Chopin: Desire for Love and Thoughts from the Keen Mind of George Sand

George Sand was a woman who could not  and would not live within the confining boundaries society placed on women of her day. To be published as a novelist, she therefore wrote under a pseudonym. Her real name was Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, baronne Dudevant. 

This week I was watching a movie about Frederic Chopin and his relationship to George Sand titled Chopin: Desire for Love. It brought to mind the 1991 film Impromptu with Hugh Grant and Judy Davis in which Davis (as G. Sand) states that the beauty of Chopin's music is "proof that there is a God." It was a great line, and a statement that is hard to argue with. His piano compositions were exquisite.

Chopin: Desire for Love is a more recent production (2002) and less enjoyable. Like Impromptu it centers on the relationship between Chopin and Aurore Dupin, but in this latter version their conflicts become the story. His self-centeredness becomes painful to watch, no matter how much his compositions inspire or convey of the turbulence at the center of their passions. 

Dupin has two children who still need a mother. Chopin, who has never married or had children, sees her children as an impediment to the inspiration her love provides him. It's a form of machisimo that is common in certain parts of the world. When we worked at an orphanage in Mexico, some of the children there were kicked out of their homes by a second husband who would have nothing to do with the offspring of the first. 

Director Jerzy Antczak was nominated for an Academy Award for this 2002 production, which he filmed in Polish, then dubbed in English. The score is fabulous, simply because there is so much of Chopin there. Yo-Yo Ma is even one of the players in the soundtrack. 

The effect that Antczak attempted to achieve was to illuminate the conditions that created these sometimes emotionally charged pieces, much like that which was more successfully accomplished in Immortal Beloved about the music of Beethoven. Beethoven's stormy temperament is fairly well-known, so that film worked for me. This film diverged significantly from the image I have of a fragile, perfectionist composer who struggled with sickness and depression. 

One imdb.com reviewer stated that both Chopin films strayed far from the actual story of Chopin's career and affair with Aurore Dupin so that both were unacceptable. Of the two I preferred the former, even though I become impressed with the skill with which modern film makers are able to re-create the sets in these period pieces.

The actors were good and well cast for their roles--Piotr Adamczak as Chopin and Damuta Stenka as George Sand. Several of the reviewers gave the film high marks, so it may be something to consider, even if it does have a soap opera aspect. I will give it 5 stars out of 10, only because there is so much wonderful Chopin music in there. 

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George Sand by Auguste Carpentier

George Sand as a writer did not get as developed in this film. According to some, she was even more popular than Balzac and Victor Hugo in her day, and highly influential politically. I thought it would be worthwhile to share some quotes from this rule-breaking woman who had to make a go of it in a very restrictive time for women. She believed it was OK for a woman to wear pants (they were more comfortable than frilly dresses) and write novels. What I seem to recall was that she lived much of her life on less sleep because she did all her writing at night. Making sacrifices is what writers must do if they are to succeed. 

I'm always impressed by how much writers of that era accomplished without typewriters and word processors, or photocopy machines. George Sand lived in 1830, the typewriter was invented in 1872.

What follows are several quotes from her letters and writings.

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"I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one."

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"Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life."

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"Life is a long ache which rarely sleeps and can never be cured."

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"Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth."

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"Masterpieces are only lucky attempts."

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About Chopin

"His creation was spontaneous, miraculous. He found it without searching for it, without foreseeing it. It came to his piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk, and he would hasten to hear it again by, tossing it off on his instrument. But then would begin the most heartbreaking labor I have ever witnessed." 

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