lies and confessions
by Douglas Messerli
Marcel Pagnol (screenwriter and director) César / 1936
Of the three films in Marcel Pagnol’s
Marseille works, my favorite is the last, César,
not only because it resolves so many of the thorny issues of the first two, but
because of its several philosophical debates about religion and science,
science and popular opinion, community and the individual, and, most
importantly, truth and lies. Written directly for the screen, and directed by
Pagnol himself, the author deftly brings these dialogues up, gathering them
into a truly forgiving way that represents both the intelligence and ignorance
of his insular Marseille-harbor community.
All of the figures from the first two films appear, but this time they
are 20 years older, and the gentle Panisse, whom we have grown to like and
become even fonder of in this work, is dying. His friend César, a bit dirtier
and clearly not so far from death himself, is seen hurrying off to the local
church to summon the priest to Panisse’s side. Despite his own lack of
church-going, César, like almost all the others around him, still adheres to
Catholicism, and he wants the priest, Elzear Bonnegrâce (Thommeray) to hear his
friend’s last confession—but only if Elzear makes two minor sins of omission,
he is told he must not wear his formal church attire and he must leave his
adenoidal missionary boy in the kitchen. It’s all to appear like an “accidental”
visit; after all, there is nothing worse for a dying man than the realization
that he is actually dying, a serious issue upon which the doctor (Edouard
Delmont) later lectures the religious figure, having recently seen two of
patients die suddenly after the priest has visited them.
Yet, it is precisely these loving lies that set off the series of
endless confessions which become the substance of this film, all the characters
having continually lied to others and themselves throughout their lives. As the
friends gathered around Panisse prepare to leave the room for the confession,
Panisse, having suddenly awakened from his previous stupor, demands they all
stay to hear his confession; he has done nothing so very terrible except to
have a few extramarital affairs (for which Fanny’s mother, Honorine is asked to
leave the room, Fanny herself being absent since she is meeting the train which
will bring home her son Césariot) and admittedly has lied to his customers
every day, including, we recall, Braun.*
But having seemingly finished his confession, Fanny having returned with
Césariot (André Fouche), the priest confronts the two with yet one other lie,
another sin of omission: the fact that they have never told their son that he
is actually the child of the now-missing Marius. Panisse refuses—his handsome
son, now in military school, being the major being which has given meaning to
his life—so the task will be left for Fanny after his death.
Soon after, Césariot is invited in to see his father, who asks him to
sit beside him as he quietly falls asleep, soon after, dying. Before her son
must return to school and to the military itself, the grieving Fanny painfully
reveals the truth, attempting to explain to the shocked boy that she entered
marriage with Panisse only after revealing her pregnancy, while also trying to
explain to the now morally hidebound young man that she loved Marius, while he
loved the sea. It is one of the most sorrowful and yet fulfilling moments in
all of film history, as indeed are many of the scenes of this touching movie; a
mother stealing away, as he sees it, his own father to be left with only with
his godfather, now his grandfather, while simultaneously he losing respect for
his beloved mother.
After, the boy visits his now godfather,
startling César with his new knowledge. César himself, admittedly has not seen
his own son for 13 years, after an incident in which the father slapped his son
and Marius, so he insists—apparently another half-truth we later
discover—slapped him back, an action he has been unable to forgive. Yet, he
does know that Marius now works in a garage in nearby Toulon and passes this
information on to his grandson.
Several later discussions are amazingly
prescient, given our current times, when the group of men inhabiting Cesar's
bar begin to discuss whether their particular religion, Catholicism, might not
be the true one: what if the Chinese, the Muslims, the Indians might be right,
and what might Panisse do if he were met by a god other than the one he had
always believed in?
This
always forgiving film—as César states “If sinning made us suffer, we’d all be
saints”—now encompasses the seemingly innocent Césariot
into this world of petty and sometimes larger instances of mendacity, as he
lies to his mother about taking a boat trip to visit a friend, while, in truth,
he intends to visit Marius in Toulon.
More importantly, he lies to his father, playing the role of a
journalist who needs help with his boat, having already changed the name of his
well-equipped small vessel from Fanny
to a ridiculously made-up one.
Now, he too, as his father was, has become, an outsider, and is, in
turn, lied to by Marius’ friends, who quickly convince the gullible boy that
Marius and they work as a drug-smuggling gang, encouraging the boy to joy in on
a heist by allowing him to use his boat. If it is an ugly joke, we must
remember that they too are suspicious of his probing questions about Marius—as,
for that matter, would be any intruder who enters into their also somewhat
isolated sense of community. Césariot, sadly, goes home believing that the
father he had sought out, even though Marius himself has been a rather gentle
mentor, is an evil man.
Meanwhile, back at home, Fanny has discovered the boy’s deceit—his
friend to whom the boy was supposed to be visiting, having tried to pay a visit
to Césariot—but her son is now so depressed about the series of recent events,
that it is difficult to truly chastise him.
Again, Césariot visits his grandfather/godfather, but this time he and
entire group of friends is confronted by a returning Marius who, finally,
insists that it is his turn to speak.
And
what a speech it is, calling out their lack of honesty, which has given each of
them—except for Panisse perhaps—very little in return. Even Fanny must admit
that in her refusal to marry him, she has suffered, if nothing else, in
silence. While Césariot’s father was indeed a loving man, a good provider,
allowing his son an education that Marius would certainly not have been able
to, love and joy have been sublimated to normative convention: bourgeois
values, class identities, and religious fallacies.
This final speech truly redeems Pagnol’s characters, as the traveler has
come home to tell them something they have refused to perceive, and who forces
them to recognize their true failures, even despite the love with which it is
also delivered—for Marius still loves, particularly Fanny, and he now is
finally able to win her back, while his son predictably moves off into the
greatest conformity of all, the military. We can only hope that his mother and
true father can later help him be as open-minded as the community he has left.
Maybe there should have been a cinematic quartet.
*This DVD of the trilogy contains an
interesting interview with the figure who played Braun, the only member of the
cast still living at the time of this restoration.
Los Angeles, May 9, 2018
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2018).
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