Every man needs aesthetic ghosts in order to live. I have pursued them, sought them, hunted them down. I have experienced many forms of anxiety, many forms of hell. I have known fear and terrible solitude, the false friendship of tranquilizers and drugs, the prison of depression and mental homes. I emerged from all that one day, dazzled but sober. … I did not choose this fatal lineage, yet it is what allowed me to rise up in the heaven of artistic creation, frequent what Rimbaud called “the makers of fire,” find myself, and understand that the most important encounter in life is the encounter with one’s self.From the farewell speech of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, translated and presented as the opening monologue of the recent biopic L’amour fou.
Based on what I know of Saint Laurent from only having watched this film, a comparison to Arthur Rimbaud would be apt, perhaps drawn out over a far longer stretch of life: instead of abandoning his craft at 21 and fleeing to north Africa to become a merchant, YSL simply bought a house there, kept cranking out his culture-shifting art for the next few decades, survived the alcohol and drugs that came along with the celebrity, and slowly amassed a treasure trove of art and sculpture that sold recently for close to $500M. And yet he struggled with depression and unhappiness for all but “two moments a year”, his entire life. The NY Times review of L’amour Fou has down the sense of nihilism you get from the film’s protagonists’ lives:
To be surrounded by the most concentrated beauty the world has to offer and yet be chronically depressed is to confront the sad reality that material bounty may bring fleeting pleasure but nothing resembling peace of mind. To realize that you may have the world while still feeling as if you have nothing is to experience a closer encounter with the void than most of us are likely to have.
Other recent fashion documentaries worth watching, even if you’re like me and not really well-versed (or especially interested) in fashion:
Tag: french
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Yves Saint Laurent and Arthur Rimbaud
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Jules and Jim
Jim: “Either it’s raining, or I’m dreaming.”
Catherine: “Maybe it’s both.”
From François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim, another turbulent French New Wave film to cross off of my list. Sort of charming and depressing at the same time, outlining the difficulties of juggling art, friendship and love in a turbulent era (its reportedly a near-biographical account of a love triangle between Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roché, and Beatrice Wood). Very innovative cinematography and editing work for 1962. If nothing else, be sure to check out the famous tracking shot where the trio is riding bikes together downhill, evidently shot from the vantage of another bicycle, a scene made possible by the revolution in light-weight camera manufacturing.
P.S. for the Jean-Pierre Jeunet fans: this is the movie that Amelie’s watching in the theater, and I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of movies with voiceover narrators that took inspiration from this film…