TOUS LES MATINS DU MONDE
A film review by Francois Velde
Copyright 1992 Francois Velde
I would like to take the time to encourage anyone interested in beautiful music to see the movie TOUS LES MATINS DU MONDE. I understand the movie is showing in New York and Boston. It will hopefully be distributed widely. To answer possible future questions about the movie, here is some information I have.
The movie is the result of joint work by a writer (Pascal Quignard), a director (Alain Corneau), and a musician (Jordi Savall). Corneau wanted to do a movie on music and the 17th Century; he met Quignard, who had already written about the viol, and suggested that they do the story of Marin Marais (1656-1728), one of the best viol players and composers of the time, and his teacher Sainte Colombe. Quignard had discovered the music of Sainte Colombe through a recording made by Jordi Savall in 1976. Quignard wrote the book, Corneau took the book and worked with Quignard and Savall to make the movie. Savall plays the music, and the soundtrack has been released (in addition to Savall's previous recordings of Marais, Sainte Colombe and other French composers, all on the Astree label).
The title comes from a sentence in the novel: "Tous les matins du monde sont sans retour," meaning literally "all the mornings of the world are without return."
Gabe Wiener asked what the historical truth is behind the movie. Well, we have only four pieces of information on Sainte Colombe: a religious community in Lyon hired a "Augustin Dautrecourt, known as Sainte Colombe" to teach the viol to young nuns, in 1657 and 1659. Sainte Colombe was mentioned in the Mercure Galant in 1679 as being in attendance at the creation of an opera by Lully. A manuscript containing 67 pieces of viol attributed to Sainte Colombe was found in the papers of Alfred Cortot in 1966. Also, Marais published a "tombeau de M de Ste Colombe" in 1701. Finally, the fourth and most substantive piece of information comes from the book by Evrard Titon du Tillet called "Le Parnasse Francais" (published in 1732). The book contains a large number of anecdotes on various French musicians of the 17th and early 18th Century. The text on Marin Marais begins as follows (rough translation by the poster):
"It can be said that Marais brought the viol to its highest point of perfection, and that he was the first to reveal its range and its beauty by the many excellent pieces he wrote for this instrument, and by the remarkable way in which he played them.
It is true that before Marais, Sainte Colombe had brought some fame to the viol; he gave concerts in his house, in which two of his daughters played, one the treble viol, the other the bass, and they formed with their father a three viol consort, which was a pleasure to listen to, even if it was made of rather ordinary symphonies and few chords.
Sainte Colombe was actually Marais' teacher; but when he realized after six months that his pupil could surpass him, he told him that he had nothing more to show him. Marais loved the viol passionately, and wanted to learn more from his master to perfect his skill on this instrument; and since he had some entry into his house, Marais took the time in summer when Sainte Colombe was in his garden, locked up in a little wooden cabin he had built between the branches of a mulberry tree, so as to play the viol without distraction and more beautifully. Marais slipped under the cabin; he could hear his master, and profit from special passages and bow movements that the masters of the art like to keep to themselves. But this did not last long, as Sainte Colombe noticed and took care not to be heard by his student. Sainte Colombe nevertheless always gave him credit for the amazing progress he made on the viol; and once, as he was attending an occasion where Marais was playing the viol, he was asked by some gentlemen what he thought of his playing, and he answered that there were pupils who could surpass their masters, but young Marais would never find anyone to surpass him."
The text by Titon du Tillet is how we know about Sainte Colombe. He never published his music, so until 1966 no one knew what he had written. As for his real name from the registers of that community in Lyon, that was discovered in 1978 only. It could also be counted as information the mention made by Le Blanc in his 1740 "Defense de la Viole de Gambe," of Sainte Colombe's extraordinary talent on the viol: he could imitate any nuance of the human voice, from the sigh of a young woman to the cry of an old man.
Quignard could not miss the reference to the daughters, and the phrase "since he had some entry into his house." The story line of the movie is imagined on the basis of these two "facts." Whether Titon du Tillet's story is itself true or just a story, we will never know. As for the wife, I don't think we have any evidence on that. One of Sainte Colombe's pieces is a "tombeau des regrets," but it is not known for whom or why it was composed. To me, no liberties were taken with the truth because the truth is so slim: Quignard's inventions are, however, coherent both internally and with the larger historical context.
The book is very short (a 45-minute read), written in a terse and suggestive language, often reminiscent of 17th Century French. The movie took a similar approach, and emphasized the same themes. Among the themes is the almost human quality of the viol, and how it can render almost any human expression. The book recalls the known fact that Marais sung as a boy in a choir, and was kicked out when his voice changed: his love of the viol is then explained as a "transfer" to a new voice. Interestingly, Jordi Savall himself took up the cello after he stopped singing in a boys choir.
Another theme is linked to the historical background: around the middle of the 17th Century, a peculiar kind of Catholic movement emerged, called Jansenism (sort of crypto-Calvinists, really, brooding about predestination and all that). These people, austere, metaphysical, detached from the world, rejected the unheard of extravagance and pomp of the court of Louis XIV, who in the end had most of them exiled or imprisoned. The book and the movie link Sainte Colombe to the Jansenists explicitly, and his black dress, his cold appearance, his hate for the world's pomp is set in contrast to young Marais' search of pleasure, fame and success. In the end, Marais is redeemed, in spite of his worldly success, by his love of the viol. The language of the book and the movie's dialog are also best understood in the context of the 17th Century, which was the defining moment for French literature, when the canons of classicism (restraint, elegance, respect for rules) were set by the newly created Academie Francaise, writers such as Boileau, dramatists such as Corneille. This may be hard to appreciate for non-French speakers, but they may nonetheless try to listen to the clipped, luminous diction and the sparse, laconic dialog (in striking contrast to the richness and splendor of the music).
A noteworthy point: old Marais is played by Gerard Depardieu, young Marais by his son Guillaume. Guillaume apparently plays the cello, so he is the only one with decent placement of fingers on the frets.... I wouldn't know myself, but some have been irritated by the fingers moving without any relation to the music. That is one of the film's flaws.
--
Francois Velde
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