Francofonia (2015) Movie Script
Yes, hello.
Yes, good day.
Keep it brief, please.
Maybe, but a consultation
at port is essential.
In Rotterdam, of course.
Where else?
No, I haven't had a letter
or call from him for a long time.
Maybe his ship
is somewhere on the Atlantic.
It's Captain Dirk.
No, you know, Dirk.
Yes.
Are museums really sending out anything
in shipping containers today?
Good. All the best.
No, we're still shooting.
Yes, I'll see you later.
Good-bye.
Yes, hello.
When is the orchestra recording?
Yes, in Amsterdam.
The string section?
Check with the composer.
All the best.
Hi, Dirk.
I waited for you
to make contact at last.
I can't see you,
there's no picture.
I'm home already,
just got back from Europe.
Yes, my friend.
My work is almost done.
But I don't think
the film is successful.
I've surrounded myself with
books and talk to myself.
Dirk? Dirk?
The connection is gone.
I didn't manage to ask where he is now.
On which seas.
Why is he looking at me like that?
As if he knew what was awaiting us.
Now he'll tell us.
Who will if not him?
Anton Pavlovich...
You don't say he is staying silent, too?
Now he's fallen asleep.
He sleeps and sleeps...
He's sleeping deeply, won't wake up soon.
He's fallen asleep, too.
In the hardest period...
Mr. Chekhov! Anton Pavlovich!
Mr. Chekhov, wake up!
It's the dawn of the century,
the dawn of the 20th century.
Who can I turn to?
Who is there?
A-ha. There are the people.
What faces, what souls!
Angels... children.
But children are always hard-hearted.
Especially when their parents are asleep.
So that's how the 20th century started:
The fathers fell asleep.
There she is again.
As soon as I show up here,
you start pursuing me.
It's pursuit.
My dear ghost, tell us,
what is it that awaits us all?
Freedom, equality, brotherhood.
Freedom, equality, brotherhood.
My dear Marianne,
I'm not in the mood for humor.
The connection to the ship.
You haven't responded for ages.
We've been worried about your status.
Oh, it was a mistake
to take anything from the museum.
It's not human,
dragging art across the oceans.
Dirk? Dirk!
That's it, the connection
is gone again. The sea...
The ocean.
I watch this and recall Chekhov:
On a huge sea,
one wave rose above the next,
and they knew no sense nor pity.
Elemental forces of the sea and of history
are those without sense or pity.
What use is this ocean to me?
Let it live its own life beside us.
Why do we need to know
this elemental force?
After all, we have our cities,
our skies, our warm and cozy apartments.
Life, beauty...
A people is surrounded by an ocean,
while a person has his ocean within.
I've been thinking
about this city a lot, lately...
The Louvre is here somewhere.
So where is the Louvre? I can't see it.
Alexandre, we are ready.
Alexandre! Alexandre!
We are ready.
So is the camera already rolling?
Then let's go.
Sequence four, take two.
Calamity can strike
even the happiest city.
In the summer of 1940,
enemy troops entered Paris.
This was on the 14th of June.
The city was empty. Yes, empty.
The government had headed south,
declaring beautiful Paris an open city.
The French are all cinematographers,
making films regardless of the situation.
Here we have the new owner,
come to survey his new acquisitions.
Is everything as it should be
and in good condition?
But where are the subjects?
New subjects: the neighboring people.
Empty Paris.
He who could, fled.
He who could, surrendered, hid.
Others perished
offering fierce resistance.
Well, all right...
The tower is where it belongs.
Everything is well and as it should be...
Ah, a straight line!
A straight one!
But where is the Louvre?
Ah! There's the Louvre!
How good that it's there.
It always fascinated me,
it's where it belongs.
Great architecture all along the line.
The Louvre, the Louvre.
Might it be
that this museum
is worth more than all of France?
Who needs France without the Louvre?
Or Russia without the Hermitage?
Who would we be without museums?
It sometimes seems museums
don't care what happens around them
as long as they're left in peace.
Museums can also conceal
the improper behavior of power
and of people...
On my first visit to the Louvre,
I was amazed by these faces.
These are the people... the people.
The people, as I would like to see them.
Comprehensible to me.
They are of their own time...
and I recognize them.
Why?
The French...
the human stock of Europe.
I wonder what would have become
of European culture
if portraiture had not emerged.
For some reason,
Europeans developed the wish,
the necessity,
of painting people, faces...
With a brisk whistle, he will have
the forbidden light extinguished.
Why is this study
so important to Europeans,
while other people, such as the Muslims,
don't have it at all?
Who would I have been,
had I never known or seen
the eyes of those who lived before me?
I'll go down! I won't go down!
I'll go down! I won't go down!
You go down!
- Shut up, you little brute, it's too loud!
In Europe, Europe is everywhere.
We sit beside, opposite one another,
and our lot is one and the same.
Why is art
unwilling to teach us prescience?
Don't you have a handkerchief?
This is an alert.
- Yes, it's an alert, so?
So the German army has entered Paris.
Yes, 1940. Summer...
Summer.
The army creeps forward,
creeps without any great haste.
Paris is now an open city.
Yet someone knew
it would turn out this way.
How many more are to come?
Yes, they're neighbors, we know them,
but we weren't expecting them,
didn't invite them.
An armistice is signed
between Germany and France.
But how will the victor behave
on taking command
of the center of world culture?
Germany is a complex
and many-faceted invader.
The French need to get used
to a powerful and diplomatic enemy.
The military immediately settles in Paris.
The troops are careful but confident.
Yes, they trained, but they didn't expect
such an easy victory!
In its own fashion, the German army
tries to reanimate life in Paris.
Here their tribunal is commencing work.
Not all young French citizens
accept the new laws.
Since you are in Paris,
why not play something?
The audience is grateful.
Many thousand French citizens
follow their government
by fleeing to the south.
These include huge amounts
of civil servants from the French capital.
The home of the French
national treasure, the Louvre,
was probably the first to be visited
by German forces.
Take four.
And were we to imagine
how this took place,
might it have been like this?
We're looking for Director
Jaujard's office, can you help us?
Count Wolff Metternich.
He's a representative
of the German command
and is here to inspect the Louvre.
Jacques Jaujard?
- Yes.
May I introduce Count Wolff Metternich?
Jacques Jaujard, a senior French official,
director of the Louvre
and all national museums in France.
If you'd care to follow me...
Please wait here for me, I will call you.
Very modest.
Very modest.
Please be seated...
Then I'll sit down here...
Hlne, Hlne...
bring us some coffee, please.
M. Jaujard,
you are the first high-ranking
French civil servant I meet at his post.
I must inform you
that I represent the head
of the military administration in Paris
and its significant department,
the Kunstschutz.
Our mission
is to preserve art collections,
museums and historic monuments
in France and Europe.
Here is my calling card.
Would you kindly inform me
as to the current state of the museum?
Well?
Yes.
You'll find all the relevant information
in this folder.
Thank you.
So...
It's all there.
It's all there.
Are the curators showing much solidarity?
They are.
Do you speak German?
No, I am very French.
The Count is 46 years old.
His interlocutor is 44.
Jaujard volunteered for the front
in the First World War,
where he caught TB and was discharged.
His father died on the front.
Count Metternich was in active service
in the German Army
throughout the duration
of the First World War.
WWI was almost domestic,
was fought family by family...
and was thus
particularly cruel and insane.
