#Susan Flon

[filmstruck]

Remembering Rose: Or, How a Shy Art Historian Became the Inspiration for Two Films by Susan Doll

If you liked THE MONUMENTS MEN (’14), George Clooney’s wartime drama about a group of art historians who tracked down hordes of art stolen by the Nazis, you should check out THE TRAIN (’64), John Frankenheimer’s historical action film based on the same subject. Currently streaming on FilmStruck, THE TRAIN stars Burt Lancaster as an inspector of French railways who tries to prevent a trainload of looted art from reaching Germany during WWII.

Both films feature their share of heroic male protagonists, but my favorite character in each is a woman based on a real-life art curator. In THE MONUMENTS MEN, curator Claire Simone, played by Cate Blanchett, hands over her ledger with a list of stolen artworks to the Allies near the end of the war. Simone had secretly kept track of the art stolen by Nazi officers for Hitler's proposed Führermuseum in Linz, or for the private collections of senior commanders like Goering. In THE TRAIN, curator Mademoiselle Villard, played by Suzanne Flon, knows a certain train is filled with priceless works of art and tries to persuade Lancaster’s character to intercept it.

Claire Simon and Mademoiselle Villard are based on Rose Valland, an art historian who was working as a volunteer assistant curator at the Jeu de Paume when the Nazis invaded Paris. I first heard of Rose when I read a screenplay by Debbe Goldstein titled VALLAND, which told the story of the theft of thousands of artworks by the Nazis from her point of view. To find out how the real Valland measured up to her fictional counterparts, I interviewed Ms. Goldstein, a writer with a degree in art history, about this forgotten heroine.

The daughter of a blacksmith, Valland rose above her humble beginnings in Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, Isère to study drawing and art history at a teachers’ school. She later received a special diploma from the École du Louvre before becoming a volunteer assistant curator at the Jeu de Paume. According to Goldstein,

She was the overseer of the Jeu de Paume during the German occupation of France. She had been appointed by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (EER) as Special Staff for Pictorial Art. She was essentially a gatekeeper for the warehousing of the art that was confiscated and looted from the French Jews. . . . She was also the appointed tour guide, if you will, to personally escort Goering around the museum when he came to inspect the paintings for his own private collection. In all he made twenty visits. Here is where it gets good. She knew German, but she didn’t let anyone know that. When the Nazis were there, they had no idea she understood what they were talking about. In other words, they did not know she was gathering information.

So, what exactly did Valland do that resulted in the recovery of thousands of pieces of art, and why was it dangerous? Goldstein explains,

She kept a diary of every work that had been catalogued at the Jeu de Paume. In some cases, she stole negatives and copied them at home at night so she would have a visual record of the artworks. She kept copious notes of who the owners were. Her mission seemed to be to return the works to the original owners. What I loved was that she worked with the French Resistance, particularly Jacques Jaujard, the Director of Musées Nationaux. She kept him apprised of the status of what had been looted. She kept track of where the art was going to be shipped and informed the Resistance about the railroad cars that the paintings were in. They did swipe the cars with white paint so they could be identified and not blown to bits. The information she gave to her contacts prevented some of the cars from leaving Paris. She would have been executed certainly had she been discovered, and the book she kept would have also been destroyed. 

Photos of Rose Valland reveal a slightly built, plain-looking woman in glasses. Dressed modestly, she wore her hair pinned up most of her life. In THE MONUMENTS MEN, efforts are made to deglamorize Cate Blanchett so she can play Claire as a modest academic, complete with glasses and matronly hairstyle. But, when she works with Matt Damon’s character to track down the artworks, she lets her hair down to become more attractive during their romantic non-romance. In THE TRAIN, Suzanne Flon also dresses modestly and wears her hair up, but she exhibits a no-nonsense manner that adds grit to her character. Commercial filmmaking is dependent on archetypes and onscreen charisma as part of the storytelling process, and these changes make Rose more exciting to watch. Still, I would like to see Debbe Goldstein’s screenplay visualized so that a more authentic depiction of Rose Valland might make it to the screen.

After WWII, Valland was at the forefront of recovering the stolen art. She joined the Commission for the Recovery of Works of Art, and she was appointed Conservator by the French Musées Nationaux. She also became the chair of the Commission for the Protection of Works of Art. According to Goldstein,

She received a commission from France to go to Germany to look for the art that had been transported there. Over 20,000 pieces had been shipped to Neuschwanstein Castle in the Bavarian Alps. With a team supplied by the Allies and France, she journeyed to Germany and to the castle to look for the artworks that had been hidden away. . . . Over 20,000 works were recovered. [There are] probably still some more there somewhere. 

Rose Valland wrote a book about her experiences, Le Front de L’Art, in 1961.

I am attracted to Valland’s story, as well as any pop culture versions of it, because I am a sucker for tales of unsung heroic women who use their wits and intuition to best their enemies. Ms. Goldstein had a more thoughtful response when I asked her about her interest in Valland:

I first heard of her in a documentary entitled THE RAPE OF EUROPA. . . . I had never heard of her before, and I thought that being a graduate student in [art history] in the 1970s, I should have at least known of her. I began thinking about cultural history. I taught History of Art for many years at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. And, my first lecture included the idea that sometimes history is an accident of preservation. I was curious about what would our study of art history be, for example, if the caves at Lascaux had not been discovered. . . . What would we teach if those luscious Cézannes and gorgeous Manets had been destroyed in a box car on its way to Linz, Austria—the proposed site of Hitler’s art museum. If they had been blown up, how would we [articulate the influences on] Abstract Expressionism, or Picasso’s later work. 

Ms. Goldstein’s final words make a worthy tribute to Rose Valland and the others who risked their lives for their culture:

Nothing in Valland’s narrative would present her as someone who would take such risks—except for her love of art and French culture. This quiet, unassuming art historian. I remember reading that during the occupation 800 people who worked at the Louvre went underneath the museum to live for a time to protect the work that was there. I loved the idea of what people would do for art.