I hated the smell of urine the skins were cured in.
The squeaking leather stool, my father's shouts
were all unbearable. I thought:
I want to leave my family.
I'll get even for my lost voice. I'll be a famous violist.
I went to Mr. Caignet, who kept me nearly a year.
He sent me to Mr. Maugars.
He asked if I'd heard of your 7th string, of your fame.
Maugars trained me for 6 months, and judged me so good a violist
that he sent me here with this letter.
Just tell him to play. To improvise on the "Follies"
Please improvise on "The Follies of Spain".
I don't think I'll take you on as a student.
Tell me why?
You make music. You're not a musician.
Wait, father! He could play us a composition of his own.
That was good.
Very good.
You agree?
Come back in a month.
I'll tell you if you're worthy of being my student.
I arrived for my first lesson:
Madeleine opened the gate for me.
Her dress was unlaced.
I'm putting my hair up for a swim.
That cabin is where my father plays.
You didn't play badly.
Your posture is good. You play with feeling.
You bow is deft.
Your left hand slips like an eel on the strings.
Your ornaments are clever and often charming.
But I heard no music.
You could play for dancers, or singers on a stage.
What you write will please, and offend no one,
you will earn a living but you won't be a musician.
Can your heart feel?
Can it recognize sounds
that aren't meant for dancing or pleasing the king's ears?
Your pained voice is what touched me.
I'll take you on for your grief...
not for your skill.
Months went by.
One very cold day,
we couldn't practice for long in the cabin.
Our fingers were numb.
We took refuge in the kitchen.
This wine warms my lungs and heart.
Look!
You know the painter Baugin?
No. Or no other painter.
He once did a painting for me.
See?
Its the corner of my desk in my music room. See?
I do.
Let's visit Baugin.
You hear?
The melody is staccato over the bass!
Death is the sum of what it steals from us.
Its all the worldly pleasures bidding us farewell.
Listen to the sound of Baugin's brush.
That's how to use a bow.
What are you mumbling?
I was comparing my bow to your brush.
Those are just words.
I like gold.
Dead things pay well.
Monsieur,
the secret of our art
is surprise.
Monsieur, seriously, do you think gold stinks?
Monsieur,
you have learned...
how ornaments stand out.
It was also a chromatic descent!
Maybe true music is linked to silence?
It's late. My feet are cold. Good night.
Go on!
Go on, sir!
Now let us hear some emotion.
He's angry: I played for the king.
Go on, Marin.
Look. A guard warned me my viol was afire.
- Play! - Look!
Father!
Explain yourself, sir!
What is an instrument? It's not music.
This will buy a circus horse to entertain the king.
Listen to my daughter's woeful sobs.
They're closer to music than your scales.
Be gone for good!
You're a great acrobat.
You never lose your balance. But you're no musician.
You should play at court, or in a square,
for drinking money.
I'll teach you everything my father taught me.
Your father is a wicked man.
I went back.
We'd go...
secretly to Madeleine's room.
She taught me all her skills.
We'd slide under the cabin so I could hear
what ornaments and chords
the master now favored.
When I turned 20, in the summer of 1 67 6,
I informed Madeleine I'd been hired as a royal musician.
One day a storm broke as we hid.
Don't, father!
Father, I love him!
The storm was violent but brief.
Soon the chairs were back in the garden.
I never want to see you again.
You won't.
You wish to marry my eldest?
It's too soon for me to say.
Toinette's working with your Pardoux.
She'll be back late.
I don't know if I'll give you Madeleine.
You've found a lucrative position.
You publish clever compositions...
embellished with ornaments stolen from me.
No matter...
They're just black and white notes printed on paper.
There are other things...
Worthier things...
Like the passionate life that I lead...
You live a passionate life?
You do, father?
There's a question I've always wanted to ask you...
Why don't you publish your melodies?
I don't compose. I've never written anything.
At Easter,
the reformists' church sent a carriage
so my teacher could play at Vespers.
At this service, tall candles
representing God's name are put out one by one.
It reminded Sainte Colombe of his late wife
and his sorrow at having been absent
when death took her.
His love for her was alive as ever
and seemed to him quite unchanged.
Every night was that same night.
Every chill was that same chill.
Now we must go.
I wish I could make you some crushed peaches.
I can't.
This sounds odd, Madame...
12 years have not cooled our bedsheets.
I came less often.
Madeleine told me everything.
She confided that he'd composed the loveliest melodies.
He played them for no one.
There was "Cheron 's boat", "Tomb et Sorrows", "Tears".
Manon?
Madeleine, our scales by thirds, our arpeggios.
Yes, father.
What do you think of me?
Do you want some brew?
Too much mint.
The chapel was lovely...
Got it!
I did!
My body's wearied of you. I'm leaving.
I've seen new faces now.
Life, to be sweet, must be cruel.
Stop talking, go away!
Madeleine grew so weak, she took to bed: I'd made her pregnant.