It left long-lasting,
evil recollections in its wake.
Cities, churches, monuments,
cultures were crushed,
people were murdered, tortured.
And how often had battles been fought
between Germans and French...?
This is the private archive
of the Metternich family.
This is him as a child.
Here he is already a soldier.
Ferdinand, Count Wolff Metternich,
his father, awaits him at home.
His mother is Flaminia,
Princess of Salm-Salm.
She will die on the eve of WWII.
The family is large,
nine brothers and sisters.
A German nobleman
and a Republican Frenchman.
Jacques Jaujard was swift
to find his calling as a civil servant,
but whether
this would be his vocation
and whether he would be a happy man
was known only to fate
and his future wives.
Incidentally, it was as a young secretary
to prominent left-wing politician
and mathematician, Paul Painlev,
that Jaujard received
his first Legion of Honor.
Thank you, no need. Good-bye.
- Good-bye.
Hlne, where are you?
Hlne... Is everyone hiding?
The Louvre, the Louvre...
Silence.
Nobody here...
Many colleagues are sent to the chteaux
where an collections are hidden.
All that is left in the halls are
some classical and medieval sculpture.
What is the Louvre?
What is it,
now that France has lost the war?
When occupying soldiers
stroll through Paris,
when people seem
to have gotten used to this,
when shops, cinemas and cafs are open,
when French industry is successfully
working for the Wehrmacht,
and when thousands of French students
have developed a new interest
in the German language?
Perhaps these young French
think a life shared with Germany
is here to stay.
At the start of the War,
the French apparently
didn't want to believe
in a total and ferocious war
with their European sister.
The young French soldiers resisted
as best they could,
but their politicians struggled among
themselves and forgot about their land.
The state yields to Nazi force.
The state restrains its army.
French losses for this period:
tens of thousands of soldiers.
Millions of refugees.
The map of the French Republic.
And this is already a different country.
It's called the French State.
It's no longer a republic.
Parliament is dissolved.
There is no president.
This line is where
German troops decided to stop.
From then on,
the country consisted of two parts:
the occupied, and the not yet taken.
This is what the border
between them looks like.
The government of new France
is formed in the small town of Vichy.
It's a resort... waters, clinics...
Marshal Ptain, French Ambassador
to Spain, a hero of WWI,
agrees to lead the government in exile.
But he is 84 years old.
He was born in the 19th century.
At his birth,
Emperor Napoleon III was in power.
His family revered Bonaparte!
That's how it turned out.
A French Marshal, hero of WWI,
came out against resistance
to an aggressor.
That's how it turned out,
that a French Marshal disbanded his army,
urged his citizens to stop resisting,
and announced the beginning
of a new revolution
and the foundation of a new country.
The Vichy French, who'd been rejecting
distant Russian Bolshevism,
overlooked neighboring Nazism.
Ptain, reserved, cold,
and undistinguished of birth,
believes in the possibility and necessity
of partnership with Hitler.
And sees in it France's salvation.
And here we have his government,
his cabinet.
They are to support the occupying forces,
collect all taxes,
and organize the French workforce
to replenish Germany's resources.
This same government will head museums
and cultural institutions
throughout all France.
So the same old slow-seller
reappeared on the market.
Can you guess which I mean?
This product may be very expensive
or be free.
But the price of this product
is always set by the buyer.
Were you able to guess?
No?
Think it over.
REGULARS' TABLE
I see you weren't able to guess.
It's peace. Simply peace.
Calm.
Peace can always be bought.
The grand war fell silent in France.
The French soldiers...
are returning home.
Paris...
Paris...
Hundreds of museums, libraries,
theaters, galleries, universities,
sciences, crafts, workers, engineers,
press, democracy and customs.
Would you give it all up
for the sake of principles,
political convictions, slogans,
and start a fully-fledged war
throughout France
and in Paris?
Paris, the open city,
means Paris without bombardments
and without battles.
There's the computer.
His signal has come through again.
What a storm!
Get rid of the cargo or you will perish!
This museum freight, why did you take it?
Dirk! Dirk!
Your bridge is in chaos.
Files have fallen on the floor...
Is it that bad?
It seems vicious.
The connection is gone again...
Today is a bad day.
Somehow it's all so close,
the storm, sinking ships,
Europe, Paris, war.
Time is a tight knot.
What has time got to do with it?
The First World War, the Second...
There.
The beauty of an ancient world.
These are but fragments
of that civilization.
Assyria.
All of this once decorated
the king's palace in the Assyrian capital.
That state is long gone,
but these messages from 700 BC
summon numerous strange feelings.
Lamassu, winged bulls.
Threatening and naive,
like in the fairy tales.
The fear of power.
Fear in the face of power.
Brilliance of craftsmanship,
the perfect creation of fear.
In the 19th century,
all this was brought by ship
from afar to the Louvre.
Some items were bought...
some were war trophies.
But on that long voyage,
in severe storms,
overloaded ships sank to the bottom.
Uncounted are the creations
hidden from us in the suffocating depths,
and uncounted the seamen who perished.
What a price...
And for what?
Yes...
It was the museum fever of the Old World.
It was the best passion
the Old World was still capable of,
given its love of waging war
for any reason.
Mr. Tolstoy,
Mr. Tolstoy...
wake up.
Sadly I don't have the key
to his awakening.
I was asleep.
Sorry!
Wars, wars...
elemental forces... kings...
The Louvre has outgrown its clothes.
In the 20th century, the French president
decides on the construction
of the Grand Louvre.
A dig will begin
in the center of the square,
to reveal the Louvre's beginning,
its foundations.
Then a huge underground space
will be constructed
to connect all parts of the old Louvre
and create an entire underground city
with warehouses, labs,
streets and traffic lights.
Once again the Louvre
will be like nowhere else on Earth.
Freedom, equality...
brotherhood!
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
- Without me.
Freedom, equality, brotherhood...
Lord, Lord,
how long ago all of it started!
What did?
The human search for form,
the battle against imitation.
The screams and moans.
The discovery of the soul...
and the incomprehension as to what to do
with the mortal and now superfluous body.
The hand is truly smarter than the head.
It forms and creates
faster than a thought is born.
This sculpture is 9000 years old.
And it was found in Jordan, in 1972.
I don't know
what my favorite architect, Pierre Lescot,
would say about this sculpture.
The end of the 16th century.
The French Renaissance.
One of Lescot's designs,
the facade of the Louvre.
Architects such as he were capable
of building the new capital of the world.
Pierre Lescot designed this wonder.
The Henry II staircase at the Louvre.
Listen here, contemporary architects.
Lescot was a mathematician, a painter,
a priest and an architect.
The year was 1553.
Lord!
How long ago it all started!
You again...
Are you stalking me?
And eavesdropping?
An intrusive ghost...
And who the ghost is...
You were saying? Well?
No, stay there.
Come closer. Come on. Closer.
Come!
Of course it was I
who brought all this here.
This?
All these sculptures
are from my campaigns...
when I waged war.
Everything here was brought back by me.
Everything here. Everything.
Why else would I have gone to war?
Well? Why?
For this, for art. That's it.
I went to war for art.
Do you like this corpse?
It's Seneca.
Is it that emperors know their art?
Me? Yes!
I had excellent advisers...
when it was a question
of taking or leaving behind.
The whole universe defines a work.
And war alone decides
where it will end up.
In Paris, military officials
had a quiet life in general.
