Pension Mimosas
Encyclopedia
Pension Mimosas is a 1935 French film directed by Jacques Feyder
. Based on an original scenario by Feyder and Charles Spaak
, it is a psychological drama set largely in a small hotel on the Côte d'Azur, and it provided Françoise Rosay
with one of the most substantial acting roles of her career.
1934. Pierre, now a young man, is living in Paris among gamblers and gangsters, and he still plays upon the feelings of his former adoptive parents to extract money from them. Louise makes him return to the Pension Mimosas and find a job, but she now develops an ambiguous affection for him. To please him, she even invites his mistress Nelly to join him in the hotel. The two women soon become rivals, while Pierre accumulates debts. Louise reveals Nelly's whereabouts to her old protector who comes to take her back. In despair Pierre kills himself, while Louise has gone to the casino under an assumed identity to win the money to pay his debts.
(1934) was a fast-moving melodrama with some exotic settings, and the later La Kermesse héroïque
would be a satirical period farce, Pension Mimosas presented a more measured contemporary drama.
as well as its gardens and swimming pool. Apart from a few other exterior shots on the Côte d'Azur and some in Paris, most of the film was shot in the studio (at the Tobis studios in Épinay). Lazare Meerson
created a detailed but unobtrusive set which presented the various areas of the hotel as an integrated whole, facilitating the revelations and interactions of the drama. This enclosed setting (though spacious and brightly lit) gives much of the film the feeling of a stage play, a factor which has sometimes been held against it, but it also concentrates attention upon the interplay of character and the actors' performances.
Although gambling is continually featured in the background and the activities of the characters, frustrated love is the more central theme of the film.
Françoise Rosay dominates the action in a role which recalls aspects of Racine's Phèdre
in its exploration of a mother's feelings which are also those of a lover.
Arletty
appears in a small role (one scene only) as a parachutist living on the fringes of bad company in Paris.
Marcel Carné
worked as assistant director on the film.
The film's sobriety of style and lack of sensational elements impressed other critics. A contemporary film historian said, "One rediscovers [in Feyder]... a simplicity which benefits the often profound revelation of the psychological drama through the performance of the actors...". This view has been echoed by a more recent critic: "Without the more ostentatious virtues of Le Grand Jeu
and La Kermesse héroïque
, Pension Mimosas is a film in intaglio in which Feyder finds a style of classical refinement, free from any pathos... This masterpiece of psychological analysis leaves nothing to chance, either in the precision of the screenplay or in the detail of the set-design or in the controlled performances of the actors."
When the film was shown in the United States in 1936, it was significantly cut, and the result did not find favour with the reviewer of the New York Times: "...it fails to justify the accolades given it by the foreign press. ...As it emerges now it either has not been edited as severely as it merits, or has been cut too harshly. Its pace is somnolent; certain episodes are extraneous and immaterial, and it suggests it might have had a tragic meaning other than the one it now conveys." In later decades, Pension Mimosas has not enjoyed wide circulation in the English-speaking world.
What was agreed even by disappointed critics was the remarkable quality of the performance by Françoise Rosay. "Although everything may not be perfect in this film, one can say that the cinema has rarely shown us a human and living character as complex as that portrayed by Françoise Rosay, with such marvellous intelligence and art." Among the many performances that Rosay gave in films directed by her husband, none was more searching or powerful than this one, and Feyder himself, in a dedication that he wrote on a copy of the screenplay, paid tribute to the "overwhelming emotion" that she brought to the role.
The film's realism was influential upon the developing styles of poetic realism
in French cinema (especially upon Marcel Carné who acknowledged "the invisible presence" of Feyder which was always at this side when he went on to direct his own films).
Jacques Feyder
Jacques Feyder was a Belgian actor, screenwriter and film director who worked principally in France, but also in the USA, Britain and Germany. He was a leading director of silent films during the 1920s, and in the 1930s he became associated with the style of poetic realism in French cinema...
