Children of Olympus

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Movie
German title Children of Olympus
Original title Les enfants du paradis
Les enfants du Paradis.jpg
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1945
length 190 minutes
Rod
Director Marcel Carné
script Jacques Prévert
production Raymond Borderie ,
Fred Orain
music Maurice Thiriet ,
Joseph Kosma
camera Roger Hubert ,
Marc Fossard
cut Henri Rust ,
Madeleine Bonin
occupation
synchronization

Children of Olympus (French: Les enfants du paradis ) is a feature film made by Marcel Carné from 1943 to 1945 based on a script by Jacques Prévert . He is considered an outstanding example of poetic realism in France. The film tells the relationship between a woman and four men in the Parisian theater environment around 1835. The German title is the analogous translation of the French one, since the highest rank in the theater (French: paradis ) means “ Olymp ” in German .

action

The four male figures, three of whom actually lived, are grouped around Garance, whose beauty and attraction no one can escape. The action begins in 1827.

Garance leaves her lover, the anarchist and crook Lacenaire , and meets the pantomime Baptiste Deburau , who falls head over heels in love with her. At first Garance seems to be reciprocating his love, but he's unwilling to take the last step, so Baptiste has to watch as she gets involved with the confident actor Lemaître . Garance leaves the city with the noble bon vivant de Monteray after he has protected her against a false accusation .

After years she returns and the love carousel turns again. Lemaître is the only one who manages to loosen himself emotionally - through his passion for acting. Lacenaire kills the Count de Monteray in order to free himself from Garance in this way and also to prevent a duel between Lemaître and de Monteray. In the meanwhile married Baptiste Deburau, the love for Garance flares up again. He leaves his wife and child for one night to meet with Garance. When his wife discovers him and Garance and confronts both of them, Garance escapes. Baptiste follows her, but Garance disappears in a carriage and he is drowned in the crowd of the street carnival.

Remarks

An essential aspect, which justifies the fascination of the film, lies in the consistency of the plot. All men, no matter how different in character they are, behave towards women in the manner prescribed for them by their respective nature. The multi-layered and repeatedly broken off and commented plot follows the five people who are chained to one another and cannot determine their own fate. The cinematic metaphor of tragic irony is particularly remarkable when - at the end of the film - Baptiste loses track of Garances in the crowd of carnivalists disguised as Pierrot , the very costume in which he himself shone on stage before.

The filmmakers put the possibilities of the medium in an exciting contrast to the Théâtre des Funambules , in which the actors appear. The film became a unique work of art - despite the difficult circumstances in occupied France after the Compiègne armistice of 1940 . The film still has its impact today. Technically, psychologically and in terms of content, but last but not least, borne by a wide range of melancholy poetry and the ingenious set design by Alexandre Trauner , who reconstructed the Boulevard du Temple for this , it has retained its uniqueness, which one cannot escape even today.

Conditions of origin

All artistic productions were subject to the censorship of the German occupying power. Because only films of 90 minutes in length were allowed, the project was split into two half-films ( Le boulevard du Crime and L'homme blanc ). In addition, the film had to be completely limited to private, intimate relationships and set in a distant time. At the same time, it was laid out very large by the producers (extensive team, enormous extras, long shooting time) so that the work for this film enabled as many artists as possible to avoid being recruited by the notorious STO ( Service du travail obligatoire ), which Hundreds of thousands of French were deported to Germany as labor. Some artists could only work under a pseudonym, e.g. B. Joseph Kosma , who had already composed the music for Jean Renoir's masterpiece The Great Illusion , forbidden by Joseph Goebbels , and who called himself Georges Mouqué. The lack of food made it difficult to shoot scenes with a lavishly set table - it was often empty before the door was shut. Robert Le Vigan, who played Jéricho, turned out to be a collaborator and was replaced by Pierre Renoir . Carné and Prévert are said to have hidden important film roles so that they would not fall into the hands of the occupiers. The premiere of the film took place a few months after the liberation on March 9, 1945 in Paris. The fact that Arletty was arrested as a collaborator because of an affair with the German air force officer Hans-Jürgen Soehring could no longer damage the reputation and success of the film. Raymond Gabutti was involved as film architect .

German synchronization

Ela Elborg was the dubbing director for the German version of the film .

Reviews

  • Georges Sadoul : The masterpiece among the films that, although obeying aesthetic prejudices, are nonetheless permanent, was "Children of Olympus" by Marcel Carné (1943–45). The romantic plot relates to the time of the mysteries of Paris . The love affairs of the mime Debureau (Jean-Louis Barrault) and a courtesan (Arletty) as created by Balzac , the desperation of a faithful wife (Maria Casarès), the bohemianism of a famous actor (Pierre Brasseur), the anarchism of an intellectual murderer (Marcel Herrand ), the popular theaters, the Boulevard du Crime, the Turkish baths, the taverns are elements of a sumptuous entertainment whose perfection is almost incomparable. The background is a great discourse about art and reality, supported by the juxtaposition of the various forms of showmanship: melodrama , tragedy , pantomime, cinema - and life itself. This work deserved great international success due to its nobility, its balance, its Quality and its refinement.
  • Ulrich Gregor , Enno Patala's story of the film: Everything in this film testifies to taste, intelligence and a sense of musical form; and yet one cannot help feeling that, according to its literary conception, 'Les enfants du paradis' actually belongs to the 19th century. The sublimated traditionalism of this film has often been misunderstood in German film clubs as a revelation of future cinematic art - although a secret predilection for “timelessness” may play a role.
  • Reclam 's film guide: One of the most mature and beautiful works of French film art.
  • Lexicon of international film : loves and fates, failed hopes and disappointments are interwoven in the artful work of Carné and Prévert to create an overall picture of life as a theater and of the theater as a stage. A masterpiece of film history, which impresses with its richness and quality of dialogue, brilliant performance and poetic attitude.
  • Reclam film classics, Günter Giesenfeld : The characters appear as representatives of theatrical attitudes: the sentimental clown, the coarse smear comedian, the tragic hero and - in the form of Lacenaire - the prevented author who stages his own life like a play. Both stylizations, the melodramatic-romantic and the poetological-rational, are ultimately incompatible. Perhaps it is this contradiction that causes the film's aesthetic deficits, which become more apparent with the passage of time: the contradiction between staged splendor and verbal static in many scenes, the predominantly illustrative use of the image.
  • Protestant film observer : The philosophically deepened love story from the milieu of the Parisian comedians around the mid-19th century and the great acting skills of Jean Louis Barrault and Pierre Brasseur make this film one of the most mature and beautiful works of French film art. (Review No. 94/1949)

literature

  • Manfred Schneider: "The children of Olympus." The triumph of curiosity . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1985, ISBN 3-596-24461-7
  • Almut Oetjen: Children of Olympus. The classic film by Marcel Carne and Jacques Prevert . Wiedleroither, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-923990-07-3
  • Jill Forbes: Les Enfants Du Paradis . British Film Institute 1997, ISBN 0-85170-365-8
  • Franz-Josef Albersmeier: The unbroken tradition: "The children of Olympus" 1945. Fischer film history, 3, 1945 - 1960. Ed. Werner Faulstich , Helmut Korte. Fischer TB, Frankfurt 1990, pp. 34-57

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Children of Olympus. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 1, 2016 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used