They stayed in good hotels.
The French administration
remained in Paris.
The German army simply observed.
Many of the German officers in Paris
knew the French language.
Many of them
had been schooled in the liberal arts.
Historians, philosophers...
but now in uniform.
They'd often been
to Paris before the war
and didn't conceal
their love of French culture.
Ah, there you are.
Is there any hot water?
Count, was it interesting with M. Jaujard?
Yes, indeed it was.
But I don't envy him his position.
M. Jaujard told me in detail
how the Louvre's collection
was evacuated to various chteaux.
They have lots of space,
no risk of bombings, huge cellars.
I'm visiting
Chteau de Sourches tomorrow.
Would you care to accompany me?
Do you think Paris may be bombed?
London and Rotterdam were bombed.
Look at the photos
on my desk back there.
Did you know in Germany
that the Louvre was empty?
What do you think?
They packed 6000 crates,
how could it be a secret?
In 1939 I removed all art
from Cologne Cathedral.
And not only from there.
So in the museums
there was a presentiment of war?
We hadn't the slightest doubt
that war was imminent.
We simply continued with our work.
All museums must be prepared for war.
I'm off.
There's still the matter
of getting it on the truck.
What's this noise?
What's this noise?
What is this?
Your Majesty, this is
the Winged Victory of Samothrace,
from the second century BC.
Oh, yes?
It's not your trophy. It's from later.
It's beautiful.
What beautiful plumage.
I'm a civil servant
of the French Administration,
whose government
allies itself to the enemy.
Do I know why I'm working
for this government?
Yes, I do.
Do I know
that this could last a long time?
I'm a civil servant
of the French Administration,
whose government
allies itself to the enemy.
Do I know why
I'm working for this government?
Yes, I do.
Do I know
that' this could last a long time?
Of course there was nothing here
once upon a time.
The people who lived here
did so in fear of Viking raids.
In the 12th century,
they built a fortress with a castle.
People began to settle around it.
So it began.
How strange.
How astonishing.
To this very piece of land,
a little over one square kilometer,
these French kings and architects are to
cling, as if following a premonition,
and will work this land,
build on it, rebuild it,
and pass it on, one to the next,
without relenting.
Chteaux, palaces,
palaces, chteaux... a museum.
They will never lose ground, regardless
of revolution or elemental force,
until it can finally be proclaimed:
Our Louvre has been built.
That hardest,
most tormenting time, the Revolution.
Executions, killings...
Great names flimmered,
blood was spilled...
And nobody knew
where the army began or ended.
Grand words were spoken.
Human rights,
citizens, constitution.
Famine, guillotine, republic, democracy.
The young Napoleon decided
war would save the land.
War.
Follow me.
It was he who transformed the Louvre
into an official museum,
the place
where artistic war trophies are kept.
Suddenly the state understands
that it cannot exist without museums.
There!
That's me.
You don't recognize me?
It's you...
You on a donkey!
I'd show other paintings.
The Seine.
The view of the Louvre from Pont Neuf.
The year is 1666.
It is already a great city.
Hubert Robert in the year 1789.
The Grande Gallery.
He was an artist
and director of the Louvre
shortly before Napoleon came to power,
designing and painting
the skylights in the ceiling.
The Grande Gallery
was astonishing in its spaciousness.
It was from here
that the museum of the Louvre began.
It wasn't a road,
but the path of European art.
Step by step, year by year...
everyone in a row, eye to eye.
Robert had a sense of humor, too.
Here is the gallery in ruins.
It's just a fantasy, of course.
The Louvre was already
the center of the city back then.
A place for important meetings
for the citizens of Paris.
And painting
became a vital part of everyday life.
There was nothing comparable anywhere.
Let it not be forgotten,
the Louvre's works
are by order of French powers.
Visconti, the architect,
presenting to Napoleon III
the plans for the New Louvre.
The Louvre is a museum,
but also a palace for oneself.
This painting is from the year 1880.
The square hall of the Louvre.
The Louvre's generosity knows no bounds.
Hundreds of paintings on the wall.
All that exists...
is there, on those walls.
The Apollo Gallery, 1880.
Silence and the clouds over Paris.
The Great Gallery
with its wonderful skylights.
A temple for paintings...
Who else could have built
such a temple for paintings?
1885.
The Egyptian Hall of the Louvre.
A trophy of war.
Silent, like a prisoner is supposed to be.
1894.
Two copy girls at work
in front of a Botticelli fresco.
Many paintings in the Louvre
depict women engaged in painting.
You aren't tired of listening to me yet?
There's very little left to bear.
That's me.
You again.
Look, my coronation.
Perfect beauty.
That's me.
I thought I saw some Prussians.
How could they be at the Louvre?
I don't dare explain, Emperor.
A vile king, a vile nation, a vile army.
A state that deceives everyone
and doesn't deserve to exist.
Your Majesty,
weren't these your words on Prussia?
Mediums fall asleep on time.
Let him sleep.
He hasn't served France in a long time...
although...
mediums never sleep tight.
I've had it.
You said you were there...
No but it's... Yes, I know.
Gentlemen,
like many other states,
Germany signed the Hague Convention,
on the laws of,
and conduct during, warfare.
Under it, all cultural monuments
enjoy the special protection
of the warring states.
We acted in compliance therewith
during the 1914-1918 war,
and now, too,
we consider it our holy duty,
in the name of European solidarity...
France, France...
How lucky you were
that your sister, Germany,
recognized your right to exist.
What will become of those
whose human nature
she does not acknowledge?
Bolshevik Russia, for example.
Oh, that Bolshevism, the Bolsheviks...
how they resisted...
fought for every Russian village
and city.
The German military
followed Hitler's orders:
Art monuments on the Eastern Front
have no significance
and shall be consigned to destruction.
The huge European city
of Soviet Russia, Leningrad,
was encircled by a blockade.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens,
museums, libraries, theaters,
universities, sciences, music, life...
Bombardments, artillery fire...
famine... cold.
LENINGRAD IS NOW CUT OFF
FROM THE REST OF RUSSIA
People dying by the thousands every day.
Corpses in the streets,
on stairways, in apartments, in yards,
in basements... corpses, corpses.
No strength to bury them.
No one to do it.
In this city...
a million people...
will lie in mass graves.
Here, a diary entry:
Walking by the river, I see a woman
with her child. Both are frozen.
The next day the child is gone,
probably eaten.
The woman's legs are gone, too.
A catastrophe more dire than hell.
The Hermitage Museum,
the Russian Renaissance,
is frozen into the history
of the Blockade.
In its cellars the wounded are treated,
in its halls, coffins are built.
Bombardments, artillery fire.
Here too, the greatest treasures
had been sent away.
Soldiers are brought from the front...
REMBRAND to walk among the empty frames:
This is an El Greco.
This one is a Leonardo.
Dear Lord, a Leonardo was here.
How one wishes to forget all this.
To forget him.
And this.
And these prisoners.
And these prisoners.
And this stare.
Maybe none of this ever happened.
Maybe all of this was made up
by us Europeans.
Maybe we dreamt it.
We do have
such extraordinary writers, philosophers.
Our artists are such visionaries
who dearly love humans.
And in the Louvre, everything is about
how people struggled, loved,
killed, repented, lied and cried.
Emperor, you again!
It is me!
Dear Marianne, chase him away.
That's me!
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
It's me!
