Marcel Pagnol
Encyclopedia
Marcel Pagnol was a French
novelist, playwright
, and filmmaker. In 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie Française
.
, Bouches-du-Rhône
département, in southern France
near Marseille
, the eldest son of school teacher Joseph Pagnol and seamstress Augustine Lansot. Marcel Pagnol grew up in Marseille with his younger brothers Paul, René, and younger sister Germaine.
– for the summer holidays, the first of many spent in the hilly countryside between Aubagne and Marseille. About the same time, Augustine's health, which had never been robust, began to noticeably decline and on 16 June 1910 she succumbed to a chest infection ("mal de poitrine") and died, aged 36. Joseph remarried in 1912. In 1913, at the age of 18, Marcel passed his baccalaureate
in philosophy and started studying literature at the University in Aix-en-Provence. When World War I
broke out, he was called up into the infantry at Nice but in January 1915 he was discharged because of his poor constitution ("faiblesse de constitution'). On 2 March 1916, he married Simone Colin in Marseille and in November graduated in English. He became an English teacher, teaching in various local colleges and at a lycée in Marseille.
, where he taught English until 1927, when he decided instead to devote his life to playwriting. During this time, he belonged to a group of young writers, in collaboration with one of whom, Paul Nivoix, he wrote the play, Merchants of Glory, which was produced in 1924. This was followed, in 1928, by Topaze, a satire based on ambition. Exiled in Paris, he returned nostalgically to his Provençal roots, taking this as his setting for his play, Marius
, which later became Pagnol's first film in 1931.
Separated from Simone Collin since 1926 (though not divorced until 1941), he formed a relationship with the young English dancer Kitty Murphy: their son, Jacques Pagnol, was born on 24 September 1930. (Jacques later became his father's assistant and subsequently a cameraman for France 3 Marseille
.)
and released on 10 October 1931. It became one of the first successful French-language talking films. In 1932 Pagnol founded his own film production studios in the countryside near Marseille. Over the next decade Pagnol produced his own films, taking many different roles in the production – financier, director, script writer, studio head, and foreign-language script translator – and employing the greatest French actors of the period. On 4 April 1946, Pagnol was elected to the Académie Française
, taking his seat in March 1947, the first filmmaker to receive this honour.
– based on his childhood experiences. In 1957, the first two novels in the series, La Gloire de Mon Père and Le Château de Ma Mère
were published to instant acclaim. The third Le Temps des secrets was published in 1959; though the fourth Le Temps des Amours was to remain unfinished and was not published until 1977, after his death. In the meantime, Pagnol turned to a second series, L'Eau des Collines – Jean de Florette
and Manon des Sources – which focused on the machinations of Provençal peasant life at the turn of the twentieth century and were published in 1962.
Pagnol died in Paris
on April 18, 1974. He is buried in Marseille at the cemetery La Treille, along with his mother and father, brothers, and wife. His boyhood friend, David Magnan (Lili des Bellons in the autographies), died at the Second Battle of the Marne
in July 1918, and is buried nearby.
Pagnol adapted his own film Manon des Sources, with his wife, Jacqueline, in the title role, into two novels, Jean de Florette
and Manon des Sources, collectively titled L'Eau des Collines. In the 1980s, both books were adapted back into film by film-maker Claude Berri
, to international acclaim. Pagnol's affectionate reminiscences of childhood, La Gloire de mon père and Le château de ma mère
were also filmed successfully by Yves Robert
in 1990.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
novelist, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, and filmmaker. In 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie Française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
.
Biography
Pagnol was born on 28 February 1895 in AubagneAubagne
Aubagne is a commune located east of Marseille in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.The French Foreign Legion has its headquarters there...
