Marcel Pagnol is exhibited at the Château de la Buzine in Marseille
How was he a visionary?
He is one of the first to have defended talking pictures. At the Liberation, he also asked the French State to support French cinema in the face of the American cultural invasion. It is also the first to bring the cameras out of the studios to shoot outdoors in live sound.
Why do you think we love Marcel Pagnol so much?
Because he talks about things that bring us together like family, friendship and nature… To read Pagnol is to enter into comfort, into a beautiful world. We feel at home, we want to stay there. It is a literature that puts balm to the soul.
Just like his Provence.
Yes, she is generous. The true muse of Marcel Pagnol is not a woman but the hills of Garlaban that he bought from his first successes in the theater. It was the place he loved the most in the world.
What do you find only here and not elsewhere?
The tone of people. The way of looking at the world and life with a certain freedom and a rebellious spirit, well marked among the people of Marseilles elsewhere.
Tell us about the great Marcel Pagnol museum which opens in 2024.
It will be planted in Allauch and will host the entire fund Marcel Pagnol. It will offer a real immersive and sensory experience that will immerse young and old in the Provence of Pagnolin its theatre, cinema and literature.
Why is it essential to read Pagnol today?
Have you seen the state of today’s society? We have the right to disagree, but that doesn’t mean we have to beat each other up. Pagnolit’s about living together, above all, this taste for simple things like having an aperitif while watching people go by, talking about art… A return to the essentials that we tend to forget.
Pagnol tells Pagnol, at Château de la Buzine until September 18, 2022, labuzine.com
Also read on Vogue.fr:
Emmanuelle Béart: her life, her career in pictures
My mother’s castle: what you need to know about Marcel Pagnol’s film
The 5 must-read autobiographies/biographies