The War of the Buttons (1962)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The button war |
| Original title | La guerre des boutons |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1962 |
| length | 91 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Yves Robert |
| script | François Boyer |
| production | Léon Carré |
| music | José Berghmans |
| camera | André Bac |
| cut | Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte |
| occupation | |
| |
The War of the Buttons (original title: La guerre des boutons ) is a French feature film by Yves Robert from 1962. It is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Louis Pergaud from 1912. It is about the war between the boys from two neighboring French cities Villages, which escalated over the course of the year.
action
The boys from Longeverne are mad at the boys from the neighboring village of Velrans, because they snatched all the customers from them when they sold tuberculosis brands. This demands revenge, and so the boys from Longeverne go to war against the boys from Velrans under their leader Lebrac. When the boys from Longeverne take a prisoner during the battle, Lebrac comes up with the idea of dishonoring the prisoner. To do this, he cuts all the buttons from his clothes so that he has to run home with torn clothes. At the next battle of the boys, Lebrac is again captured and his buttons are removed. When he comes home with torn clothes, his brutal father beats him up for it.
But Lebrac is used to beatings from his father and does not allow himself to be deterred from playing war. To avoid dishonor during a fight, his new plan is to go into battle naked. And so the boys from Longeverne fight naked against the boys from Velrans. Although they carry off the victory in this battle, they cannot really enjoy the victory because it gives them colds.
So Lebrac comes up with a new ruse. Each of the boys should donate a fixed amount so that they can buy buttons and sewing kits. The girl Marie from the village is supposed to mend the boys' clothes so that they don't get into trouble at home. But it turns out that not everyone has that much money. But since the ideals of French society insist on freedom, equality and fraternity, equality must be regulated differently. In this way, all the boys earn something extra, which then goes into a common fund. So everything can be bought. In addition, the boys build a hut together.
There are further battles between the boys' groups, in which, thanks to Lebrac's organizational talent, the boys from Longeverne mostly emerge victorious. The boys celebrate this extensively in their hut with wine and cigarettes. But the boys from Longeverne were betrayed from their own ranks: the outsider Bacaillé, who was usually badly treated by the others, no longer wants to participate in the war games and has since called himself a monarchist . Finally, Bacaillé reveals to the leader of the boys from Velrans, Aztec, where the Longeverner hut is. Aztec takes the chance, takes fire arcs and burns the hut together with his boys. The surprised boys can no longer do anything, and so their hut is destroyed, also using a tractor. During the fight, it emerges who betrayed them. After they beat up Bacaillé, he tells the adults all about the button war. Then all the boys are given a beating.
Only Lebrac is tired of it; he does not return home. When he does not come home two days later, his father and other men from Longeverne go to look for him. They meet men from Velrans and initially get into an argument with each other, in which even a hand grenade explodes. It does no harm, but the men get along with each other and drink plenty of wine.
Since Lebrac has still not come home, a major search is finally started, but initially unsuccessful. He is only discovered when his class observes two woodcutters on a school trip. They're cutting down the very tree the boy is sitting on. Lebrac is taken to boarding school, which his father had threatened him many times. At boarding school he meets Aztec, the opposing leader. He had damaged his father's tractor in the attack on the hut and was sent to boarding school for it. The two boys immediately become friends with each other and decide not to become like their fathers.
Production background
Yves Robert had previously worked mainly as an actor and only gained recognition as a director with this film. He remained largely true to the popular, subliminally socially critical children's book by Louis Pergaud ; but Robert moved the plot of the novel - set at the beginning of the 20th century - to the present. The sentence "If I had known, I would not have gone with you" ("si j'aurais su, j'aurais pas v'nu"), which Little Gibus utters several times during the course of the film, is not in Pergaud's novel , but was added by the makers of the film. In the meantime, the sentence has entered everyday language as a winged word in France.
Because of the scene in which the children run naked through the forest, the film in Germany was only approved by the FSK from the age of 16. In the meantime, however, the film is permitted without any age restriction.
analysis
The introduction explains the situation that leads to the rivalry between the boys' groups. In addition, the most important protagonists including their leader Lebrac are introduced. The only person lit up in more detail in the film is Lebrac. He shows strength on the outside, which makes him the leader of the boys, but on the inside he is marked by the blows of his father. The rest of the boys are mostly shown as a group waging war together.
The course of action changes perspective at some points. While the boys as a group stand in the foreground in the big battle scenes, other scenes follow the individual fate of the main actor. In addition, while Lebrac is being sought by his father, the story is told from the father's point of view.
