Fritz Lang producer, Seymour Nebenzahl’s last production in France before he fled to the United States, in its complete version
by Raymond Bernard (1939)
With Saturnin Fabre, Charpin, Dorville, Pierre Larquey, Pierre Labry, Noël Rocquevert, Annie Vernay, Marcel Pérès, Marguerite Pierry, Palmyre Levasseur, Mady Berry, Jean Paqui, Georges Douking, Takal, Florian, Jean Sinoël, Léon Larive, Paul Villé, Félix Claude… And the inhabitants of Chézy on the Marne
Versions :
HOH French subtitles / English subtitles
August 1914, a peaceful village on the banks of the Marne is totally taken up with the petty quarrels that oppose the Mayor (Charpin) and the squire (Saturnin Fabre). Their children will soon reactivate the Romeo and Juliet myth.
But the war is looming and soon the village finds itself on the front line. The German occupation forces begin by requiring food from a population which first adamantly refuses, except for those “who have nothing and who are willing to give everything”.
Then the Germans discover that one of their Officers has been killed.
In order to make the village give over the culprit, the Germans require that five hostages be taken lest the village be destroyed – houses and population - by canon fire.
Beaumont, the Mayor, is given the task of choosing the five hostages; he begins by listing himself. Then Rossignol, the squire joins. Fate will decide for the rest, they are to be chosen by drawing lots, an ingenious twist in a remarkable script.
The murderer is Pierre, Rossignol’s son, a soldier on leave because he’s getting married, unbeknownst to the two families. He has been trapped by the German advances et surprised by the German Officer looking for adventure. Pierre kills the Officer in a loyal but confused fight. Pierre’s father, Rossignol ignores everything about this.
It will be up to Beaumont, the Mayor, Rossignol’s close enemy, to help Pierre get out of trouble and return to the French lines.
The culprit does not surrender, but the Hostages will not be executed thanks to the French offensive, the famous “Battle of the Marne”, but especially because a German Officer explicitly declines to go ahead and do so.
In a film which strongly brings to mind Renoir’s “La Grande Illusion” and “La Règle du Jeu”, Raymond Bernard and the authors of the script (among them is Jean Anouilh) propose another vision of France before the war, that of 1939, far more colored by Daladier’s appeal for union instead of Renoir’s vision of a world coming apart.
Raymond Bernard never falls into the unsavory register of patriotic grandiloquence on the eve of disaster, often resorted to in films from this era. But he’s a master in rendering the subtle cohabitation of grandeur and pettiness, the ridicule of war games played out at the “Café du Commerce”, the spirit of resistance and solidarity when disaster arrives, the sacrifice agreed to voluntarily, and panic fear.
In particular, in one scene we are shown the Hostages who proudly march towards their destiny, the fear they all harbor is dominated in their heads by singing “The Marseillaise” but it invades their innards, a scene that the mediocre critics in 1939 could not forgive Raymond Bernard.
LES BONUS :
· « The Return of the Hostages »
For this film which gives an emblematic view of France at the time, we wanted to give film buffs some extra keys in order to fully understand it:
An idea of who Raymond Bernard was, son of Tristan Bernard, friend and great admirer also of Sarah Bernhardt, director of such masterworks as “Les Misérables” and “Les Croix de Bois”.
A sense of the atmosphere that reigned during the Munich agreement, an event that was contemporary with the film
The testimonies of the surviving extras who describe the making of a film in their village, for them an unforgettable event
An interview with daily Le Monde’s film critic, Jacques Siclier, both witty and erudite.
« The Return of the Hostages » also largely dwells upon the intervention of censorship. For the integral version we present here has been re-edited, not from the original negative, lost long ago, but from two copies, one destined for France after the war, from which 20 minutes are missing, and the other from a copy distributed in Switzerland (German-speaking) in 1939, this one with a ten-minute cut. Thus, both had been censured but differently. For example, the Swiss version has cut out the death of the German officer, and the French version hides from the French public that the hostages owe their life to the civil behavior of a German officer!
However, the censors go much further than the emblematic scenes. They have left us puzzled by the perspicacity with which they’ve proceeded. We comment upon and show the parts censured by both parties, sometimes entire scenes, sometimes one line, a few seconds. We try to explain these cuts, even take the risk of advancing suppositions, and we invite the viewers to try and make his/her own opinions.
· An interview with Jean-Pierre Jeancolas
In spite of the poor technical quality we decided to present an interview with film historian, Jean-Pierre Jeancolas who makes some particularly pertinent remarks on the origin and ideology of censorship at the time, on the film, what it contains and what it does not contain. Without complacency, he compares Raymond’s vision with Renoir’s and that of other contemporary filmmakers.