Marcel Pagnol

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Marcel Pagnol
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Marcel Pagnol (February 28, 1895 – April 18, 1974) was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. In 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie Française.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born February 28, 1895 in Aubagne, 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.

[edit] School years

He learned how to read at a young age to his father's amazement but his mother did not allow him to touch a book until he was six "for fear of cerebral explosion". During this time he spent many summers with his family in a house, the Bastide Neuve, in the sleepy Provençal village of La Treille in the hills between Aubagne and Marseille.

He was only 15 years old when his mother died on 16th June 1910 at the age of 36 years. His father remarried in 1912.

In 1913 at the age of 18 he passed his bac in philosophy and started studying litterature at the University in Aix-en-Provence. When the First World War broke out he was mobiles in the infantry at Nice but in January 1915 he was declared unfit for military service due to his feeble constitution.

On 2nd March 1916, he married Simone Colin in Marseille, to the displeasure of his father.[1]. In November of the same year he passed his licence in English and became an English teacher. He taught in various local colleges and was promoted to work in the lycee in Marseille.

[edit] Paris : teacher and playwright

He relocated to Paris where he taught English until 1927, when he decided instead to devote his life to playwriting. From the time that he moved to the capital he joined a group of young writers. In collaboration with one of these friends, Paul Nivoix, he wrote the play, Merchants of Glory, which was produced in 1924.

He wrote Topaze in 1928 a satire based on ambition.

Exciled in Paris he began to think with nostalgia of his roots. Taking this as his setting, in 1929 he wrote Marius.

This would later be turned into Pagnol's first film in 1931.

Separated from Simone Collin since 1926, he met the young english dancer Kitty Murphy. Together they had Jacques Pagnol in 1930, who became his assistant after the war and subsequently a cameraman for France 3 Marseille.

[edit] Filmmaking

The year 1926 was decisive for his career; he was present at the projection, in London of one of the first talking films and he was so overwhelmed that he decided to devote his efforts to cinema of this kind. Straightaway he contacted the Paramount Picture studios and suggested an adaptation of his play Marius. This was directed by Alexander Korda. It came out on 10th October 1931 and was one of the first successful talking films in the french language.

In 1932 Marcel Pagnol founded his own film production studios in the countryside near Marseille. Over the next decade Pagnol produced his own films. He himself took on many different roles in the production : financier, director, script writer, head of the studios and translator of foreign scripts. These films employed the greatest french actors of that time.

Marcel Pagnol was elected a member of the Académie Française in 1946.

He was the first film maker ever to receive this honour. He divorced his first wife in 1941. In 1945 he married Jacqueline Bouvier.

[edit] The birth of a novelist

In 1949 his second daughter of his second marriage died at the age of 2. He was so devasted 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 novel based on his childhood experiences. In 1957 La Gloire de mon père was published to instant acclaim. For five years he continued to write on the same theme producing in succession Le château de ma mère, Le Temps des Secrets and L'Eau des collines which comprised Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources.

He died in Paris on April 18, 1974. He is buried in the municipal cemetery at La Treille, along with his mother and father, brothers, and wife. His boyhood friend, Baptistin Magnan (Lili des Bellons in the autographies), died at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1917[2] and is buried nearby.

Pagnol adapted his own film Manon des Sources, which starred his wife in the titular role, into two novels collectively titled L'Eau des collines. Those were in turn adapted back to international acclaim in the 1980s by film-maker Claude Berri as Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. 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.

[edit] Awards

  • 1939: Best foreign film for HARVEST - New-York Critic's Circle Awards
  • 1940: Best foreign film for THE BAKER'S WIFE - New-York Critic's Circle Awards
  • 1950: Best foreign film for JOFROI - New-York Critic's Circle Awards

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Filmography, as director

[edit] References

  1. ^ www.marcel-pagnol.com
  2. ^ Le Chateau de ma mere (2nd to last chapter)

[edit] External links

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Preceded by
Maurice Donnay		 Seat 25
Académie française
1946–74		 Succeeded by
Jean Bernard
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