Monsieur Vincent
by Maurice Cloche
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Actor: Aim Clariond, Germaine Dermoz, Jean Debucourt, Lise Delamare, Pierre FresnayDirector: Maurice Cloche
Brand: Lions Gate
Writer: Maurice Cloche
Writer: Jean Anouilh
Writer: Jean Bernard-Luc
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-07-15
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Monsieur Vincent
DVD Review: A film Hollywood would never make
Summary: 5 Stars
Many decades ago, there was a television commercial for Levy's Jewish rye bread ("Jewish rye" is the product name used by the Levy company, not some sort of un-PC ethnic characterization). The punchline of the commercial was, "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's!" Evidently you didn't, because in New York at least, Levy's sold a lot of rye bread to the Gentiles.
Mutatis mutandis, "Monsieur Vincent" is the Levy's Jewish rye of films. You don't have to be Catholic or Christian or even particularly religious to see that this is one of the greatest films, tout court, ever made. Another Amazon reviewer recommended "Monsieur Vincent" to those who enjoyed "A Man for All Seasons." That recommendation is entirely reasonable, but whereas the latter film is sterling entertainment with laudable underlying values, the former film has genuinely life-altering potential in that it is truly a work of high art.
The film's director, Maurice Cloche, had a relatively successful career, but he was a creature of the commercial cinema, not self-consciously an "artist." To my knowledge, none of his other movies has comparable impact. The cinematographer, Claude Renoir, was renowned, however, and justly so. The grandson of a great painter, the son of a great actor, and the nephew of a great director, Renoir had the ability to use black and white to make images look far more real than color ever could (one is reminded of Stan Freberg's comment about radio: "it is the most visual medium"). Despite the presence of several shots where he flirts with staginess or with painterly proportions, Renoir never loses touch with or sight of the film's narrative and interpretative ends.
The film's star, Pierre Fresnay, is simply a great actor, one of the handful whose names come up whenever the very greatest film actors are discussed. His performance as Saint Vincent de Paul is a highlight in a career awash with highlights. The script that Fresnay and the other characters worked from was provided by Jean Anouilh. Though his name is virtually unknown in this country (except perhaps as the author of the play upon which the Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole vehicle "Becket" was based), Anouilh was one of the playwrights who made the first half of the twentieth century a second golden age of French drama. The tone of his dramatic work is frequently cynical and far from religious (in either the conventional or true sense of that word), but when a subject or a character gripped his imagination--as it does here--he was more than capable of laying sarcasm and ironic distance aside in the service of a higher goal. Echoes of the playwright's more familiar voice may be heard once or twice, but he never falsifies the saint's utterances.
No worthwhile film of a genuinely Christian cast has ever emerged from the barbarous maw of Hollywood. Thus, anyone who wants to see such a film must set his sights on Europe, where several--far too few, alas--can, with some effort, be found. No one who appreciates cinematic art will be disappointed by "Monsieur Vincent." No one seeking a film that imparts a sense of what sanctity looks like in the flesh need look any farther.
Description of Monsieur Vincent
Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 07/15/2008 Run time: 114 minutes Rating: NrBestsellers in DVD
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