All of it!
This!
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
It's me.
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
Without me...
there would be nothing.
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
On occupying the country,
German troops did their utmost
to follow the orders of their leadership
and spare the most important
cultural monuments,
so that we can say today
that the majority of the big cathedrals
were saved!
The same can be said
of the famous castles,
palaces and art collections.
There is basically nothing
but sculpture left at the Louvre.
The valuables
have been removed and hidden.
The opening ceremony is just politics.
Paris is occupied, everything is fine.
The Louvre is open,
everyone is mollified.
Now the German troops
will give guided tours
of that which remains.
One must give the Count
and his Kunstschutz their due
for having preserved monuments.
He was just speaking about it.
The organization is very active.
They begin to photograph and archive
all European cultural monuments,
and to repair damage due to battles.
Naturally it was part
of the aggressor's political agenda.
The Kunstschutz worked systematically
in France, Belgium,
Greece, Serbia, Italy...
They strangely even planned
to work in Russia...
but battles remained ongoing there.
Count Metternich
obtained from command a ruling
governing conservation and protection
of artistic treasures in occupied lands.
Here's the result,
a memo to all German soldiers:
German soldiers!
Throughout France,
you encounter many manors
and other historic buildings,
which have served and will serve
as temporary housing.
Many of those buildings
are exceptional monuments
of an' and history.
Observe these rules:
Be careful while heating!
Burned-down castles
are a cause to blame German soldiers.
Be careful during the installation
of electric wires.
Handle works of art with care,
do not burn broken furniture
or damaged wallpaper.
Bronze chandeliers are not
to be used as coat hangers.
Demonstrate that
you are the same Germans
who defeated Bolshevism in the East.
Where are the owners?
Chteau Sourches, 300 km from Paris.
The chteau has been requisitioned,
but they have stayed close by.
I was invited here by Metternich.
This is one of the places
where art from the Louvre was hidden.
Metternich visits
to check storage conditions.
He is met by a representative
of the Louvre.
So beautiful.
A beautiful place,
and beautiful to live in, too.
Much like the Palace of Gracht,
where the Count spent his childhood.
He is used to seeing beautiful things.
The current castle dates back to Louis II
du Bouchet, Marquis of Sourches,
fourth Provost of the Royal Palace,
whose jurisdiction
extended to the Louvre
and to the entire royal household.
The park grounds were finished
long before the castle,
which was completed around 1780.
Its main ornament is the dry moat,
probably a throwback
to the old feudal fortress.
We are completely deprived of fuel
and need it for the fire pumps.
How powerful Gricault's work is!
The Raft of the Medusa.
I'll sign the papers
when we're back upstairs.
You know, it was the only place in France
where large works could be stored.
We even had to tear down part of a wall
to bring them in.
This room is unusable
due to humidity.
I invite you to view another cellar.
All right.
Another great asset we have
is the excellent central heating
that we run continuously,
even in summer,
to balance inside temperature
and avoid the dew point phenomenon.
Count Wolff Metternich
is an art historian
and the main custodian
of the arts in the Rhineland.
The Count writes in 1933:
Our Fhrer wants us to return
to our ancient roots,
to respecting the works of the past.
You are right.
Metternich was sincere in quoting Hitler:
The interests of conservators coincided
with the ideology of a totalitarian state.
A dangerous coincidence.
My Lord Count...
My Lord Count,
will you return the collections?
No.
- So much the better.
How strange it is...
that the fearsome machine
of a Nazi state got held up in Paris
by the tacit resistance
of its own military officer.
Ribbentrop demands the return
to Paris of the collection.
I am grateful to you for the fuel.
It was indispensable.
Indispensable.
But Metternich,
citing bureaucratic procedure,
continually postpones
executing these orders.
The description of what there is...
In the distant chteaux,
the treasures are safe
from even the hands
of high-ranking art lovers,
such as Hitler, Gring, Goebbels...
The goals of slates and those of art
seldom coincide.
An occupation:
one party is strong, one is weak.
What is to be done?
To grow, one into the other,
conserving one's culture,
so finally a common state
can be formed?
The French-German Union,
or even, German-French Union.
Finally, the warring will come to an end.
There's only one enemy,
Bolshevik Russia.
VISI BOLSHEVISM AGAINST EUROPE
Shot 15, sequence five, take one.
During the hard years
of the occupation,
Jaujard was
under the supervision of Ptain
and the control of German troops.
But he kept the Louvre's staff,
held exhibitions,
and even made new acquisitions.
Cinema was also made in France
during those years.
Jaujard and Count Metternich.
They couldn't be entirely open
with one another.
Of course they didn't know
how long they'd live like this.
You have dark ideas.
- You're not too jolly yourself.
During wartime,
excessively hasty change is inevitable.
Marshal Ptain speaks to France.
Fellow Frenchmen...
Two of my colleagues are in trouble.
I'm sure they're innocent.
I need your assistance...
As for the first case, I'll intervene,
but as for the second...
if she's in the hands of the Gestapo,
there's nothing I can do.
Since 1929,
I've been in charge
of Rhenish cultural heritage,
and here I am now,
curator for all Europe.
They must think
I'm familiar with all things.
But a life is at stake.
- I see who has ears to hear.
Thank you.
- Shall we go?
All my life
I've been around civil servants.
I'm one myself.
- And France can be proud of you.
M. Jaujard, you seem
permanently stressed.
Does my uniform disturb you?
Gentlemen! Gentlemen, excuse me.
May I speak with you?
Do you know him?
- A little.
Come in.
This way. Come in.
Hello, Mr. Metternich.
There are two chairs...
as if they were put there for us.
Gentlemen, would you like
a glimpse into your future?
Since you haven't said no,
I'll continue.
M. Jaujard,
in August 1944
the independence of France
will be reestablished.
Paris will be liberated.
De Gaulle knows you've worked
with the Ptain regime,
but he also knows
you supported the Resistance.
You won't be punished, M. Jaujard,
but will be appointed...
Director of the Department
of Arts and Literature.
In 1959, you will receive
another state post:
Head of the Ministry for Culture.
You'll be elected to the Academy.
Your third wife will be Jeanne Boitel,
an actress who took
active part in the Resistance.
You will have a son, Franois Xavier.
He will not receive your love.
You'll get another Legion of Honor.
All your days will be devoted
to the administrative service of France,
but one day you'll learn
from the papers
that for some reason you've been fired.
This will occur
in the incredibly distant year of 1967.
Without any purpose left,
you will leave this life a few days later.
After your death, M. Jaujard,
your record disappears
and only a few photos remain.
I am unable to find anyone alive
who can say anything about you.
And the Louvre?
Count... Count?
In 1942,
you will be recalled to Germany,
relieved of your duties in Paris.
This is of course
due to your excessive endeavors
to preserve French culture.
Hitler's state leaders
are displeased with you:
You long prevented masterpieces
being exported to Germany.
You will return to your native Rhineland,
which will have suffered bombings.
There will be much to rebuild.
The war will soon end,
and you'll be held responsible
for your membership in the Nazi party.
Are you surprised
Germany lost the War?
When did it ever win?
M. Jaujard will help you
with your denazification
and put in a good word for you
where necessary.
You will even get
the French Legion of Honor.
You will travel a lot in Europe,
you will work in Rome.
On the 25th of May, 1978,
you will be solemnly buried
at the age of 85.
Your loving and large family
will be there.
