Word: pagnol
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...Marcel Pagnol's classic trilogy (1932-33) is something unusual in any medium, but most unusual for the screen: it is a pure, self-justifying work of art. Marius, Fanny,and Cesar run a total of six hours, but are normally shown, as at the Telelix, one at a time. It depends, therefore, wholly on whether you can sit still for two hours and relax...
...difficult to discuss Fanny in anything but theatrical terms. Filmed in 1932 from Pagnol's play, which was produced the winter before in Paris, Fanny subordinates everything technical to the story, and employs no particularly startling use of camera or sound. Vincent Scotto's music is unobtrusive and appropriate. The film's beauty rests in the simplicity of its plot, and in its sensitive character sketches...
...senior trio--Raimu, Charpin as Panisse, and the brilliant Alida Rouffe as Fanny's mother. These three hams sport around the screen, indulging in every kind of histrionics: uproarious and tragic by turn, they are spellbinding and immensely warm. But Raimu best of all explores the depths of Cesar. Pagnol and the actor join hands to create a gruff, overbearing, and thoroughly vulnerable character...
TELEPIX: The latter two-thirds of Marcel Pagnol's epic trilogy of the 1930's is currently if all too briefly on view. FANNY will run through March 8. CESAR (which starts the 9th) will run till March 15. In toto, these are three of the funniest pictures ever made; Raimu, the French Charlie Chaplin, excels in what in retrospect must be called his greatest role. Your last chance in seven years. Evenings...
Gradually, in a rambling way. Pagnol builds up a fine store of memory, characterized by the special blend of feeling -love of life combined with a shrugging irony about its limitations-that marks the best of his films and plays. Some of Author Pagnol's anecdotes are a little too pat, recalling some of the slapstick in his lighter movies. And at the end, when he looks back on the deaths of some of those he loved, he allows himself a platitude, a kind of sentimental existentialism: "Such is the life of man. A few joys, quickly obliterated...