Does the average Frenchman still pinch pretty girls in a crowd?
Foreword from the original edition of "The Frenchman", published in 1949
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"It makes this kind of an interview so legitimate," I said, and started to shoot my questions at him. Then, at a speed of 1/2000 sec. I shot the answers.
Life magazine published a few of these shots, and I thought nothing more of them until one evening Dick Simon of Simon and Schuster came to my home and saw many of the pictures which Life had not published. Dick is a photographer, but for once he didn't ask me what exposure I had used and what film. Instead, he laughed for five solid minutes, and then started figuring out how a book of these photographs of Fernandel could be put together.
I told him I was somewhat skeptical about the chances of its being a successful book. Again he laughed. I don't know whether at my realism, or at the photographs. Now a few words about Fernandel:
To be a success a French movie needs only one ingredient: Fernandel. He was born Fernand Contandin on May 8, 1903, in Marseille, endowed with a penetrating expressiveness and an attractive and passionate horse-face. By profession he was a bank employee, but his hobby was acting, acting, acting. He reached vaudeville and theater, and finally under his new name - Fernandel - in 1931 he got the lead in the movie Le Rosier de Mme Husson. This is the story of a small French town in a bad predicament: it has to bestow its yearly virtue prize, but the year is bad - not one girl has kept her virtue. The award goes to a male candidate, Fernandel, a young moron whose chastity is indubitable. This produces an unexpected result: the moron immediately spends the award to get rid of the virtue which won it for him.
Overnight Fernandel became an idol of the French public. Since then he has been in eighty-eight different movies - Harvest, Angèle, Nais, The Well-digger's Daughter, François Ier, Fric-Frac, Ignace, Barnabe, Un de la Légion, etc.
But it is wrong to think of Fernandel as the specialist who provokes bigger and better belly laughs in French movie houses. He is one of France's most sensitive artists and he has created characters of touching poetic charm which one cannot recall without using a handkerchief. Gradually Fernandel is becoming known the world over. He is the most palpable evidence that there is an international language, understandable to everyone: the language that is spoken by every face we look at. If Fernandel's face seems to speak this language with a slight French accent - Southern French accent, to be exact - so what? Accents and differences exist not to be resented but to be relished. But now, on to the interview itself...
Page [1] [2]
Page [1] [2]
"It makes this kind of an interview so legitimate," I said, and started to shoot my questions at him. Then, at a speed of 1/2000 sec. I shot the answers.
Life magazine published a few of these shots, and I thought nothing more of them until one evening Dick Simon of Simon and Schuster came to my home and saw many of the pictures which Life had not published. Dick is a photographer, but for once he didn't ask me what exposure I had used and what film. Instead, he laughed for five solid minutes, and then started figuring out how a book of these photographs of Fernandel could be put together.
I told him I was somewhat skeptical about the chances of its being a successful book. Again he laughed. I don't know whether at my realism, or at the photographs. Now a few words about Fernandel:
To be a success a French movie needs only one ingredient: Fernandel. He was born Fernand Contandin on May 8, 1903, in Marseille, endowed with a penetrating expressiveness and an attractive and passionate horse-face. By profession he was a bank employee, but his hobby was acting, acting, acting. He reached vaudeville and theater, and finally under his new name - Fernandel - in 1931 he got the lead in the movie Le Rosier de Mme Husson. This is the story of a small French town in a bad predicament: it has to bestow its yearly virtue prize, but the year is bad - not one girl has kept her virtue. The award goes to a male candidate, Fernandel, a young moron whose chastity is indubitable. This produces an unexpected result: the moron immediately spends the award to get rid of the virtue which won it for him.
Overnight Fernandel became an idol of the French public. Since then he has been in eighty-eight different movies - Harvest, Angèle, Nais, The Well-digger's Daughter, François Ier, Fric-Frac, Ignace, Barnabe, Un de la Légion, etc.
But it is wrong to think of Fernandel as the specialist who provokes bigger and better belly laughs in French movie houses. He is one of France's most sensitive artists and he has created characters of touching poetic charm which one cannot recall without using a handkerchief. Gradually Fernandel is becoming known the world over. He is the most palpable evidence that there is an international language, understandable to everyone: the language that is spoken by every face we look at. If Fernandel's face seems to speak this language with a slight French accent - Southern French accent, to be exact - so what? Accents and differences exist not to be resented but to be relished. But now, on to the interview itself...
Page [1] [2]
Philippe Halsman, The Frenchman
Hardcover, 17.5 x 23.5 cm (6.9 x 9.3 in.), 108 pages
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$ 19.99
Making faces: a highly original visual Q&A with France`s most beloved comic actor
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