She was delivered of a stillborn boy.
Madame, how can you appear here after death?
Where is your boat? Where are my tears? Are you a dream?
Am I mad?
Don't worry, my love.
Our boat long ago sank in the pond.
The other world is leaky as a boat.
It hurts me that I can't touch you.
There's nothing to touch but wind.
But even wind can suffer...
Sometimes the wind carries music to us.
Just as the light can bring you...
...apparitions.
Madeleine became seriously ill.
I'd meet Toinette for news of her sister.
He said his father made them to his specifications.
I stopped coming.
In time, I lost touch with the Sainte Colombes.
Toinette married Pardoux's son.
He still makes my instruments. They had 5 children.
When Caignet died, I entered the king's household.
I married Catherine d'Amicourt.
I conducted Lully's orchestras and played "The Dreaming Girl",
that I had composed years ago for Madeleine.
Sainte Colombe came to her bedside.
He tried hard, but found nothing to say to her.
Father...
Do something for me?
Please play
"The Dreaming Girl" that Marin wrote for me.
Soon afterward, he sent Toinette to find me in Versailles.
He ordered me to rush to his dying daughter.
My father won't appear.
You won't recognize Madeleine. She can hardly walk.
My father spoonfeeds her.
He insists she eat crushed peaches.
You're marvelously beribboned...
And fat.
Thank you for coming from Versailles.
Please play the melody you once wrote for me...
The one that was published.
"The Dreaming Girl"?
You know why?
- Is the viol still...? - Yes, it is.
Your cheeks are hollow. Your eyes, too.
Your hands are terribly thin.
It's a very delicate statement of you.
Your voice is deeper.
Yours is higher.
Don't you have some great sorrow..?
You've become...
so skinny.
No, I haven't...
I've had no recent sorrows.
Still angry?
Yes, Marin.
You still hate me for what I did?
Not just you.
I also despise myself.
I let myself be destroyed by my memory of you,
and by sheer sadness.
I'm a bag of bones!
You were never fleshy.
When I wrapped my hands around your thigh,
my fingers touched.
You're so witty.
To think I wanted to be your wife.
Your love for me was as flimsy as this gown.
That's a lie!
Please play.
Play!
I'd rather you played.
Slowly.....SIower.
He didn't want to be a shoemaker...
Each day dawns but once.
He didn't speak for six months,
nor touch his viol.
That was the first time he ever hated it.
After hearing of Madeleine's death, I couldn't sleep.
I thought endlessly of the titles she'd confided to me:
"Hades", "Charon's Boat",
"Tears", Tomb of Sorrows".
I was horrified that he wanted his music to die with him.
I grew obsessed with hearing it all, if only once.
I wanted those works
In any weather, I'd go every night to listen.
I followed the trail Madeleine had shown me long ago.
Each time, for 3 years, I wondered:
"Will he play them tonight? will this be the night?"
He never did.
He was mostly silent or talked to himself.
I heard him dusting his viol or the table.
Where is your boat? Where are my tears?
At last, on January 23, 1 689,
it was icy cold, the wind stung my eyes across the frozen ground.
Not a cloud in the sky. I'll never forget it
I thought:
it's a clear, crisp night,
with a full moon in the ageless sky.
My horse galloped on:
My rear was cold, my prick tiny and frozen.
Have some crushed peaches..,.
I speak only to aged shadows who no longer move....
If only there were someone alive besides me who loved music!
We could talk...
and then I could die.
Who is that sighing in the darkness?
A man fleeing palaces in search of music.
What do you seek in music?
I seek sorrows and tears...
Sit down.
May I ask you for one last lesson?
May I attempt a first lesson?
I wish to speak...
Music exists to say things that words cannot say.
Which is why it is not entirely human.
You've found out that music is not for kings?
I've found out it's for God.
You're wrong: God can speak.
For the ear?
Things I can't speak of are not for the ear.
For gold?
For glory?
For silence?
Silence is only the opposite of language.
For rival musicians?
Love?
The sorrows of love?
Wantonness?
A wafer for the Unknown?
Not that either. What's a wafer?
You can see it, taste it. It's nothing.
I give up.
One must leave a drink for the dead.
You're getting warmer...
A refreshment for those who've run out of words.
For lost childhood...
To muffle the hammering of shoemakers.
For the time before we were born,
before we breathed
or saw light.....
A moment ago you heard me sigh.
Soon I'll die: My art will die with me.
I'll only be missed by my chickens and geese.
I'll give you a few airs that can wake the dead.
Let's begin.
We need a drink.
We also need the viol of my late daughter....
Madeleine...
I'll play "Tomb of Sorrows".
None of my students had enough ear to hear it.
You'll accompany me.
Monsieur.
Thus we played from "Tomb of Sorrows",
a piece called "Tears".
I'm proud to have been your teacher.
Please play me the air my daughter loved.
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