. Based on an original scenario by Feyder and Charles Spaak
Charles Spaak
Charles Spaak was a Belgian screenwriter who was noted particularly for his work in the French cinema during the 1930s...
, it is a psychological drama set largely in a small hotel on the Côte d'Azur, and it provided Françoise Rosay
Françoise Rosay
Françoise Rosay was a French opera singer, diseuse, and actress who enjoyed a film career of over sixty years and who became a legendary figure in French cinema...
with one of the most substantial acting roles of her career.
Plot
1924. Louise Noblet keeps a small hotel, the Pension Mimosas, on the Côte d'Azur in the south of France, with her husband Gaston who is also a supervisor in local casino. Many of their clientele are luckless gamblers hoping for success in the local casino. Childless themselves, Louise and Gaston have been bringing up the young Pierrot while his father serves a prison sentence, but they are dismayed when the father is released early and comes to take back his son.1934. Pierre, now a young man, is living in Paris among gamblers and gangsters, and he still plays upon the feelings of his former adoptive parents to extract money from them. Louise makes him return to the Pension Mimosas and find a job, but she now develops an ambiguous affection for him. To please him, she even invites his mistress Nelly to join him in the hotel. The two women soon become rivals, while Pierre accumulates debts. Louise reveals Nelly's whereabouts to her old protector who comes to take her back. In despair Pierre kills himself, while Louise has gone to the casino under an assumed identity to win the money to pay his debts.
Cast
- Françoise RosayFrançoise RosayFrançoise Rosay was a French opera singer, diseuse, and actress who enjoyed a film career of over sixty years and who became a legendary figure in French cinema...
as Louise Noblet - Paul Bernard as Pierre
- André Alerme as Gaston Noblet
- Lise DelamareLise Delamare-Selected filmography:* La Marseillaise * La fausse maîtresse * The Count of Monte Cristo * A Certain Mister * The King of the Bla Bla Bla * Lola Montès * Captain Blood...
as Nelly - ArlettyArlettyArletty was a French actress, singer, and fashion model.-Life and career:Arletty was born Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat in Courbevoie , to a working-class family. Her early career was dominated by the music hall, and she later appeared in plays and cabaret. Arletty was a stage performer for ten years...
as Parasol - Jean-Max as Romani
Background
Pension Mimosas was the second of three films which Jacques Feyder made in swift succession on his return to France after his unsatisfactory experience in Hollywood. All three films were developed in conjunction with the scenarist Charles Spaak and included major roles for Feyder's wife Françoise Rosay, but each told a different kind of story and employed a distinctly different style of filming. Whereas Le Grand JeuLe Grand Jeu (1934 film)
Le Grand Jeu is a 1934 French film directed by Jacques Feyder. It is a romantic drama set against the background of the French Foreign Legion, and the film was an example of poetic realism in the French cinema. The title Le Grand Jeu refers to the practice of reading the cards. Blanche asks whether...
(1934) was a fast-moving melodrama with some exotic settings, and the later La Kermesse héroïque
Carnival in Flanders (film)
Carnival in Flanders is a 1935 French historical romantic comedy film directed by Jacques Feyder. Its original French title is La Kermesse héroïque and it is widely known under that name...
would be a satirical period farce, Pension Mimosas presented a more measured contemporary drama.
Production
Filming took place from August to October 1934. The setting of the Pension Mimosas is not specifically identified in the film, but a few exterior shots show the casino at MentonMenton
Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ....
as well as its gardens and swimming pool. Apart from a few other exterior shots on the Côte d'Azur and some in Paris, most of the film was shot in the studio (at the Tobis studios in Épinay). Lazare Meerson
Lazare Meerson
Lazare Meerson was a Russian-born French and English film art director.-Filmography:* L'Argent * Sous les Toits de Paris * Quatorze Juillet * Le Grand Jeu* Pension Mimosas...
created a detailed but unobtrusive set which presented the various areas of the hotel as an integrated whole, facilitating the revelations and interactions of the drama. This enclosed setting (though spacious and brightly lit) gives much of the film the feeling of a stage play, a factor which has sometimes been held against it, but it also concentrates attention upon the interplay of character and the actors' performances.
