Six Pagnol films stand out in restored copies including the brilliant Merlusse
After the success of the first burst of outing last year, the work of the Grand Pagnol returns this summer with six films, one of which will mark you for life.
No one apart from Alexander Payne had seen Merlusse de Marcel Pagnol (1935). Indeed, at the time of the release of his Winter breakHistory of this Bougon Professor of a New England boarding school in the seventies forced to settle the surveillance of a handful of offspring that the parents did not recover for the Christmas holidays, the criticisms underlined this original scenario a little melo on the edges but moving. Winter break Then paraded to the Golden Globes (3 statuettes) and the Oscars (empty -handed). And still no one to go to Pagnol Which belongs to Pagnol and therefore to this poor … Merlusse. Guest of the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna last year, however Alexander Payne had programmed it affirming this parentage.
It must be said that this “little” (1h12) film from 1935, the first screenplay written for Marcel Pagnol’s cinema, did not appear at the top of history manuals. Proof that the work of the Provencal filmmaker (1895 -1974) remains to (re) discover. This is partly covered by its hits: Marseille trilogy,, The Schpountz,, Baker’s wife…, and often reduced to his picturesque. The 40,000 spectators who had rushed last summer in the cinemas to see a large part of this restored work were able to measure the immense part that Pagnol offered in the world cinema: neo-realistic above all the world, follower of a direct sound that is to make the “real” life shiver, lover of the great outdoors far from the enclosure of the studios, but also the cantor of a feminism Magnificent Angèle) …
A prominent eye
Now part 2 of this retrospective arrives with six titles including the magnificent and tragic diptych: Manon (1952), Ugolin (1952). At the top of the list is therefore this Merlusseexceptional enough for Cannes Film Festival programmers put him forward in the section Cannes Classics Last May. Cannes where Sylvain Chomet’s animated film in tribute to the life of the filmmaker, Marcel and Mr. Pagnol was also presented out of competition.
Merlussethis is the story of Blanchard, a unloved and scouring professor of a Marseille college. While his possible promotion is played out which would allow him to go more comfortably to retirement, the man with the Hirsute mine is designated to keep the residents that families did not come to seek for Christmas Eve. The kids pass together anecdotes about this supposedly violent teacher who ” stinks so much the cod that it was nicknamed Merlusse “…
The latter is little helped by his frightening face on which seems to hang a prominent eye, ” War lost »Say some to enhance the prestige of the guy anyway. The voluntary coarseness of makeup makes it a cartoon character.
The first sequences make the cruel world of children respond and that more civilized but much more terrible of adults. They draw the caricature of a monster still invisible on the screen that the film will work to humanize.
And since we have introduced Payne’s film in the preamble, we should demonstrate the way in which the genius of a pagnol reaches a few recurring images to sign the void so the loneliness of existence (beauty of the plans of empty -board corridors of the boarding school), where the American will put leads to install a melo in too signifying.
Where pain is housed
Marcel Pagnol as his contemporary Jean Renoir, examined human nature avoiding all binarity. The famous ” Everyone has their reasons It is not so much served to clear any culprits as to seek in the depths of the soul where the pain of everyone is housed.
Merlusse embodied by one of the stars of the Pagnol “system”, Henri Poupon (the creaky father ofAngèlethe Napoleon of Schpountz…), is one of those tender characters that appearances have badly fagured. A way perhaps keeping them at a distance from a standard that is nothing poetic to offer. Merlusse again became Blanchard did not act according to any calculation, expects nothing from the others except that he is given the right not to be taken for a ham. A free man at the bottom. Run see this wonderful film. And if you go with children it’s even better!
Marcel Pagnol, Part 2 – Retrospective in six films: Merlusse,, Cicanalon,, Naive,, Manon,, Ugolin… released on July 30
