A MAGNIFICENT LIFE (MARCEL ET MONSIEUR PAGNOL) Special Screenings

Sylvain Chomet, an Oscar® nominee for THE OLD LADY AND THE PIGEONS, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE and THE ILLUSIONIST, returns with his first animated feature in 15 years. As with THE ILLUSIONIST, which was based on an unproduced autobiographical screenplay by Jacques Tati, Chomet investigates the life of another beloved member of France’s artistic pantheon: playwright, novelist and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974). Pagnol is best remembered for his Marseille Trilogy of plays, which he later produced as the films MARIUS, FANNY and CÉSAR in the 1930s, and his 1952 film MANON OF THE SPRING, later adapted in two parts with huge success by Claude Berri in the 1980s. Told in flashback as the older Pagnol imagines a conversation with his younger self, his story is a bittersweet mix of artistic triumph and personal heartbreak, fortunes made and lost, and a man whose work at one time seized the moment critically and commercially — but whose career lasted long enough to see times change. Chomet’s hand-drawn animation — which cleverly includes hybrid sequences that incorporate clips from Pagnol’s films, projected on a screen — beautifully conveys the intimacy and emotion of memories shared and the epic sweep of Pagnol’s life story across major events in 20th century French history. –Todd Hitchcock