Degas
Impressions of an Artist

More about... DEGAS: IMPRESSIONS OF AN ARTIST

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SYNOPSIS:

The early years of Edgar Degas were spent in Paris and Italy, fighting to pursue his art, against the pressures to join the family business. At the age of 12, Edgar’s mother, Celestine Musson de Gas, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, dies, leaving 5 young children, Edgar being the oldest. His father, Auguste de Gas, a wealthy banker and investor, is both proud of his son’s artistic gifts, yet pushes him to pursue a career in law, in order to follow the family businesses around the world. His father owned banks in Naples and Florence. His close relationship with his mother’s family led the girls from New Orleans to spend four years in Paris with Degas’ family, following the tradition of protecting women during wartime by sending them to France. His cousin Estelle, or "Telle," was young, beautiful, widowed from a marriage to a Civil War hero, a nephew of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and her sister Desiree, of "Didi." Edgar escorted them to the opera, races, the symphony, theater openings, and luxurious dinners. From them, he heard about New Orleans, which, prior to the Civil War, had been as cultured as New York City (the first opera house in the US, the largest city park, one of the oldest buildings—Ursuline Convent, the oldest cathedral—St. Louis Cathedral, etc.). Painters like Audubon had been discovered in Louisiana and great architects were actively building a mini-Paris.

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In 1872, at the behest of his father, who had invested heavily in the South, and his youngest brother René, Edgar travels to New Orleans. He finds his mother's family, the Musson's, once a family of great wealth, now deep in debt, during the desperate years of the reconstruction of the US Civil War. Michel Musson, father of Estelle, Desiree, and Matilde, had lost everything, including their magnificent Garden District home and their vast plantation upriver. His brother René, his wife Estelle, and their children struggle as their cotton business fails. They implore Edgar to help them.

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He returns to Paris with an intensified drive to use his art, to not only break through the mountain of debt his family accumulated, but focus in a new direction, which leads him to be one of the founders of the Impressionist movement.

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Bios:

Writer/Producer: Carol Bidault de l'Isle

Carol Bidault de l’Isle is an award-winning producer, specializing in international motion picture/television financing, distribution, media asset acquisitions, and management. She brings with her over 30 years of industry experience in the United States, Europe, and, Latin America. She recently co-produced in association with Serein Productions DALILAND, directed by Mary Harron (AMERICAN PSYCHO), starring Erza Miller and Ben Kingsley; THE SECURITY OF FEAR, starring Brad Dourif, William Baldwin, Jean-Marc Barr; in pre-production and development features on three continents (US, Europe, and, the Middle East).  Read more

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Executive Producers/Co-Writers:  Rory O’Neill Schmitt & Rosary O'Neill

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Rory O’Neill Schmitt, PhD

Rory O’Neill Schmitt, Ph.D. is a writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. A 7th generation New Orleanian, Rory co-wrote Edgar Degas: The Impressionable Years screenplay because she identified Degas’s trip to New Orleans as the catalyst to his launching his career. She looks forward to bringing these early years of artist's life to the silver screen. ​A budding producer, Rory is working on additional film/television projects in development: South Wind, with Ou Phrontis Co.’s Stephen Billick and Barret O’Brien (set in Italy) and Garden District with Rosary O’Neill (set in New Orleans). She produced the television series, The Long Long Night, starring Mark Duplass and Barret O’Brien (which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Festival).

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Rory studied art at Fordham University (B.A.), the School of Visual Arts (M.P.S.) in New York City, and Arizona State University (Ph.D.). While at SVA, she wrote, produced, and created a NY short film, Graffiti: Writing on the Wall.  A fine art photographer, Rory’s artworks have been exhibited in New York City (National Arts Club, Visual Arts Gallery, Fordham University, and Lincoln Center) and Los Angeles (Down the Rabbit Hole), and serve as illustrations in the books she has written: New Orleans Voodoo (Arcadia Publishers) and Navajo and Hopi Art in Arizona (History Press). Currently, Rory works at the University of Southern California.

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Rosary Hartel O’Neill, PhD

Rosary Hartel O’Neill, Ph.D., a 6th generation, Louisiana native, lives in New Orleans and New York City. She is the author of seven published books and twenty-five plays (Samuel French, Inc.)

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Her pantheon includes a 12-episode TV series, written under five fellowships with David Black of Law and Order at Harvard University and Norman Mailer’s homes in Provincetown, Maine and Brooklyn, New York. Her screenplays include: Naked in New Orleans and The Vampire’s Last Bite, now in development at Herbert Berghoff Studios, NYC. Her play, John Singer Sargent and Madame X have been optioned for a movie. O’Neill is also the creator of a New Orleans TV series in development, Garden District.

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​Her play, Degas in New Orleans, first produced at the Sorbonne, will be heralded in Paris in 2021 at the American Embassy and has been developed into a historical novel and a screenplay, Edgar Degas: The Impressionable Years.​

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