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Previous pagePagnol is like nobody else. You never know what to expect with him. Did you know that he wrote Le Schpountz each day as it came? Our Father which art in Heaven, give us this day our daily text... And, every morning, Marcel Pagnol would answer the actors' legitimate prayer... He would hand in our dialogues without us ever being able to know what was coming next.FernandelActor
People thought of him as a bedroom farce author, as a regionalist author when he was a great man, a great writer and a great playwright.Jean DutourdFrom the Académie Française, writer
I like Pagnol as a filmmaker because his films – as Renoir's or de Vigo's – embrace more genuine moments than life itself. It is for those very moments that I go to the movies.Jean-Charles TacchellaFilm director
Our childhood sticks with us forever. Marcel seems to have never left his behind. He kept until the last days of his life such boldness, such powers of enthusiasm and wonder that are qualities of youth and that most men lose as they grow up.Jacques Bens, writer.Pagnol. Jacques Bens © Editions du Seuil, 1994
We would shoot Le Schpountz in the afternoon and Regain ("Harvest") in the morning as landscape and actors were the same in both films. That took some doing, playing two characters in one day. I would never have agreed to do that with anyone else but Pagnol.FernandelActor
One of the most amazing sides to Marcel Pagnol is that, very often, talented people are not very pleasant to keep company with, as if their talent was some sort of prickly armor. He was just the opposite. He was extremely kind and I found this side of his personality particularly touching. It could be described in vernacular words: he would say just like you. He would agree and encourage you, probably thinking, in his great wisdom, that you would soon realize by yourself that it was unachievable.Jean DutourdFrom the Académie Française, writer
This is what Pagnol taught us: after watching one of his films, you felt happy. Sometimes you even believed you were a better person.Jean-Charles TacchellaFilm director
You're asking me if it is difficult to be both the filmmaker's wife and his performer. It is, indeed. Marcel is more demanding with his wife than with any other actor or actress.Jacqueline PagnolMarcel Pagnol's wife
The most striking thing in Pagnol is not his voice, marvelous but too easy to mimic, but the look in his eyes. It is double: one eye is always shining roguishly, the other is rather sad. Yet, the one that shines is unsure while the one that is sad is bright with strength. Delightful. All in all, he does not look like a Parisian at all. He looks like a roman senator who has read Dickens.Bernard de FalloisPostface to "Le temps des amours" ("The Time of Love")
We would go out of school together, holding hands, and he would walk me home and I would walk him home, and we would talk endlessly, laugh and love each other, and one day I blessed him in the Jewish manner; a solemn Jewish child blessing his Christian brother.Albert CohenWriter
As an exceptional author and filmmaker, he has made films designed to bring us pleasure and happiness.Jean-Charles TacchellaFilm director
I like people from Marseille a lot, but César and Panisse are not exactly prototype men from Marseille. He turned them into "types", which is after all the very purpose of all great writers: to take a character and turn it into a type.Jean DutourdFrom the Académie Française, writer
Marcel is the heart of this microcosm, which is actually very large for its significance. Let us make no mistake. French cinema exists thanks to the people who still work independently, who are not subject to trusts.Jean RenoirFilm director
Pagnol used to have his actors rehearse in the manner of drama players, long before shooting. Then, he would spend hours in the sound truck. He was mainly interested in hearing the text uttered during the shoot, listening to see if the actors were speaking true, feeling the impact of a cue. Suzanne de TroyeMarcel Pagnol and Jean Renoir's film editor
Esthetes had turned their nose up at his films: those were "filmed drama plays", and millions of idiots, unaware of that, had made the unforgivable mistake to watch them with pleasure. The next generation made the necessary adjustments.Pierre TcherniaJournalist and film director
I particularly remember my last day on the shoot of César. There was a very long tracking scene to be shot on the Prado avenue, amidst an unbearable racket of cars, tramways, etc., well, enough to have any director run away! But Pagnol just shot his tracking in this noisy environment, and the scene was later shown on screen exactly as it had been shot. Pierre FresnayActor
He would never forbid anything to actors. At lunch time, we would discuss the next scene to be shot, he would say: "This happens there", and that was it. The scene had been written for you, and you just had to let yourself go.Robert VattierActor
On the whole, the shoot of Manon was very difficult. It took place during summer 1952. The weather was scorching hot and in the village where we played water was cut off for weeks, exactly like in the movie. Cars could not be driven there and everyday we had to walk several miles... Apart from that, the atmosphere was fantastic.Jacqueline PagnolMarcel Pagnol's wife
I am listening to you, Marcel, go on. I know that you're lying, but I love it.Alida RouffeActress
The text, outwardly so easy and smooth, is actually so rigorously, soundly and logically written that you learn it almost automatically and that nothing more is to be added.Robert VattierActor
