Marcel Pagnol

Biography

Marcel Paul Pagnol (28 February 1895 – 18 April 1974) was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Regarded as an auteur, in 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie française. Although his work is less fashionable than it once was, Pagnol is still generally regarded as one of France's greatest 20th-century writers and is notable for the fact that he excelled in almost every medium—memoir, novel, drama and film. Pagnol was born on 28 February 1895 in Aubagne, Bouches-du-Rhône department, in southern France near Marseille, the eldest son of schoolteacher Joseph PagnolA and seamstress Augustine Lansot. Marcel Pagnol grew up in Marseille with his younger brothers Paul and René, and younger sister Germaine. In July 1904, the family rented the Bastide Neuve, – a house in the sleepy Provençal village of La Treille – for the summer holidays, the first of many spent in the hilly countryside between Aubagne and Marseille. About the same time, Augustine's health, which had never been robust, began to noticeably decline and on 16 June 1910 she succumbed to a chest infection ("mal de poitrine") and died, aged 36. Joseph remarried in 1912. In 1913, at the age of 18, M…

Movies & TV Shows

1. Les Trésors de Marcel Pagnol (2019) — Self (archive footage)
2. Les Rois de la comédie (2023) — Self (archive footage)
3. Reflets de Cannes (1954) — Self
4. Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma (1978) — Self (archive footage)
5. Marcel Pagnol (1968) — Self

Directed

1. The Baker's Wife (1938) — Director
2. César (1936) — Director
3. Heartbeat (1938) — Director
4. The Well-Digger's Daughter (1940) — Director
5. Harvest (1937) — Director
6. Manon of the Spring (1953) — Director
7. Angele (1934) — Director
8. Topaze (1951) — Director
9. Merlusse (1935) — Director
10. Naïs (1945) — Director
11. Jofroi (1934) — Director
12. Letters from My Windmill (1954) — Director
13. Cigalon (1935) — Director
14. Ugolin (1953) — Director
15. The Pretty Miller Girl (1948) — Director
16. Topaze (1936) — Director
17. Le Curé de Cucugnan (1968) — Director
18. Mr Poirier's Son-in-Law (1933) — Director
19. La Prière aux étoiles (1941) — Director
20. The Ways of Love (1950) — Director
21. La Prière aux étoiles (80min cut) (1941) — Director
22. La Prière aux étoiles (film inachevé) (1941) — Director