Vatel
Sarah Black reviews Roland Joffe’s film
Francois Vatel was chef de cuisine to the Prince of Conde. He is reported to have been a man of extraordinary taste, skill and artistry, renowned not only for the perfection of his food but the extraordinary spectacles he created for the diner. In 1671, at the age of 58 and presumably at the height of his powers, he took his life by driving his sword through his heart.
Madame de Sevigny relates in her letters the story which has survived for posterity. During a visit by the King Vatel’s plans were foiled by bad weather, which caused the failure of a fireworks display. To redeem himself he planned a spectacular meal of fish for the following day. However, the first fisherman to arrive had made only a meagre catch, too little by far to feed the King and his court. Vatel, believing this inadequate supply was the whole, was heard to mutter repeatedly, "This is a blow from which my honour can never recover", and was shortly thereafter found dead in his room. The rest of the seafood arrived not long after. The meal was, according to Madame de Sevigny, a success - though not the same as if it had been made by the great man himself.
This account has long been supposed to be apocryphal, though it remains popular as a kind of Parable of The Honourable Chef. Various chef societies around the world are named in honour of Vatel and his commitment to his vocation. [[[the oath of Vatel — what is the story about this again?]]] Roland Joffe’s film, Vatel (1998, starring Gerard Depardieu and Uma Thurman), offers a different version of events and, perhaps, a different Francois Vatel. Joffe’s story is about honour, but also about power and freedom, the ‘natural values’ of honesty, integrity and ability pitted against the manipulation, foolishness and moral bankruptcy of the French court.
The King’s three-day visit to the Prince in Chantilly is the opportunity for the Prince to gain favour and thereby remedy his financial insolvency. Responsibility for success rests upon Vatel, who is to stage a series of events and meals so perfect, so spectacular, that the King will not fail to view the Prince with favour. This is no easy task: as the Prince’s aide warns him, "A dropped cushion … could spell disaster for the whole Province." Vatel is more than equal to his role as the master of festivities, but the visit is dogged by bad luck. Monkey bites, freak bad weather, technical hitches, supplies destroyed on the roads, all threaten to undermine his astounding achievements. Vatel is undeterred: he believes that he has the fate of France resting in his hands. Gerard Depardieu, in the title role, portrays with sensitivity both Vatel’s greatness and his humility.
There are many excellent support roles, but perhaps the greatest is that of the food and dining itself, which gives Vatel the film its sumptuous visuals and tactile lusciousness. Delicately carved melon lanterns, breathtaking sugar-work, and various trompe l’oeuil presentations stimulate the senses and delight the mind. Vatel and his assistant know how to make maximum impact with the materials to hand — asked by a kitchen worker, "What meat is this?" Vatel’s assistant has a ready answer: "Unicorn". The plenitude in the kitchen, reflected in the cartloads of fresh produce, the scores of limp feathered birds hanging from racks and the armies of workers setting about transforming it all into banquets for the court, belies the Prince’s poor financial situation. Months and years of debt cannot be made good, and when creditors come calling, only Vatel’s good name and diplomacy can convince them to even supply the raw materials for the feasts. He believes that his word is backed up by the Prince. When the suppliers demand, "If we do give you more, how to we know we’ll be paid?", he replies with conviction, "My master is a man of honour. On that I stake my life."
Food functions in some regards as an apt metaphor for the condition of France under absolutist rule. The poor subsist on the margins while the great riches of the province are squandered in huge feasts for the court. Oranges must submit instantly to the King’s desire, dropping their robe of peel and lying down on the plate ready for consumption. In this they are the same as any of the women of the court, and in fact to any of his subjects at all. The King’s constipation and the Prince’s gout are testimony to their life of gastronomic excess, while outside the gate the poor suffer largely in silence. Sweeping through the palace in his great black robes, huge and hearty, constantly busy devising, tasting and arranging the parade of food passing by, Vatel stands alone as the figure of one who has ultimate skill to make good food, ultimate power to enjoy it, and sufficient control over his passions to keep his enjoyment within healthy bounds. Food is diplomacy, and in this sense it is power — Vatel is partly right when he says to noblewoman Anne de Montausier (Uma Thurman), "I have it in my power to save the house of the Prince of Conde".
Sex is, naturally, intertwined with food. When the King’s eye falls upon de Montausier, he announcies his intention of sleeping with her by inviting himself to take a cup of chocolate in her room at midnight. In contrast, the delicacy and beauty of the connection between Vatel and the same woman is charmingly depicted in a vase of sugar flowers. Their mutual recognition of one another’s humanity, when both are assailed by the cruelty and uglinessess of court life, is what binds them. However, the premise that Vatel would be able to fall passionately in love, in the course of three days, with a woman who believes that the poor are happy to be the King’s creditors, never really rings true. Despite the best efforts of Depardieu and Thurman, the implausibilities of this relationship are never overcome. It is an unfulfilling, if inevitable, aspect of the plot.
Joffe’s Vatel departs from tradition in that it is not about the honour of the profession, but rather a Parable of the Great Gastronome. Vatel’s "power to create, to astonish" is the expression of some core aspects of the gastronomic philosophy which would later be articulated, first by Brillat-Savarin. Vatel’s genius is founded in deep caring for every aspect of food - its production, its consumption, the way of life and the community in which it is embedded. In this he represents something close to the principle of a happy life. This is contrasted searingly with the destructiveness, pettiness, irreality and cultural poverty of the court, which spell disaster for Vatel and many others. His refusal to leave "his people" is the sticking point upon which everything comes crashing down, but for Vatel this is freedom, something he values above all else.
|