What ravings.
Yes, good day.
Keep it brief, please.
Maybe, but a consultation
at port is essential.
In Rotterdam, of course.
Where else?
No, I haven't had a letter
or call from him for a long time.
Maybe his ship
is somewhere on the Atlantic.
It's Captain Dirk.
No, you know, Dirk.
Yes.
Are museums really sending out anything
in shipping containers today?
Good. All the best.
No, we're still shooting.
Yes, I'll see you later.
Good-bye.
Yes, hello.
When is the orchestra recording?
Yes, in Amsterdam.
The string section?
Check with the composer.
All the best.
Hi, Dirk.
I waited for you
to make contact at last.
I can't see you,
there's no picture.
I'm home already,
just got back from Europe.
Yes, my friend.
My work is almost done.
But I don't think
the film is successful.
I've surrounded myself with
books and talk to myself.
Dirk? Dirk?
The connection is gone.
I didn't manage to ask where he is now.
On which seas.
Why is he looking at me like that?
As if he knew what was awaiting us.
Now he'll tell us.
Who will if not him?
Anton Pavlovich...
You don't say he is staying silent, too?
Now he's fallen asleep.
He sleeps and sleeps...
He's sleeping deeply, won't wake up soon.
He's fallen asleep, too.
In the hardest period...
Mr. Chekhov! Anton Pavlovich!
Mr. Chekhov, wake up!
It's the dawn of the century,
the dawn of the 20th century.
Who can I turn to?
Who is there?
A-ha. There are the people.
What faces, what souls!
Angels... children.
But children are always hard-hearted.
Especially when their parents are asleep.
So that's how the 20th century started:
The fathers fell asleep.
There she is again.
As soon as I show up here,
you start pursuing me.
It's pursuit.
My dear ghost, tell us,
what is it that awaits us all?
Freedom, equality, brotherhood.
Freedom, equality, brotherhood.
My dear Marianne,
I'm not in the mood for humor.
The connection to the ship.
You haven't responded for ages.
We've been worried about your status.
Oh, it was a mistake
to take anything from the museum.
It's not human,
dragging art across the oceans.
Dirk? Dirk!
That's it, the connection
is gone again. The sea...
The ocean.
I watch this and recall Chekhov:
On a huge sea,
one wave rose above the next,
and they knew no sense nor pity.
Elemental forces of the sea and of history
are those without sense or pity.
What use is this ocean to me?
Let it live its own life beside us.
Why do we need to know
this elemental force?
After all, we have our cities,
our skies, our warm and cozy apartments.
Life, beauty...
A people is surrounded by an ocean,
while a person has his ocean within.
I've been thinking
about this city a lot, lately...
The Louvre is here somewhere.
So where is the Louvre? I can't see it.
Alexandre, we are ready.
Alexandre! Alexandre!
We are ready.
So is the camera already rolling?
Then let's go.
Sequence four, take two.
Calamity can strike
even the happiest city.
In the summer of 1940,
enemy troops entered Paris.
This was on the 14th of June.
The city was empty. Yes, empty.
The government had headed south,
declaring beautiful Paris an open city.
The French are all cinematographers,
making films regardless of the situation.
Here we have the new owner,
come to survey his new acquisitions.
Is everything as it should be
and in good condition?
But where are the subjects?
New subjects: the neighboring people.
Empty Paris.
He who could, fled.
He who could, surrendered, hid.
Others perished
offering fierce resistance.
Well, all right...
The tower is where it belongs.
Everything is well and as it should be...
Ah, a straight line!
A straight one!
But where is the Louvre?
Ah! There's the Louvre!
How good that it's there.
It always fascinated me,
it's where it belongs.
Great architecture all along the line.
The Louvre, the Louvre.
Might it be
that this museum
is worth more than all of France?
Who needs France without the Louvre?
Or Russia without the Hermitage?
Who would we be without museums?
It sometimes seems museums
don't care what happens around them
as long as they're left in peace.
Museums can also conceal
the improper behavior of power
and of people...
On my first visit to the Louvre,
I was amazed by these faces.
These are the people... the people.
The people, as I would like to see them.
Comprehensible to me.
They are of their own time...
and I recognize them.
Why?
The French...
the human stock of Europe.
I wonder what would have become
of European culture
if portraiture had not emerged.
For some reason,
Europeans developed the wish,
the necessity,
of painting people, faces...
With a brisk whistle, he will have
the forbidden light extinguished.
Why is this study
so important to Europeans,
while other people, such as the Muslims,
don't have it at all?
Who would I have been,
had I never known or seen
the eyes of those who lived before me?
I'll go down! I won't go down!
I'll go down! I won't go down!
You go down!
- Shut up, you little brute, it's too loud!
In Europe, Europe is everywhere.
We sit beside, opposite one another,
and our lot is one and the same.
Why is art
unwilling to teach us prescience?
Don't you have a handkerchief?
This is an alert.
- Yes, it's an alert, so?
So the German army has entered Paris.
Yes, 1940. Summer...
Summer.
The army creeps forward,
creeps without any great haste.
Paris is now an open city.
Yet someone knew
it would turn out this way.
How many more are to come?
Yes, they're neighbors, we know them,
but we weren't expecting them,
didn't invite them.
An armistice is signed
between Germany and France.
But how will the victor behave
on taking command
of the center of world culture?
Germany is a complex
and many-faceted invader.
The French need to get used
to a powerful and diplomatic enemy.
The military immediately settles in Paris.
The troops are careful but confident.
Yes, they trained, but they didn't expect
such an easy victory!
In its own fashion, the German army
tries to reanimate life in Paris.
Here their tribunal is commencing work.
Not all young French citizens
accept the new laws.
Since you are in Paris,
why not play something?
The audience is grateful.
Many thousand French citizens
follow their government
by fleeing to the south.
These include huge amounts
of civil servants from the French capital.
The home of the French
national treasure, the Louvre,
was probably the first to be visited
by German forces.
Take four.
And were we to imagine
how this took place,
might it have been like this?
We're looking for Director
Jaujard's office, can you help us?
Count Wolff Metternich.
He's a representative
of the German command
and is here to inspect the Louvre.
Jacques Jaujard?
- Yes.
May I introduce Count Wolff Metternich?
Jacques Jaujard, a senior French official,
director of the Louvre
and all national museums in France.
If you'd care to follow me...
Please wait here for me, I will call you.
Very modest.
Very modest.
Please be seated...
Then I'll sit down here...
Hlne, Hlne...
bring us some coffee, please.
M. Jaujard,
you are the first high-ranking
French civil servant I meet at his post.
I must inform you
that I represent the head
of the military administration in Paris
and its significant department,
the Kunstschutz.
Our mission
is to preserve art collections,
museums and historic monuments
in France and Europe.
Here is my calling card.
Would you kindly inform me
as to the current state of the museum?
Well?
Yes.
You'll find all the relevant information
in this folder.
Thank you.
So...
It's all there.
It's all there.
Are the curators showing much solidarity?
They are.
Do you speak German?
No, I am very French.
The Count is 46 years old.
His interlocutor is 44.
Jaujard volunteered for the front
in the First World War,
where he caught TB and was discharged.
His father died on the front.
Count Metternich was in active service
in the German Army
throughout the duration
of the First World War.
WWI was almost domestic,
was fought family by family...
and was thus
particularly cruel and insane.
It left long-lasting,
evil recollections in its wake.
