Félicien Marceau

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Félicien Marceau (birth name Louis Carette ; born September 16, 1913 in Kortenberg , Leuven , Flanders ; † March 7, 2012 in Paris ) was a French journalist and writer from Belgium who turned out to be a distant, cool observer in his novels his successful tabloids as a witty, all-questioning parodist . He became a member of the Académie française in 1975 and received the prestigious Prix ​​Goncourt in 1969 for his novel Creezy .

Life

Journalist and World War II

After attending a denominational school , Carette studied law at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) before joining the Radiodiffusion radio station in Belgium in 1937, where he was news director until 1942 during the occupation of Belgium by the German Wehrmacht in World War II .

After finishing this activity he wrote two novels within a year, namely Le Péché de complication (1942) and Cadavre exquis (1943) as well as an essay on the literature between the two world wars entitled Naissance de Minerve . Shortly afterwards he went to Italy , where he became the librarian of the Vatican Apostolic Library . A little later he went to France, where he worked for the magazines Arts and La Parisienne and took his stage name Félicien Marceau.

The novel Chasseneuil was published in 1948, followed by a collection of short stories in 1953 with En de secrètes noces .

First successes and system criticism

Marceau only had a greater success with Les Élans du cœur (1955), for which he was awarded the Prix ​​Interallié and which found a wide readership. His style became clear in the tradition of the great novels Honoré de Balzacs , Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky and Walter Scott in the 19th century: his love for detail and truth, but also deep openness, imagination and wit, impressed literary critics like Pol Vandromme . He also demonstrated his own admiration for Balzac in his work Balzac et son monde (1955).

In 1956 Marceau also began writing plays , and immediately had a role with the play L'Œuf (1957), which premiered at the Théâtre de l'Atelier and in which he himself played a role alongside Jacques Duby under the direction of André Barsacq , resounding success. In addition, it was one of the most successful of the tabloids of this time, in whose pieces the literary critic François Nourissier found the “dramatic mechanisms clever and wild” ('mécanismes dramatiques astucieux et féroces'). He often described the existence of an individual in society, which this individual gradually captured and consumed like an "egg" ('Œuf'). Marceau himself saw in this and in his other works his own offensive against the system ("Tous mes livres sont la longue offensive contre ce que j'ai appelé dans L'Œuf le système "). He concluded that the individual ultimately became the prey of intellectual terrorism in a soulless world. Therefore, humans would have to be a loner and, underground, would have to distance themselves from current considerations in order to build up their own truths.

Further works and first film adaptations

In 1957 Denise or Die Qual des Verliebtsein appeared in a German translation by Theresia Mutzenbecher .

The subsequently written piece La Bonne Soupe was staged in English after performances in Paris in 1961 at the Comedy Theater in London with Coral Browne , Peter Illing and Nigel Davenport , and filmed in 1964 by Robert Thomas with Annie Girardot and Gérard Blain . In addition to this play, numerous other of his works such as Les sept péchés capitaux (The Seven Deadly Sins, 1962), which had previously been performed at theaters such as the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell , were filmed.

These views led to the fact that Marceau in his works depicted shady, mysterious figures such as smugglers, thieves, prostitutes who live in their own romantic world, which is not a romantic world. In two books, for example, he dealt with Giacomo Casanova , on the one hand in Casanova ou l'anti-Don Juan (1949) and on the other in Une insolente liberté (1983).

In 1968 his autobiographical novel Les Années courtes was published , in which he portrayed his own youth and especially his work during the occupation of Belgium by the German Wehrmacht. After the publication, there were numerous criticisms, but after which he resumed his writing activity.

Literature prizes and member of the Académie française

In 1969, he was awarded the prestigious Prix ​​Goncourt for his novel Creezy . At the following Cannes International Film Festival in 1970 he was a member of the International Jury.

In the following years there were a number of other film adaptations of his works such as L'Œuf (1973) by director Jean Herman with Guy Bedos and Marie Dubois , Jet Set (La race des seigneurs, 1974) by Pierre Granier-Deferre with Alain Delon and Sydne Rome based on his novel Creezy and The Body of My Enemy (Le Corps de mon ennemi, 1976) by Henri Verneuil with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Bernard Blier .

As the successor to the playwright Marcel Achard , who died on September 4, 1974 , Félicien Marceau, who was also awarded the Prince Pierre de Monaco Prize in 1974, was finally appointed a member of the Académie française and took the 21st armchair there until his death (Fauteuil 21 ) . Admission to the Académie française, however, led to a scandal: In protest against the choice of the Belgian-born writer, the poet Pierre Emmanuel declared his “resignation” as a member of the Académie française in 1975 because of Marceau's collaboration with the German occupation forces.

Marceau also staged theater productions well into old age that were also broadcast on television, such as L'homme en question (2004) with Brigitte Fossey at the Parisian Theater de la Porte Saint Martin .