, Bouches-du-Rhône
Bouches-du-Rhône
Bouches-du-Rhône is a department in the south of France named after the mouth of the Rhône River. It is the most populous department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Its INSEE and postal code is 13.-History of the department:...
département, in southern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
near Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, the eldest son of school teacher Joseph Pagnol and seamstress Augustine Lansot. Marcel Pagnol grew up in Marseille with his younger brothers Paul, René, and younger sister Germaine.
School years
To his father's amazement, Pagnol learned to read at a young age. His mother, however, did not allow him to touch a book until he was six "for fear of cerebral explosion". In July 1904, the family rented the Bastide Neuve, – a house in the sleepy Provençal village of La TreilleLa Treille
La Treille is a quartier on the outskirts of Marseilles' 11th arrondissement, in the Department of Bouches-du-Rhône, France. At the quartier's centre is the ancient village of La Treille, with some 900 inhabitants...
– for the summer holidays, the first of many spent in the hilly countryside between Aubagne and Marseille. About the same time, Augustine's health, which had never been robust, began to noticeably decline and on 16 June 1910 she succumbed to a chest infection ("mal de poitrine") and died, aged 36. Joseph remarried in 1912. In 1913, at the age of 18, Marcel passed his baccalaureate
Baccalauréat
The baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée . It was introduced by Napoleon I in 1808. It is the main diploma required to pursue university studies...
in philosophy and started studying literature at the University in Aix-en-Provence. When World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
broke out, he was called up into the infantry at Nice but in January 1915 he was discharged because of his poor constitution ("faiblesse de constitution'). On 2 March 1916, he married Simone Colin in Marseille and in November graduated in English. He became an English teacher, teaching in various local colleges and at a lycée in Marseille.
Paris: teacher and playwright
In 1922, he moved to ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he taught English until 1927, when he decided instead to devote his life to playwriting. During this time, he belonged to a group of young writers, in collaboration with one of whom, Paul Nivoix, he wrote the play, Merchants of Glory, which was produced in 1924. This was followed, in 1928, by Topaze, a satire based on ambition. Exiled in Paris, he returned nostalgically to his Provençal roots, taking this as his setting for his play, Marius
Marius (film)
Marius is a French theatre script written by Marcel Pagnol that was later converted into a film of the same name. The film is a part of a trilogy which includes the films César and Fanny .-Synopsis:The film takes place mostly in the waterfront bar of Cesar, Marius' father...
, which later became Pagnol's first film in 1931.
Separated from Simone Collin since 1926 (though not divorced until 1941), he formed a relationship with the young English dancer Kitty Murphy: their son, Jacques Pagnol, was born on 24 September 1930. (Jacques later became his father's assistant and subsequently a cameraman for France 3 Marseille
France 3
France 3 is the second largest French public television channel and part of the France Télévisions group, which also includes France 2, France 4, France 5, and France Ô....
.)
Filmmaking
In 1926, on a visit to London, Pagnol attended a screening of one of the first talking films and he was so impressed that he decided to devote his efforts to cinema. He contacted Paramount Picture studios and suggested adapting his play Marius for cinema. This was directed by Alexander KordaAlexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
and released on 10 October 1931. It became one of the first successful French-language talking films. In 1932 Pagnol founded his own film production studios in the countryside near Marseille. Over the next decade Pagnol produced his own films, taking many different roles in the production – financier, director, script writer, studio head, and foreign-language script translator – and employing the greatest French actors of the period. On 4 April 1946, Pagnol was elected to the Académie Française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
, taking his seat in March 1947, the first filmmaker to receive this honour.