Cities, churches, monuments,
cultures were crushed,
people were murdered, tortured.
And how often had battles been fought
between Germans and French...?
This is the private archive
of the Metternich family.
This is him as a child.
Here he is already a soldier.
Ferdinand, Count Wolff Metternich,
his father, awaits him at home.
His mother is Flaminia,
Princess of Salm-Salm.
She will die on the eve of WWII.
The family is large,
nine brothers and sisters.
A German nobleman
and a Republican Frenchman.
Jacques Jaujard was swift
to find his calling as a civil servant,
but whether
this would be his vocation
and whether he would be a happy man
was known only to fate
and his future wives.
Incidentally, it was as a young secretary
to prominent left-wing politician
and mathematician, Paul Painlev,
that Jaujard received
his first Legion of Honor.
Thank you, no need. Good-bye.
- Good-bye.
Hlne, where are you?
Hlne... Is everyone hiding?
The Louvre, the Louvre...
Silence.
Nobody here...
Many colleagues are sent to the chteaux
where an collections are hidden.
All that is left in the halls are
some classical and medieval sculpture.
What is the Louvre?
What is it,
now that France has lost the war?
When occupying soldiers
stroll through Paris,
when people seem
to have gotten used to this,
when shops, cinemas and cafs are open,
when French industry is successfully
working for the Wehrmacht,
and when thousands of French students
have developed a new interest
in the German language?
Perhaps these young French
think a life shared with Germany
is here to stay.
At the start of the War,
the French apparently
didn't want to believe
in a total and ferocious war
with their European sister.
The young French soldiers resisted
as best they could,
but their politicians struggled among
themselves and forgot about their land.
The state yields to Nazi force.
The state restrains its army.
French losses for this period:
tens of thousands of soldiers.
Millions of refugees.
The map of the French Republic.
And this is already a different country.
It's called the French State.
It's no longer a republic.
Parliament is dissolved.
There is no president.
This line is where
German troops decided to stop.
From then on,
the country consisted of two parts:
the occupied, and the not yet taken.
This is what the border
between them looks like.
The government of new France
is formed in the small town of Vichy.
It's a resort... waters, clinics...
Marshal Ptain, French Ambassador
to Spain, a hero of WWI,
agrees to lead the government in exile.
But he is 84 years old.
He was born in the 19th century.
At his birth,
Emperor Napoleon III was in power.
His family revered Bonaparte!
That's how it turned out.
A French Marshal, hero of WWI,
came out against resistance
to an aggressor.
That's how it turned out,
that a French Marshal disbanded his army,
urged his citizens to stop resisting,
and announced the beginning
of a new revolution
and the foundation of a new country.
The Vichy French, who'd been rejecting
distant Russian Bolshevism,
overlooked neighboring Nazism.
Ptain, reserved, cold,
and undistinguished of birth,
believes in the possibility and necessity
of partnership with Hitler.
And sees in it France's salvation.
And here we have his government,
his cabinet.
They are to support the occupying forces,
collect all taxes,
and organize the French workforce
to replenish Germany's resources.
This same government will head museums
and cultural institutions
throughout all France.
So the same old slow-seller
reappeared on the market.
Can you guess which I mean?
This product may be very expensive
or be free.
But the price of this product
is always set by the buyer.
Were you able to guess?
No?
Think it over.
REGULARS' TABLE
I see you weren't able to guess.
It's peace. Simply peace.
Calm.
Peace can always be bought.
The grand war fell silent in France.
The French soldiers...
are returning home.
Paris...
Paris...
Hundreds of museums, libraries,
theaters, galleries, universities,
sciences, crafts, workers, engineers,
press, democracy and customs.
Would you give it all up
for the sake of principles,
political convictions, slogans,
and start a fully-fledged war
throughout France
and in Paris?
Paris, the open city,
means Paris without bombardments
and without battles.
There's the computer.
His signal has come through again.
What a storm!
Get rid of the cargo or you will perish!
This museum freight, why did you take it?
Dirk! Dirk!
Your bridge is in chaos.
Files have fallen on the floor...
Is it that bad?
It seems vicious.
The connection is gone again...
Today is a bad day.
Somehow it's all so close,
the storm, sinking ships,
Europe, Paris, war.
Time is a tight knot.
What has time got to do with it?
The First World War, the Second...
There.
The beauty of an ancient world.
These are but fragments
of that civilization.
Assyria.
All of this once decorated
the king's palace in the Assyrian capital.
That state is long gone,
but these messages from 700 BC
summon numerous strange feelings.
Lamassu, winged bulls.
Threatening and naive,
like in the fairy tales.
The fear of power.
Fear in the face of power.
Brilliance of craftsmanship,
the perfect creation of fear.
In the 19th century,
all this was brought by ship
from afar to the Louvre.
Some items were bought...
some were war trophies.
But on that long voyage,
in severe storms,
overloaded ships sank to the bottom.
Uncounted are the creations
hidden from us in the suffocating depths,
and uncounted the seamen who perished.
What a price...
And for what?
Yes...
It was the museum fever of the Old World.
It was the best passion
the Old World was still capable of,
given its love of waging war
for any reason.
Mr. Tolstoy,
Mr. Tolstoy...
wake up.
Sadly I don't have the key
to his awakening.
I was asleep.
Sorry!
Wars, wars...
elemental forces... kings...
The Louvre has outgrown its clothes.
In the 20th century, the French president
decides on the construction
of the Grand Louvre.
A dig will begin
in the center of the square,
to reveal the Louvre's beginning,
its foundations.
Then a huge underground space
will be constructed
to connect all parts of the old Louvre
and create an entire underground city
with warehouses, labs,
streets and traffic lights.
Once again the Louvre
will be like nowhere else on Earth.
Freedom, equality...
brotherhood!
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
- Without me.
Freedom, equality, brotherhood...
Lord, Lord,
how long ago all of it started!
What did?
The human search for form,
the battle against imitation.
The screams and moans.
The discovery of the soul...
and the incomprehension as to what to do
with the mortal and now superfluous body.
The hand is truly smarter than the head.
It forms and creates
faster than a thought is born.
This sculpture is 9000 years old.
And it was found in Jordan, in 1972.
I don't know
what my favorite architect, Pierre Lescot,
would say about this sculpture.
The end of the 16th century.
The French Renaissance.
One of Lescot's designs,
the facade of the Louvre.
Architects such as he were capable
of building the new capital of the world.
Pierre Lescot designed this wonder.
The Henry II staircase at the Louvre.
Listen here, contemporary architects.
Lescot was a mathematician, a painter,
a priest and an architect.
The year was 1553.
Lord!
How long ago it all started!
You again...
Are you stalking me?
And eavesdropping?
An intrusive ghost...
And who the ghost is...
You were saying? Well?
No, stay there.
Come closer. Come on. Closer.
Come!
Of course it was I
who brought all this here.
This?
All these sculptures
are from my campaigns...
when I waged war.
Everything here was brought back by me.
Everything here. Everything.
Why else would I have gone to war?
Well? Why?
For this, for art. That's it.
I went to war for art.
Do you like this corpse?
It's Seneca.
Is it that emperors know their art?
Me? Yes!
I had excellent advisers...
when it was a question
of taking or leaving behind.
The whole universe defines a work.
And war alone decides
where it will end up.
In Paris, military officials
had a quiet life in general.
They stayed in good hotels.
