César (film)

''César'' is a 1936 French romantic drama film written and directed by Marcel Pagnol and starring Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, Fernand Charpin, Orane Demazis, and André Fouché. It is the final film in Pagnol's Marseille Trilogy, which began with '' Marius'' (1931) and continued with '' Fanny'' (1932). Unlike the other two films in the trilogy, ''César'' was not based on a play by Pagnol, but was written directly as a film script. In 1946, Pagnol adapted the script for the film as a stage play.

Plot

Honoré Panisse is dying, cheerfully, with friends, wife, and son at his side. He confesses to the priest in front of his friends and insists the doctor be truthful about his prognosis. However, he cannot bring himself to tell Césariot, his twenty-year-old son, that the young man's biological father is Marius, the absent son of César (Panisse's old friend and Césariot's godfather). After Panisse's funeral, Fanny, Panisse's widow and Césariot's mother, gives in to the priest's pressure to make the truth known, and tells Césariot about the relationship she had with Marius before she married Panisse.

A gobsmacked Césariot tells Fanny that he is going to visit a friend from school, but really goes to see Marius, who is now a car mechanic in Toulon. Posing as a journalist, Césariot spends some time with Marius, but he returns home after some of Marius' friends—to play a joke on the naive youth—tell him that they and Marius are involved in burglary and drug trafficking. A chance encounter in Marseille later alerts Marius' business partner to the relationship between Marius and Césariot, and he comes clean to Césariot about the joke.

Césariot finds Marius and reveals his true identity. He brings Marius to see Fanny and César, and Marius chastises them for ruining all of their lives in the name of propriety and believing negative rumors that they had heard about Marius over the years. Marius then tells Césariot that Césariot knows where to find him and leaves.

A short time later, just after Césariot has left Marseille to start a job elsewhere, Marius and Fanny meet privately. They both admit their continuing love for each other, but Marius says he feels uncomfortable around Fanny now, since she is a different person after spending so long living so comfortably. He says he needs time to think and leaves, but his car does not start, as César has followed the couple to their meeting and tinkered with the engine of Marius' car. César says Marius is being silly and tells Marius and Fanny that they do not have to worry about what Césariot will think, who has apparently told César that, after considering the alternatives, he would prefer his parents to get together. Having delivered his message, César leaves the (now not-so-young) lovers to restart their conversation, and Marius and Fanny walk off together, arm in arm.

Cast

Cast recordings

An audio cast recording of select scenes from the film, with minor rewrites, was made in Paris on 27 and 28 May 1937 for the French subsidiary of Columbia Records by part of the main cast (Raimu, Charpin, Dullac, Fouché); Brun was played by , who had played the role in the cast recording for ''Fanny'' and played Escartefigue in the film '' Fanny'', and the priest was played by Édouard Delmont, who played Dr. Venelle in the film. The cast recording included Escartefigue's eulogy at Panisse's funeral, a scene not included in the final version of the film. It was later re-issued on compact disc.

In 1962, Pagnol’s distribution company, the Compagnie méditerranéenne de films, released the film soundtrack on disc, interspersed with narrative comments and descriptions spoken by Pagnol. In complement came recollections about the production of the film, which were later published as part of the augmented edition of his 1934 essay . The soundtrack album was re-issued on CD by Frémeaux & Associés, in their “Librairie sonore” series.

In popular culture

* Alice Waters, the famed restaurateur and founder of California cuisine, was so taken by the Marseille Trilogy that she named her Berkeley restaurant " Chez Panisse". The café upstairs from the restaurant is decorated with posters from the films ''Marius'', ''Fanny'', and ''César''.
* The main characters of the Marseille Trilogy make a cameo appearance in the Asterix comic book '' Asterix and the Banquet''.

See also

* '' Fanny'' (1961) – a non-musical American film based on the 1954 stage musical adaptation of the Marseille Trilogy

References

External links

*
''The Marseille Trilogy: Life Goes to the Movies''
an essay by Michael Atkinson at the Criterion Collection

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cesar (Film)
1936 films
Films directed by Marcel Pagnol
1930s romantic comedy-drama films
1930s French-language films
French romantic comedy-drama films
French black-and-white films
Films set in Marseille
1936 comedy films
1936 drama films
1930s French films
Films scored by Vincent Scotto