Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol (A Magnificent Life): Sylvain Chomet’s animated biopic

How was Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol (A Magnificent Life) brought to life?

Eight years ago, I was contacted by Nicolas Pagnol, the grandson of Marcel Pagnol, as well as Nicolas Poiret, the grandson of producer Alain Poiret. They asked me if I liked Pagnol as they wanted to entrust me with making a documentary. I was interested in the project because I had not yet ventured into that territory. When they started looking for financing, the producers they approached loved one of the short animated scenes they had asked me to create to replace some missing archives. That’s how the idea of an animated film came to life. With the knowledge I acquired of Pagnol through writing the documentary, I had enough material to make me happy. This film is one of a kind and I am very pleased with the result. There aren’t many biopics about a celebrity’s entire life.

In what capacity did the Pagnol family collaborate with you?

Nicolas Pagnol gave me carte blanche, and he was a major source of inspiration. He knew his grandfather’s life inside out and disclosed details about moments of his life that were a little tougher and which the public was not aware of. He explained that nothing was taboo with the Pagnols. I don’t think that I would have agreed to make this film had he not been a part of it and had we not developed such a trusting relationship.

You adopted a unique narrative approach to tell this story: presenting an encounter between Pagnol and his childhood self.

What I wanted to avoid was telling the story of his childhood, which everyone is familiar with. “La Gloire de mon père” (My Father’s Glory), “Le Château de ma mère” (My Mother’s Castle), “Le Temps des secrets” (The Time of Secrets), “Le Temps des amours” (The Time of Love)… many films based on books that recount his childhood have already been produced. I wanted, instead, to tell the story of how Marcel became Pagnol… Of how this young boy who wrote poems for his beloved mother, who dreamed of writing in alexandrine verse and Greek tragedies, landed in Paris, and who, within just a few years, became the greatest playwright in France, and then a filmmaker. This idea helped me to create a dialogue between the two eras.

Your film recounts the destiny of a man who crossed the 20th century and the changes in the film industry. What influenced him?

He is someone who basically achieved success in everything he did. It was his idea to move the camera out of the studio. He was the first to film live, outside, in real environments, with individuals who were not actors, and this greatly inspired French New Wave cinema and Italian Neorealism. You should know that Pagnol hated silent film. He could not stand to see people making faces to try to convey their emotions. He considered film without dialogue to be “a minor art”. And following that, he created musical film! He was really someone who was impassioned with all the modern techniques available to him. Most importantly, he lived in an era where the world was changing at an incredibly rapid pace. He was a man living in the spirit of the times. The invention of cars, the telephone, the radio, the invention of planes and of television. He made the most of these innovations. He was a master of invention.

How did you structure the film?

I separated this film into two major parts. The first was theatrical. I really filmed it as a theatre piece — no camera movement or zoom in. The characters moved around on stage or in the space in which they lived. And then, with the leap to cinema in the story, I used the camera. The general tone was poetic, but it is, above all, a film about cinema and the invention of dialogue in cinema. It is an animation film that pays homage to live-action cinema and with the same energy. I also hope that I succeeded in proving that animation is indeed a part of cinema.