Among
the most beloved and important films of the French cinema,
Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny Trilogy is now available in
a long overdue, if technically imperfect, 4-disc edition
from Kino.
Best known to American
audiences for the movies based on his novels Jean de
Florette and Manon of the Spring, Marcel Pagnol
was born in 1895 and raised in Marseille (the trilogy’s
setting). By the mid-1920s he was living in Paris, writing
what would become a series of highly successful plays—culminating
in the late ’20s with Marius.
Though the Fanny Trilogy’s
story is a classic one, it is not the story itself that
makes it timeless, but the humanity of Pagnol’s characters—a
bunch of self-centered, overly emotional, yet charming families
and friends who, like most people, lie, cheat, brag, threaten,
scold, and love one another—and his dialogue, which
is authentically working class yet kissed by a poet’s
nuance.
Although he insisted
that his original script and cast be maintained for the
filmed version of Marius, Pagnol didn’t know
a thing about filmmaking; so he agreed to let Paramount’s
European division appoint Alexander Korda as director. Pagnol
couldn’t have asked for a more sympathetic collaborator.
Marius opens
with a few establishing shots of the port of Marseille before
settling on a small stretch of cobblestones between a bar
and a sailmaker’s shop—the two locations where
the trilogy’s key scenes will occur. We’re also
introduced to the most important elder characters—Honoré
Panisse (Fernand Charpin), owner of the ship supply store,
and César (played by the great Raimu). Friends since
childhood, both are snoozing on their respective premises.
Behind the bar is César’s son, Marius (Pierre
Fresnay, who six years later would play the aristocratic
officer in Renoir’s Grand Illusion), a restless
young man whose eyes widen every time a new ship docks at
the quay across the street, while in front of the bar working
her mother’s shellfish stand is Fanny (Orane Demazis),
who, naturellement, is madly in love with Marius.
Within minutes Pagnol
sets up a tension between the dramatic and the comic that—despite
the different directors of each film—is beautifully
maintained over the course of three long, leisurely paced
movies: Fanny moons over Marius, Marius dreams of the sea
and faraway places, and, once he awakens from his nap, César
explodes in an only-half-serious tirade at the loafing youngsters
(righteous moral inconsistency is another of the trilogy’s
running themes). Meanwhile, “old” Panisse (all
of fifty), a widower of three months, is so distraught he
has decided the only cure is to marry again. The apple of
his eye, naturellement, is Fanny.
The ensuing scene is
a comedy classic—Panisse woos Fanny in front of Marius,
Fanny relishes the opportunity to make Marius jealous, and
soon the young man and old are screaming in each other’s
face, threatening outrageous injuries that, of course, never
come to pass. Marius finally admits that he loves Fanny,
but tells her he can never marry, as his true love is the
sea. In fact, he’s planning to leave that very night.
But he doesn’t—not yet, anyway. Instead, he
and Fanny become lovers (we know because of three shots—a
lighthouse, crashing waves, and a bridge) and are eventually
caught in bed by Fanny’s mother. On the same night
that they finalize their wedding plans, Marius gets another
chance to sail. Overhearing the offer, Fanny knows Marius
will never be happy tied down; so she lies to him rather
transparently, claiming that she’s been seeing Panisse,
hoping he’ll “get it.” But being a selfish
young man Marius doesn’t get it, and the movie ends
with Marius sneaking away followed by a touching coda between
César and Fanny, who, devastated, spins tales of
a marriage she knows won’t happen in order to allow
the man she loves to flee, undetected by his father.
You’ll have to
wait and see for yourself what happens next, and if Fanny
and Marius ever do marry. Trust, however, that Fanny
and César are worthy successors to Marius
and often just as funny, although in general they tilt more
towards the tragic side of life.
The actors, lead and
supporting, are nearly uniformly excellent. Though Fresnay
was a little old to play Marius, and relies a bit too much
on gesture, and Demazis isn’t a great talent, they
make a sympathetic enough pair of lovers. Raimu, who chose
the part of César over that of Panisse, which Pagnol
originally wrote for him, is superb throughout, whether
he’s bullying, being coy, ridiculous, outraged, or
outrageously funny. As Panisse, Charpin is his perfect foil.
Although the quality
of the prints used for these transfers varies—from
good to occasionally washed out, damaged, and, in a few
scenes, even blurry—I wholeheartedly recommend The
Fanny Trilogy to anyone who loves mankind, in all its absurd
glory. |
The
Fanny Trilogy: Marius (1931), 