The themes of Pagnol's films
In his films, Pagnol transfers his playwriting talents onto the big screen. His editing style is somberly reserved, placing emphasis on the content of an image. As a pictoral naturalist, Pagnol relies on film as art to convey a deeper meaning rather than solely a tool to tell a story. Pagnol also took great care in the type of actors he employed, hiring local actors to appear in his films to highlight their unique accents and culture. . Similar to his plays, Pagnol emphasizes dialogue and musicality throughout his films. The theme of many of Pagnol's films revolves around the acute observation of social rituals. Using interchangeable symbols and reoccurring character roles such as proud fathers and rebellious children, Pagnol illuminates the provincial life of the lower class. Notably, Pagnol also frequently compares Women and Land, showing both can be barren or fertile. Above all, Pagnol uses all this to illustrate the importance of human bonds and their renewal.The birth of a novelist
In 1945, Pagnol re-married, to actress Jacqueline Bouvier. They had two children together, Frédéric (born 1946) and Estelle (born 1949). Estelle died two years old. He was so devastated that he fled the south and returned to live in Paris. He went back to writing plays, but after his next piece was badly received he decided to change his job once more and began writing a series of autobiographical novels – Souvenirs d'enfanceSouvenirs d'enfance
Souvenirs d'enfance is a series of autobiographical novels by French filmmaker and académicien, Marcel Pagnol . Souvenirs d'enfance comprises four volumes covering the years from his birth in 1895 to about 1910, which were spent in Marseille, with family summer holidays in La Treille, about ten...
– based on his childhood experiences. In 1957, the first two novels in the series, La Gloire de Mon Père and Le Château de Ma Mère
Le Château de ma mère
My Mother's Castle is a 1957 autobiographical novel by Marcel Pagnol, the second in the four-volume series Souvenirs d'enfance and the sequel to My Father's Glory...
were published to instant acclaim. The third Le Temps des secrets was published in 1959; though the fourth Le Temps des Amours was to remain unfinished and was not published until 1977, after his death. In the meantime, Pagnol turned to a second series, L'Eau des Collines – Jean de Florette
Jean de Florette
Jean de Florette is a 1986 French historical drama film directed by Claude Berri, based on a novel by Marcel Pagnol. It is part of a duology, and is followed by Manon des Sources. The film takes place in rural Provence, where two local farmers scheme to trick a newcomer out of his newly inherited...
and Manon des Sources – which focused on the machinations of Provençal peasant life at the turn of the twentieth century and were published in 1962.
Pagnol died in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on April 18, 1974. He is buried in Marseille at the cemetery La Treille, along with his mother and father, brothers, and wife. His boyhood friend, David Magnan (Lili des Bellons in the autographies), died at the Second Battle of the Marne
Second Battle of the Marne
The Second Battle of the Marne , or Battle of Reims was the last major German Spring Offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. The German attack failed when an Allied counterattack led by France overwhelmed the Germans, inflicting severe casualties...
in July 1918, and is buried nearby.
Pagnol adapted his own film Manon des Sources, with his wife, Jacqueline, in the title role, into two novels, Jean de Florette
Jean de Florette
Jean de Florette is a 1986 French historical drama film directed by Claude Berri, based on a novel by Marcel Pagnol. It is part of a duology, and is followed by Manon des Sources. The film takes place in rural Provence, where two local farmers scheme to trick a newcomer out of his newly inherited...
and Manon des Sources, collectively titled L'Eau des Collines. In the 1980s, both books were adapted back into film by film-maker Claude Berri
Claude Berri
Claude Berri , born Claude Berel Langmann, was one of the great all-rounders of French cinema: an actor, writer, producer, director and distributor. "Out of my failure as an actor was born my desire to direct. Then my relative failure as a director forced me to become a producer. In order to get my...
, to international acclaim. Pagnol's affectionate reminiscences of childhood, La Gloire de mon père and Le château de ma mère
Le Château de ma mère
My Mother's Castle is a 1957 autobiographical novel by Marcel Pagnol, the second in the four-volume series Souvenirs d'enfance and the sequel to My Father's Glory...
were also filmed successfully by Yves Robert
Yves Robert
Yves Robert was a French actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.Born in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, in his teens Robert went to Paris to pursue a career in acting, starting with unpaid parts on stage in the city's various theatre workshops. To support himself, he worked at a variety of jobs...
in 1990.