The French administration
remained in Paris.
The German army simply observed.
Many of the German officers in Paris
knew the French language.
Many of them
had been schooled in the liberal arts.
Historians, philosophers...
but now in uniform.
They'd often been
to Paris before the war
and didn't conceal
their love of French culture.
Ah, there you are.
Is there any hot water?
Count, was it interesting with M. Jaujard?
Yes, indeed it was.
But I don't envy him his position.
M. Jaujard told me in detail
how the Louvre's collection
was evacuated to various chteaux.
They have lots of space,
no risk of bombings, huge cellars.
I'm visiting
Chteau de Sourches tomorrow.
Would you care to accompany me?
Do you think Paris may be bombed?
London and Rotterdam were bombed.
Look at the photos
on my desk back there.
Did you know in Germany
that the Louvre was empty?
What do you think?
They packed 6000 crates,
how could it be a secret?
In 1939 I removed all art
from Cologne Cathedral.
And not only from there.
So in the museums
there was a presentiment of war?
We hadn't the slightest doubt
that war was imminent.
We simply continued with our work.
All museums must be prepared for war.
I'm off.
There's still the matter
of getting it on the truck.
What's this noise?
What's this noise?
What is this?
Your Majesty, this is
the Winged Victory of Samothrace,
from the second century BC.
Oh, yes?
It's not your trophy. It's from later.
It's beautiful.
What beautiful plumage.
I'm a civil servant
of the French Administration,
whose government
allies itself to the enemy.
Do I know why I'm working
for this government?
Yes, I do.
Do I know
that this could last a long time?
I'm a civil servant
of the French Administration,
whose government
allies itself to the enemy.
Do I know why
I'm working for this government?
Yes, I do.
Do I know
that' this could last a long time?
Of course there was nothing here
once upon a time.
The people who lived here
did so in fear of Viking raids.
In the 12th century,
they built a fortress with a castle.
People began to settle around it.
So it began.
How strange.
How astonishing.
To this very piece of land,
a little over one square kilometer,
these French kings and architects are to
cling, as if following a premonition,
and will work this land,
build on it, rebuild it,
and pass it on, one to the next,
without relenting.
Chteaux, palaces,
palaces, chteaux... a museum.
They will never lose ground, regardless
of revolution or elemental force,
until it can finally be proclaimed:
Our Louvre has been built.
That hardest,
most tormenting time, the Revolution.
Executions, killings...
Great names flimmered,
blood was spilled...
And nobody knew
where the army began or ended.
Grand words were spoken.
Human rights,
citizens, constitution.
Famine, guillotine, republic, democracy.
The young Napoleon decided
war would save the land.
War.
Follow me.
It was he who transformed the Louvre
into an official museum,
the place
where artistic war trophies are kept.
Suddenly the state understands
that it cannot exist without museums.
There!
That's me.
You don't recognize me?
It's you...
You on a donkey!
I'd show other paintings.
The Seine.
The view of the Louvre from Pont Neuf.
The year is 1666.
It is already a great city.
Hubert Robert in the year 1789.
The Grande Gallery.
He was an artist
and director of the Louvre
shortly before Napoleon came to power,
designing and painting
the skylights in the ceiling.
The Grande Gallery
was astonishing in its spaciousness.
It was from here
that the museum of the Louvre began.
It wasn't a road,
but the path of European art.
Step by step, year by year...
everyone in a row, eye to eye.
Robert had a sense of humor, too.
Here is the gallery in ruins.
It's just a fantasy, of course.
The Louvre was already
the center of the city back then.
A place for important meetings
for the citizens of Paris.
And painting
became a vital part of everyday life.
There was nothing comparable anywhere.
Let it not be forgotten,
the Louvre's works
are by order of French powers.
Visconti, the architect,
presenting to Napoleon III
the plans for the New Louvre.
The Louvre is a museum,
but also a palace for oneself.
This painting is from the year 1880.
The square hall of the Louvre.
The Louvre's generosity knows no bounds.
Hundreds of paintings on the wall.
All that exists...
is there, on those walls.
The Apollo Gallery, 1880.
Silence and the clouds over Paris.
The Great Gallery
with its wonderful skylights.
A temple for paintings...
Who else could have built
such a temple for paintings?
1885.
The Egyptian Hall of the Louvre.
A trophy of war.
Silent, like a prisoner is supposed to be.
1894.
Two copy girls at work
in front of a Botticelli fresco.
Many paintings in the Louvre
depict women engaged in painting.
You aren't tired of listening to me yet?
There's very little left to bear.
That's me.
You again.
Look, my coronation.
Perfect beauty.
That's me.
I thought I saw some Prussians.
How could they be at the Louvre?
I don't dare explain, Emperor.
A vile king, a vile nation, a vile army.
A state that deceives everyone
and doesn't deserve to exist.
Your Majesty,
weren't these your words on Prussia?
Mediums fall asleep on time.
Let him sleep.
He hasn't served France in a long time...
although...
mediums never sleep tight.
I've had it.
You said you were there...
No but it's... Yes, I know.
Gentlemen,
like many other states,
Germany signed the Hague Convention,
on the laws of,
and conduct during, warfare.
Under it, all cultural monuments
enjoy the special protection
of the warring states.
We acted in compliance therewith
during the 1914-1918 war,
and now, too,
we consider it our holy duty,
in the name of European solidarity...
France, France...
How lucky you were
that your sister, Germany,
recognized your right to exist.
What will become of those
whose human nature
she does not acknowledge?
Bolshevik Russia, for example.
Oh, that Bolshevism, the Bolsheviks...
how they resisted...
fought for every Russian village
and city.
The German military
followed Hitler's orders:
Art monuments on the Eastern Front
have no significance
and shall be consigned to destruction.
The huge European city
of Soviet Russia, Leningrad,
was encircled by a blockade.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens,
museums, libraries, theaters,
universities, sciences, music, life...
Bombardments, artillery fire...
famine... cold.
LENINGRAD IS NOW CUT OFF
FROM THE REST OF RUSSIA
People dying by the thousands every day.
Corpses in the streets,
on stairways, in apartments, in yards,
in basements... corpses, corpses.
No strength to bury them.
No one to do it.
In this city...
a million people...
will lie in mass graves.
Here, a diary entry:
Walking by the river, I see a woman
with her child. Both are frozen.
The next day the child is gone,
probably eaten.
The woman's legs are gone, too.
A catastrophe more dire than hell.
The Hermitage Museum,
the Russian Renaissance,
is frozen into the history
of the Blockade.
In its cellars the wounded are treated,
in its halls, coffins are built.
Bombardments, artillery fire.
Here too, the greatest treasures
had been sent away.
Soldiers are brought from the front...
REMBRAND to walk among the empty frames:
This is an El Greco.
This one is a Leonardo.
Dear Lord, a Leonardo was here.
How one wishes to forget all this.
To forget him.
And this.
And these prisoners.
And these prisoners.
And this stare.
Maybe none of this ever happened.
Maybe all of this was made up
by us Europeans.
Maybe we dreamt it.
We do have
such extraordinary writers, philosophers.
Our artists are such visionaries
who dearly love humans.
And in the Louvre, everything is about
how people struggled, loved,
killed, repented, lied and cried.
Emperor, you again!
It is me!
Dear Marianne, chase him away.
That's me!
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
It's me!
All of it!
This!
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
It's me.
