Balzac (short film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Balzac |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1951 |
| length | 24 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jean Vidal |
| script |
Sherry Mangan , Jean Vidal |
| production | Roger Leenhardt |
| music | Guy Bernard |
| camera | Maurice Barry |
| cut |
Daniel Sarrade , Henri Sarrade |
| occupation | |
| |
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Balzac is a French documentary short film directed by Jean Vidal in 1951. The film was nominated for an Oscar .
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The film illustrates Honoré de Balzac's life, and focuses on his calling as a writer and the love he feels for his work and his development into a great French playwright and novelist.
It is also shown how his individual works fit into his novel cycle La Comédie humanine (German: The human comedy ). Balzac chose the title in reference to Dante's Divine Comedy . The work includes both essays and realistic novels, short stories and narratives in addition to 25 unfinished writings and eight early works. Balzac's approach to recurring his fictional characters within a complex system was a literary innovation.
Contemporary sketches, manuscripts and caricatures of his characters from the Comédie humaine, paintings and photographs as well as excerpts from his writings and film adaptations of his novels help to get to know Balzac and his work better. Pictures of his house on Rue Berton in the 16th arrondissement are also on display. Some of his best-known works: Colonel Chabert , Father Goriot , Eugénie Grandet , Lost Illusions , Aunt Lisbeth (alternatively cousin Lisbeth ), Le Cousin Pons , Splendor and Misery of the Courtesans , La Rabouilleuse .
Production, background
The film produced by Les Films du Compass was distributed by AF Films Inc. (USA). André Girard acted as musical director. Pierre Beres worked as a literary advisor.
Sherry Mangan (1904–1961), who spoke the accompanying texts, was an American writer and journalist, etc. During the occupation of Paris by the National Socialists , he was actively associated with left underground organizations. Otherwise he was known for his literary acumen.
About Balzac
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French writer. In literary history he is classified among the realists and, although he actually belongs to the generation of romantics, is seen as a triumvirate of great realists with Stendhal 17 years older and Flaubert 22 years younger. His main work is the comprehensive but unfinished series of novels La Comédie humaine (German: The human comedy ), whose novels and stories attempt to paint an overall picture of society in France at the time. Balzac was only able to complete 91 of 137 planned novels and short stories.
Balzac's unvarnished narrative style and rendering of social reality was formative for an entire generation, and not just French authors, and prepared naturalism . His approach of connecting his novels through a system of recurring characters was taken up by Émile Zola in his cycle of The Rougon-Macquart .
Awards
- Academy Awards 1952 : Roger Leenhardt and his production company Films du Compass were nominated for an Oscar in the category “Best Short Film” (two film roles) with his production company Films du Compass , but had to win Walt Disney and his film Earth, the great unknown (Nature's Half Acre ) give way.
- 1952: Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg : 1st prize in the category "Best Director" to Jean Vidal.
Web links
- Balzac in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Balzac, un film de Jean Vidal adS film-documentaire.fr (French)
- Balzac (1951) at letterboxd.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Balzac adS bfi.org.uk
- ↑ Sherry Mangan adS marxists.org
- ↑ The 24th Academy Awards | 1952 at oscars.org (English)