The camera work relies heavily on symbolism. For example, the violence of the father, who angrily hits his fist, is shown by shock waves in the soup that Lebrac is eating. If the action is directed entirely towards the main character Lebrac, the camera work changes to a moving hand-held camera that follows the main character's path exactly.
synchronization
The German dubbed version was created in 1962 for the German cinema premiere of the film.
| role | actor | German Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Lebrac's father | Jean Richard | Wolfgang Eichberger |
| Bacaillé's father | Michel Galabru | Gernot Duda |
| Aztec's father | Jacques Dufilho | Thomas Bride |
| Aztec's mother | Michèle Méritz | Ursula Traun |
Awards
In 1962, Yves Robert won the French Prix Jean Vigo for The War of the Buttons .
Reviews
The War of the Buttons received very positive reviews in general and is still a very popular classic film in France.
“How seldom you can really laugh liberatingly in the cinema becomes really clear once you've seen this lovable and amusing game. No glamorous star names, no dreariness, no emptiness and no earth-shattering problems, but real freshness, perfect childliness and rousing charm characterize this film. [...] Despite all the burlesque ideas in terms of pictures and words, this first film by Yves Robert is more than a film about children: it is also a children's film for adults. "
"The novel by Louis Pergaud for the film 'The War of the Buttons' was published in 1912. Director Robert modified it according to the circumstances of the 1960s - since then another 40 years have passed. Nevertheless, the film still has an effect today, because Robert takes the side of the children, depicting them in a lively, realistic and humorous way. "
"Yves Robert succeeded in a wonderful, timeless children's adventure about the wild and free life of the village youth, which has been quarreling for generations."
“The War of the Buttons” was about more than just child fights. This was a cinematic treatise on the “duties of the citizens” and about the republic, presented at the halfway point of the “thirty glorious years” during which France became modern after the Second World War and the villages, fields and forests in which the "War of the Buttons" took place. The fall of the oak (from which furniture was to be made) was a strong signal of the era, as was the freeze frame with which Yves Robert ended his film, three years after François Truffaut's “ They kissed and they hit him ”, on which here confidently was played. "
"Yves Roberts" The War of the Buttons "is one of the children's film classics par excellence. Today, over forty years after its premiere, the film has lost none of its freshness. Because by the way, Robert criticizes the brutal upbringing with the cane and breaks a lance for humanity. Also, few films show so many details of the hard life in the country of the 1960s. "La Guerre des boutons" is an absolute must for children, but also for their parents! "
Further films
Since the novel by Louis Pergaud from 1912 is still one of the most famous children's books in France, there are accordingly several film adaptations. The first film adaptation was released in 1936, directed by Jacques Daroy .
In 1994 the remake The War of the Buttons was filmed from a screenplay by Colin Welland , with the plot being moved from France to Ireland. In 2011 - on the occasion of the upcoming 100th birthday of the novel - two different film adaptations were released in French cinemas at the same time. In Germany only the film directed by Christophe Barratier was shown in cinemas ( War of the Buttons ), but not the film by Yann Samuell ( The War of the Buttons ).
Pergaud's novel was not only edited for the cinema. In 2007, The War of Buttons was presented as an orchestral radio play as part of the Children's Radio Play Day (November 11, 2007) as part of the ARD Radio Play Days (November 7 to 11, 2007) from the Karlsruhe Center for Art and Media Technology with orchestral music by Henrik Albrecht directed by Judith Lorentz is broadcast live and as a premiere on German radio (SWR / BR / Deutschlandradio Kultur / HR / MDR / NDR / WDR). German actress Laura Maire is the spokesperson for the stage work in the role of Marie . In 2011 and 2012 the material was processed in a two-volume series by Olivier Berlion as a comic, which was published in French by Dargaud.
literature
- Louis Pergaud : The war of the buttons (original title: La guerre des boutons ). German by Gerda von Uslar . Illustrations by Philip Waechter , afterword by Alfred Clemens Baumgärtner . Dressler, Hamburg 1998, 349 pages, ISBN 3-7915-3558-7
Web links
- War of the Buttons in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Scientific work on film
- "The Button War" at Bedetheque
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for The War of the Buttons . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2007 (PDF; test number: 29 151-a DVD).
- ↑ Article in the mirror
- ^ French newspaper article about the film
- ↑ War of the Buttons at EPD Film
- ↑ The war of buttons in the German synchronous file
- ↑ "War of the Buttons" at Prisma
- ^ "War of the buttons" in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
- ^ "The war of buttons" at Filmreporter.de