Although gambling is continually featured in the background and the activities of the characters, frustrated love is the more central theme of the film.
Françoise Rosay dominates the action in a role which recalls aspects of Racine's Phèdre
Phèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
in its exploration of a mother's feelings which are also those of a lover.
Arletty
Arletty
Arletty was a French actress, singer, and fashion model.-Life and career:Arletty was born Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat in Courbevoie , to a working-class family. Her early career was dominated by the music hall, and she later appeared in plays and cabaret. Arletty was a stage performer for ten years...
appears in a small role (one scene only) as a parachutist living on the fringes of bad company in Paris.
Marcel Carné
Marcel Carné
-Biography:Born in Paris, France, the son of a cabinet maker whose wife died when their son was five, Carné began his career as a film critic, becoming editor of the weekly publication, Hebdo-Films, and working for Cinémagazine and Cinémonde between 1929 and 1933. In the same period he worked in...
worked as assistant director on the film.
Reception
The film was released in Paris in January 1935 with an exclusive run at the Cinéma Colisée. A contemporary reviewer judged that Pension Mimosas showed the real Jacques Feyder, working by and for himself, creating a powerful and moving story that was also full of delicacy and humour; the characters, which were real and directly presented, owed much to the exceptional quality of the dialogue (by Charles Spaak) and the choice of actors who were able to perform to each other rather than to the camera.The film's sobriety of style and lack of sensational elements impressed other critics. A contemporary film historian said, "One rediscovers [in Feyder]... a simplicity which benefits the often profound revelation of the psychological drama through the performance of the actors...". This view has been echoed by a more recent critic: "Without the more ostentatious virtues of Le Grand Jeu
Le Grand Jeu (1934 film)
Le Grand Jeu is a 1934 French film directed by Jacques Feyder. It is a romantic drama set against the background of the French Foreign Legion, and the film was an example of poetic realism in the French cinema. The title Le Grand Jeu refers to the practice of reading the cards. Blanche asks whether...
and La Kermesse héroïque
Carnival in Flanders (film)
Carnival in Flanders is a 1935 French historical romantic comedy film directed by Jacques Feyder. Its original French title is La Kermesse héroïque and it is widely known under that name...
, Pension Mimosas is a film in intaglio in which Feyder finds a style of classical refinement, free from any pathos... This masterpiece of psychological analysis leaves nothing to chance, either in the precision of the screenplay or in the detail of the set-design or in the controlled performances of the actors."
When the film was shown in the United States in 1936, it was significantly cut, and the result did not find favour with the reviewer of the New York Times: "...it fails to justify the accolades given it by the foreign press. ...As it emerges now it either has not been edited as severely as it merits, or has been cut too harshly. Its pace is somnolent; certain episodes are extraneous and immaterial, and it suggests it might have had a tragic meaning other than the one it now conveys." In later decades, Pension Mimosas has not enjoyed wide circulation in the English-speaking world.
What was agreed even by disappointed critics was the remarkable quality of the performance by Françoise Rosay. "Although everything may not be perfect in this film, one can say that the cinema has rarely shown us a human and living character as complex as that portrayed by Françoise Rosay, with such marvellous intelligence and art." Among the many performances that Rosay gave in films directed by her husband, none was more searching or powerful than this one, and Feyder himself, in a dedication that he wrote on a copy of the screenplay, paid tribute to the "overwhelming emotion" that she brought to the role.
The film's realism was influential upon the developing styles of poetic realism
Poetic realism
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s and through the war years. More a tendency than a movement, Poetic Realism is not strongly unified like Soviet Montage or French Impressionism. Its leading filmmakers were Jean Renoir, Pierre Chenal, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, and Marcel...
in French cinema (especially upon Marcel Carné who acknowledged "the invisible presence" of Feyder which was always at this side when he went on to direct his own films).