TV Review : Inside Proust’s Paris and Vulnerable Heart

“101 Boulevard Haussmann” (A&E; tonight at 6:30 and again at 10:30) was the address of the great French novelist Marcel Proust (1871-1922) who, wracked with asthma, spent much of his life writing through the night in the famous cork-lined bedroom of his ornate Paris townhouse. Directed by Udayan Prasad, this masterful, subtle, 70-minute film takes us inside this residence and into its owner’s vulnerable heart.

At first, the depiction here of Proust (Alan Bates) and his devoted housekeeper Celeste (Janet McTeer) recalls the characters’ portrayal in Percy Adlon’s memorable 1983 “Celeste.” Theirs was a traditional master-and-servant relationship but suffused with a transcending mutual appreciation.

Yet writer Alan Bennett, who wrote the superb 1985 “An Englishman Abroad,” in which Bates played notorious spy Guy Burgess, tells of an incident in Proust’s life that allows us to see the Proust-Celeste relationship from a different--and disturbing--angle.

The time is early in World War I; by now Proust went out rarely and only at night. At a concert by a string quartet, the novelist, who was gay, is taken with the young viola player (Paul Rhys). Soon, Proust has persuaded the young man that he and his quartet should play a concert for him in his bedroom very late at night, for which he pays them handsomely. Ever so indirectly, Proust begins his courting of the young man.

What develops next is totally unexpected, leaving us to ponder the motivations of Celeste but especially of Proust’s physician (Philip McGough). Are they interested merely in protecting Proust’s health? Or do they feel that Proust, as a homosexual, somehow has to be protected from himself? In any event, their actions are outrageous, and all the more so for not actually sparing Proust any pain.