In 1960, guest in the program “close -up” by Pierre Cardinal, the legendary Marcel Pagnol sent a vibrant and moving declaration of love to the cinema.
“I was born the same day as cinema”liked to repeat Marcel Pagnol, who knew the Lumière brothers personally, and whose work largely contributed to lighting the first steps of the seventh art in dark rooms.
A cinema legend
Poet, playwright and genius writer, certainly … but the author of My father's gloryof Marius and Jean de Florette was also a filmmaker and producer. Founder of his own studios and director of his own films, he immortalized Fernandel's smile in the Schpountz and Topaz, as well as Raimu's “rants” in the Marseille trilogy or the baker's wife.
Strongly linked to the history of cinema, Pagnol was one of those who did not dry up for this new means of artistic expression. Guest in the show Close -up From Pierre Cardinal in 1960, he had thus delivered a vibrant and powerful tribute to this bright invention which allowed him, several years after their death, to preciously keep the performance of his missing friends.
“You saw them earlier”
“Cinema has not only propagated the actor through space, but he installed it in time. And now, his work will no longer perish if it was one day worthy of surviving. Already, several of my performers have left me”he confided 65 years ago, then addressing spectators who had probably just attended a projection of Marius (in an archive video relayed by the INA website).
“You saw them earlier. They were walking, they laughed, they made gestures among other actors who are always alive. But you have not seen the difference. They still have their talent. They always exercise their art. They still do their job. Almost all, since their death, have played Marius more often than they had done during their life. I measure all the gratitude that I owe the Magic Lamp who Repeat dead dancers, which gives our tenderness the smile of lost friends. “
More than 50 years after his own disappearance, Marcel Pagnol also continues to live through his works, whether literary or cinematographic.
(Re) Discover the trailer for “Marius” …
