Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was one of the greatest French painters of the late nineteenth century. Though he is often associated with the Impressionists, with whom he exhibited from the 1870s onwards, Degas' interest in human situations rather than landscape and his practice of studio-based, not open-air, painting set him apart. He emerges in this film as an extraordinarily versatile and restlessly experimental artist, whose sculptures, prints and photographs, though less well known than his paintings, also vividly embody an obsessive exploration of the relationship between images fixed in art and the fugitive instants they record. His preoccupation with unguarded moments of tension, isolation, exhaustion and vulnerability, especially as reflected in women's experience, is movingly documented in this film, which shows works from throughout his career.