From the death of Jacqueline de Romilly on December 18, 2010, he was the oldest living member of the Académie française until his death.

Publications

  • Chasseneuil , Roman (Gallimard, 1948)
  • Casanova ou l'anti-Don Juan , essay (Gallimard, 1949)
  • Capri petite île , Roman (Gallimard, 1951)
  • Chair et Cuir , Roman (Gallimard, 1951)
  • L'Homme du roi , Roman (Gallimard, 1952)
  • En de secrètes noces , short stories (Calmann-Lévy, 1953)
  • L'École des moroses , play in one act (Fayard, 1953)
  • Bergère légère , Roman (Gallimard, 1953)
  • Caterina , play in three acts (Gallimard, 1954)
  • Balzac et son monde , essay (Gallimard, 1955)
  • Les Élans du cœur , Roman (Gallimard, 1955)
  • Les Belles Natures , short stories (Gallimard, 1957)
  • L'Œuf , play in three parts (Gallimard, 1957)
  • La bonne Soupe , play in two parts (Gallimard, 1959)
  • La Mort de Néron , play in one act (1960)
  • L'Étouffe-chrétien , play in two parts (1960)
  • Les Cailloux , play in two parts (Gallimard, 1962)
  • La Preuve par quatre , play in two parts (1964)
  • Madame Princesse , play in two parts (1965)
  • Diana et la Tuda , play based on Luigi Pirandello (Denoël, 1967)
  • Un jour j'ai rencontré la vérité , play in two parts (1967)
  • Les Années courtes , memoirs (Gallimard, 1968)
  • Le Babour , play in two parts (Gallimard, 1969)
  • Creezy , Roman (Gallimard, 1969)
  • L'Homme en question , play in two parts (Gallimard, 1972)
  • L'Ouvre-boîte , play in five acts (Gallimard, 1972)
  • Le Corps de mon ennemi , Roman (Gallimard, 1975)
  • Les Secrets de la Comédie humaine , play in two parts (L'Avant-Scène, 1975)
  • Le Roman en liberté , essay (Gallimard, 1977)
  • Les Personnages de la Comédie humaine (Gallimard, 1977)
  • La Trilogie de la villégiature , play based on Carlo Goldoni in an adaptation by Giorgio Strehler (Éditions de la Comédie-Française, 1978)
  • À nous de jouer , play in two parts (Gallimard, 1979)
  • Une insolente liberté. Les aventures de Casanova , essay (Gallimard, 1983)
  • Appelez-moi Mademoiselle , Roman (Gallimard, 1984)
  • La Carriole du père Juniet , (La Différence, 1985)
  • Les Passions partagées , Roman (Gallimard, 1987)
  • Un Oiseau dans le ciel , Roman (Gallimard, 1989)
  • Les Ingénus , short stories (Gallimard, 1992)
  • La Terrasse de Lucrezia (Gallimard, 1993)
  • Le Voyage de noces de Figaro , (Les Belles-Lettres, 1994)
  • La Grande Fille , Roman (Gallimard, 1997)
  • L'imagination est une science exacte , co-author Charles Dantzig (Gallimard, 1998)
  • L'Affiche , Roman (Gallimard, 2000)
  • Cadavres exquis , (Éditions de Fallois, 2011)
  • Les Pacifiques , (Editions de Fallois, 2012)
in German language
  • Beloved playmate , original title Bergère légère , Roman, 1956
  • Denise or the agony of being in love , original title Les Élans du cœur , Roman, 1957
  • Small island of Capri , original title Capri petite île , Roman, 1963
  • Secret Weddings , original title En de secrètes Noces , short stories, 1963
  • Pick the roses , original title Les belles Natures , short stories, 1964
  • Creezy , Roman, 1970
  • The man in question , original title L'homme en question , Roman, 1972
  • Mozart: a life story in 5 parts , 1982
  • Casanova: his life, his adventures , original title Une insolente liberté , 1985, ISBN 3-546-46327-7
  • The President's Friend , 1994
  • Françoise and her lovers , original title La grande Fille , Roman, 1998, ISBN 3-203-80009-8

literature

  • Félicien Marceau , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 36/2012 of September 4, 2012, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely accessible).
  • Meyers Großes Personenlexikon , Mannheim 1968, p. 851.
  • Siegfried Kienzle, Otto CA zur Nedden (ed.): Reclams Schauspielführer , 19th edition, Stuttgart 1993, p. 853.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.o-re-la.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=187:décès-de-félicien-marceau-dernier-témoin-du-catholicisme-anticonformiste-de-l'avant -guerre & Itemid = 85 & lang = fr
personal data
SURNAME Marceau, Félicien
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carette, Louis (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian-French journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Kortenberg , Leuven , Flanders , Belgium
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 2012
Place of death Paris