Kameliadamen

I forbindelse med Munchmuseets utstilling «Måneoppgang: Marlene Dumas & Edvard Munch» viser vi en filmserie kuratert av Marlene Dumas med filmene som har inspirert hennes kunst.

Marlene Dumas om Kameliadamen:

This American film is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Alexander Dumas (the younger) of 1848. He wrote it when he was 23 years old, based on his love affair with the courtesan Marie Duplessis. The tragic-romantic love story is also a description of the life in 19th century Paris.

«Life in 1847 Paris is as spirited as champagne and as unforgiving as the grey morning after.»

As a child I always thought I was related to Alexander Dumas, as he was the only other Dumas that I had heard of, me living in South Africa. And I thought I looked a bit like him!

Many a play, movie and ballet, and Verdi’s opera La Traviata, 1853, was inspired by this, one of the greatest love stories of all time. Many a beautiful and charismatic actress played the role of the young and expensive courtesan that died at the age of 23.

I used the film still of the dying Greta Garbo carried by her lover Robert Taylor, as inspiration for my painting The Image as Burden. It is a type of secular pieta relating to our use of images in the 20th century.

Just like Munch’s Omega, this lady Marguerite Gautier loved flowers, and was never seen without her favourite flower, but in her case she especially wore the camellia, a flower as lovely and as pale and cold as her character.