Awards
- 1939: Best foreign film for HARVEST - New York Film Critics Circle AwardsNew York Film Critics Circle AwardsNew York Film Critics' Circle Awards are given annually to honor excellence in cinema worldwide by an organization of film reviewers from New York City-based publications. It is considered one of the most important precursors to the Academy Awards....
- 1940: Best foreign film for The Baker's Wife - New York Film Critics Circle Awards
- 1950: Best foreign film for Jofroi - New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Filmography (as writer, director and/or producer)
- MariusMarius (film)Marius is a French theatre script written by Marcel Pagnol that was later converted into a film of the same name. The film is a part of a trilogy which includes the films César and Fanny .-Synopsis:The film takes place mostly in the waterfront bar of Cesar, Marius' father...
(1931) - FannyFanny (1932 film)Fanny is a 1932 French comedy film, directed by Marc Allégret based on the play by Marcel Pagnol. It's the second part in the Marseillaise film trilogy that started with Marius and concluded with César ...
(1932) - Jofroi (1933)
- AngèleAngele (film)Angèle is a 1934 French drama film directed, produced and written by Marcel Pagnol. It stars Orane Demazis as a naive young woman who is seduced and abandoned...
(1934) - Merlusse (1935)
- Cigalon (1935)
- Topaze (1936), first version
- CésarCésar (film)"César" is a 1936 French film, written and directed by Marcel Pagnol. It's the final part of his Marseille trilogy, which began with the film Marius and was followed by Fanny. In difference to these two movies "César"was not based on a play by Pagnol, but written directly as a film script...
(1936) - Regain (1937)
- Le SchpountzLe schpountzLe schpountz is a 1999 French film directed by Gérard Oury . Irénée does not want to work in his uncle's grocery shop and spends his time dreaming of becoming an actor. Irénée's chance comes when a crew of movie makers came to his little village...
(1938) - La Femme du boulangerThe Baker's Wife (film)- Cast :* Raimu as Aimable Castanier* Ginette Leclerc as Aurélie Castanier* Fernand Charpin as Le marquis Castan de Venelles* Robert Vattier as Le Curé* Charles Blavette as Antonin* Robert Bassac as L'instituteur* Marcel Maupi as Barnabé...
(1938) - La Fille du puisatierLa Fille du PuisatierThe Well-Digger's Daughter is a 1940 French romantic comedy drama film directed by Marcel Pagnol.-Selected cast:*Raimu as Pascal Amoretti*Fernandel as Félipe Rambert*Josette Day as Patricia Amoretti*Line Noro as Marie Mazel...
(1940) - La Prière aux étoiles (1941, unfinished)
- NaïsNaïsNaïs is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau first performed on 22 April 1749 at the Opéra in Paris. It takes the form of a pastorale héroïque in three acts and a prologue. The librettist was Louis de Cahusac, in the fourth collaboration between him and Rameau...
(1945) - La Belle meunière (1948, in colour)
- TopazeTopaze (1951 film)Topaze is a 1951 French film. It stars Yvette Etiévant....
(1951, starring FernandelFernandelFernand Joseph Désiré Contandin , better known as Fernandel, was a French actor and singer. Born in Marseille, France, he was a comedy star who first gained popularity in French vaudeville, operettas, and music-hall revues...
), second version - Manon des Sources (1952) (based on his novel "L'eau des collines", later remade in 1986 in two parts as Jean de FloretteJean de FloretteJean de Florette is a 1986 French historical drama film directed by Claude Berri, based on a novel by Marcel Pagnol. It is part of a duology, and is followed by Manon des Sources. The film takes place in rural Provence, where two local farmers scheme to trick a newcomer out of his newly inherited...
and Manon des Sources) - Les Lettres de mon moulin (1954).
Footnotes, notes and references
- Castans, Raymond (1987). Marcel Pagnol. Éditions Jean-Claude Lattès. ISBN 9782709 606226