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
Without me...
there would be nothing.
Freedom, equality, brotherhood!
On occupying the country,
German troops did their utmost
to follow the orders of their leadership
and spare the most important
cultural monuments,
so that we can say today
that the majority of the big cathedrals
were saved!
The same can be said
of the famous castles,
palaces and art collections.
There is basically nothing
but sculpture left at the Louvre.
The valuables
have been removed and hidden.
The opening ceremony is just politics.
Paris is occupied, everything is fine.
The Louvre is open,
everyone is mollified.
Now the German troops
will give guided tours
of that which remains.
One must give the Count
and his Kunstschutz their due
for having preserved monuments.
He was just speaking about it.
The organization is very active.
They begin to photograph and archive
all European cultural monuments,
and to repair damage due to battles.
Naturally it was part
of the aggressor's political agenda.
The Kunstschutz worked systematically
in France, Belgium,
Greece, Serbia, Italy...
They strangely even planned
to work in Russia...
but battles remained ongoing there.
Count Metternich
obtained from command a ruling
governing conservation and protection
of artistic treasures in occupied lands.
Here's the result,
a memo to all German soldiers:
German soldiers!
Throughout France,
you encounter many manors
and other historic buildings,
which have served and will serve
as temporary housing.
Many of those buildings
are exceptional monuments
of an' and history.
Observe these rules:
Be careful while heating!
Burned-down castles
are a cause to blame German soldiers.
Be careful during the installation
of electric wires.
Handle works of art with care,
do not burn broken furniture
or damaged wallpaper.
Bronze chandeliers are not
to be used as coat hangers.
Demonstrate that
you are the same Germans
who defeated Bolshevism in the East.
Where are the owners?
Chteau Sourches, 300 km from Paris.
The chteau has been requisitioned,
but they have stayed close by.
I was invited here by Metternich.
This is one of the places
where art from the Louvre was hidden.
Metternich visits
to check storage conditions.
He is met by a representative
of the Louvre.
So beautiful.
A beautiful place,
and beautiful to live in, too.
Much like the Palace of Gracht,
where the Count spent his childhood.
He is used to seeing beautiful things.
The current castle dates back to Louis II
du Bouchet, Marquis of Sourches,
fourth Provost of the Royal Palace,
whose jurisdiction
extended to the Louvre
and to the entire royal household.
The park grounds were finished
long before the castle,
which was completed around 1780.
Its main ornament is the dry moat,
probably a throwback
to the old feudal fortress.
We are completely deprived of fuel
and need it for the fire pumps.
How powerful Gricault's work is!
The Raft of the Medusa.
I'll sign the papers
when we're back upstairs.
You know, it was the only place in France
where large works could be stored.
We even had to tear down part of a wall
to bring them in.
This room is unusable
due to humidity.
I invite you to view another cellar.
All right.
Another great asset we have
is the excellent central heating
that we run continuously,
even in summer,
to balance inside temperature
and avoid the dew point phenomenon.
Count Wolff Metternich
is an art historian
and the main custodian
of the arts in the Rhineland.
The Count writes in 1933:
Our Fhrer wants us to return
to our ancient roots,
to respecting the works of the past.
You are right.
Metternich was sincere in quoting Hitler:
The interests of conservators coincided
with the ideology of a totalitarian state.
A dangerous coincidence.
My Lord Count...
My Lord Count,
will you return the collections?
No.
- So much the better.
How strange it is...
that the fearsome machine
of a Nazi state got held up in Paris
by the tacit resistance
of its own military officer.
Ribbentrop demands the return
to Paris of the collection.
I am grateful to you for the fuel.
It was indispensable.
Indispensable.
But Metternich,
citing bureaucratic procedure,
continually postpones
executing these orders.
The description of what there is...
In the distant chteaux,
the treasures are safe
from even the hands
of high-ranking art lovers,
such as Hitler, Gring, Goebbels...
The goals of slates and those of art
seldom coincide.
An occupation:
one party is strong, one is weak.
What is to be done?
To grow, one into the other,
conserving one's culture,
so finally a common state
can be formed?
The French-German Union,
or even, German-French Union.
Finally, the warring will come to an end.
There's only one enemy,
Bolshevik Russia.
VISI BOLSHEVISM AGAINST EUROPE
Shot 15, sequence five, take one.
During the hard years
of the occupation,
Jaujard was
under the supervision of Ptain
and the control of German troops.
But he kept the Louvre's staff,
held exhibitions,
and even made new acquisitions.
Cinema was also made in France
during those years.
Jaujard and Count Metternich.
They couldn't be entirely open
with one another.
Of course they didn't know
how long they'd live like this.
You have dark ideas.
- You're not too jolly yourself.
During wartime,
excessively hasty change is inevitable.
Marshal Ptain speaks to France.
Fellow Frenchmen...
Two of my colleagues are in trouble.
I'm sure they're innocent.
I need your assistance...
As for the first case, I'll intervene,
but as for the second...
if she's in the hands of the Gestapo,
there's nothing I can do.
Since 1929,
I've been in charge
of Rhenish cultural heritage,
and here I am now,
curator for all Europe.
They must think
I'm familiar with all things.
But a life is at stake.
- I see who has ears to hear.
Thank you.
- Shall we go?
All my life
I've been around civil servants.
I'm one myself.
- And France can be proud of you.
M. Jaujard, you seem
permanently stressed.
Does my uniform disturb you?
Gentlemen! Gentlemen, excuse me.
May I speak with you?
Do you know him?
- A little.
Come in.
This way. Come in.
Hello, Mr. Metternich.
There are two chairs...
as if they were put there for us.
Gentlemen, would you like
a glimpse into your future?
Since you haven't said no,
I'll continue.
M. Jaujard,
in August 1944
the independence of France
will be reestablished.
Paris will be liberated.
De Gaulle knows you've worked
with the Ptain regime,
but he also knows
you supported the Resistance.
You won't be punished, M. Jaujard,
but will be appointed...
Director of the Department
of Arts and Literature.
In 1959, you will receive
another state post:
Head of the Ministry for Culture.
You'll be elected to the Academy.
Your third wife will be Jeanne Boitel,
an actress who took
active part in the Resistance.
You will have a son, Franois Xavier.
He will not receive your love.
You'll get another Legion of Honor.
All your days will be devoted
to the administrative service of France,
but one day you'll learn
from the papers
that for some reason you've been fired.
This will occur
in the incredibly distant year of 1967.
Without any purpose left,
you will leave this life a few days later.
After your death, M. Jaujard,
your record disappears
and only a few photos remain.
I am unable to find anyone alive
who can say anything about you.
And the Louvre?
Count... Count?
In 1942,
you will be recalled to Germany,
relieved of your duties in Paris.
This is of course
due to your excessive endeavors
to preserve French culture.
Hitler's state leaders
are displeased with you:
You long prevented masterpieces
being exported to Germany.
You will return to your native Rhineland,
which will have suffered bombings.
There will be much to rebuild.
The war will soon end,
and you'll be held responsible
for your membership in the Nazi party.
Are you surprised
Germany lost the War?
When did it ever win?
M. Jaujard will help you
with your denazification
and put in a good word for you
where necessary.
You will even get
the French Legion of Honor.
You will travel a lot in Europe,
you will work in Rome.
On the 25th of May, 1978,
you will be solemnly buried
at the age of 85.
Your loving and large family
will be there.
What ravings.