Camille Claudel (1989)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Blistering performances.

It's 1885. Camille Claudel (Isabelle Adjani) is a French sculptor and sister of writer Paul Claudel. Famed sculptor Auguste Rodin (Gérard Depardieu) is taken with her work and hires her as an assistant. She becomes both his mistress and protégé. There is prejudice against woman sculptors. The complicated relationship and professional difficulties cause Camille to descend into madness.Isabelle Adjani is terrific. Her performance is compelling and so is Depardieu. I really like the actors doing their sculpting. I like the obsessive nature of the art work. The plot lacks a certain intensity. It would be helpful to foreshadow her madness earlier in the movie or else the romance caused her mental issues. That's very old fashion melodrama. The running time is also a bit long at almost three hours.

Former cinematographer Bruno Nuytten's directorial debut from 1988 which gained two Academy Award nominations in 1989, is based on the novel "Camille Claudel" by Reine-Marie Paris, grand-daughter of Camille Claudel's brother Paul Claudel, which was adapted by Bruno Nuytten and Marylin Goldin. Isabelle Adjani won the Silver Berlin Bear at the 39th Berlin Film Festival in 1989 for her role in this film which tells the story about French sculptor Camille Claudel (1864-1943) and her relationship with impressionist sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) who became her teacher and lover during the early 19th century in Paris, France before the First World War.With warm, colorful visuals, atmospheric music and detailed milieu depictions, this precisely filmed character-driven drama finely captures the era it portrays and the development of an historic figure who became a true artist. Isabelle Adjani's interpretation of an ardent and self-disciplined young woman raised in a middle-class family who struggled with her art and with her love is remarkable, and so is Gérard Depardieu's performance as the love of her life Auguste Rodin. Their acting is solely reason enough to see this interesting and well told biographical period piece which centres on an unusually crafted love-story between two great artists.

While and after seeing Camille Claudel, one wonders if one should celebrate the artist that could have been, or rather mourn the moronic hypocrites populating her world. A world whose Marquesean death was foretold.Almost everyone played by the supporting cast displayed (or tried to hide) how acutely and incurably they were suffering with diseases, physical and mental. With the sole and occasional exception of her father, everyone else treated the artist in a less than human manner. Despot mother, Hypocrite brother, Deceitful love! What real treasures had this Genius woman of her times to cope with! To top it all she happened to be living in such a dysfunctional society which years later, a great filmmaker and artist of the same nation, Jean Renoir, was to label as "corrupt to the core". Amen to Renoir. This film like most any other film depicting the real dilemma of a society, makes one pay an additional salute to his Le Regle Du Ju.

"Camille Claudel" is an earnest biopic which tells of her rise to prominence in Paris as a student (and mistress) of renown sculptor Auguste Rodin, their love/hate relationship, her struggle for independent recognition as an artist, and her eventual descent into madness. A subtitled French film, "Camille Claudel" deserves high marks on all counts with sterling performances by all and all the trappings of late 19th century life in Paris. If the film has a flaw, it is the almost 2.5 hours is spends on the historically obscure, esoteric, and decidedly unpleasant subject which is likely to wear on, if not wear out, the casual filmgoer interested in entertainment. Not for the many, "Camille Claudel" will play best for patrons or students of French art, art history, sculpting, etc.; for those with an interest in Rodin and/or Claudel; and, of course, fans of the principals. (B)