Max Ernst: Mein Vagabundieren - Meine Unruhe (1991)

In voice-over, Max Ernst observes that neither his life nor his work has ever been harmonious. We see him playing boules as the film recounts his life. Max Ernst was a soldier for four years during the First World War. During that time, he not only made small drawings but also met Paul Éluard, who was fighting as a soldier on the opposing side. A deep friendship developed when the two met again after the war. Max Ernst was part of the Dada movement, which championed rebellion and revolt. Éluard bought his first two large-scale paintings, Celebes and Oedipus Rex. Max moved to Paris and lived for four years with Éluard and his wife, Gala. Among other things, he painted surrealist pictures on the interior walls of their house in Eaubonne. Years later, the daughter of the artist couple visits the apartment. Shots show Max Ernst’s paintings reappearing after the wallpaper is stripped away. Max Ernst describes how, from 1925 onward, he learned to overcome his fear of the blank sheet of paper. He incorporated organic forms into his paintings, which he created using the frottage technique. Alongside the forest, the bird became the main subject of his work. He recounts an episode from his childhood: his beloved parrot died on the day his sister was born. Since then, the connection between humans and birds has been fixed in his mind and appears in his paintings. His 1927 marriage to Marie-Berthe Aurenche is mentioned, followed by excerpts from the film L’Âge d’Or, in which Max Ernst took a role at Luis Buñuel’s request. The year 1933 marked a decisive turning point in Max Ernst’s life. His art was deemed degenerate in the Third Reich. He was also deeply shaken by the Spanish Civil War, which he addressed in his work The Angel of the Hearth. Because he sided with his longtime friend Éluard in the dispute between Éluard and André Breton, he was expelled from the Surrealist circle and moved with his new girlfriend, Leonora Carrington, to Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche. There he bought a farmhouse and decorated it with cement reliefs. He was imprisoned several times in France as a German, and eventually fled to the United States with Peggy Guggenheim’s help. He was fascinated by Native American art and acquired numerous sculptures and exotic works of sculpture. His marriage to Peggy Guggenheim lasted only a short time. Finally, Max Ernst moved with his new wife, Dorothea Tanning, to Sedona, Arizona. The two built a wooden house, which was gradually converted into a stone house. It proved to be a paradise for Max Ernst, who created works there including his sculpture Capricorn. Max Ernst did not return to Europe until after the end of the Second World War. In his view, his painting Europe After the Rain turned out not to be entirely wrong. In France, he had to realize, he was almost forgotten. He took over the studio of the painter William Copley; he returned to the public eye when he won the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1954. The following year, he moved with Dorothea Tanning to Huismes, where they bought a house. Cage collages now took on a new role in Max Ernst’s work. Like birds, cages fascinated Max Ernst as symbols, since people too are trapped in a cage for their whole lives, while longing throughout their lives to escape it. Max Ernst also reflects on his work as a sculptor. He says it is his vacation from painting. “A painter who finds himself is lost,” Max Ernst observes. The most important thing in his life, therefore, was never to have found himself.