Themes: Bohemian Life, Actor's Life, Unrequited Love
Main Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Marcel Herrand, Albert Remy, Pierre Renoir
Release Year: 1945
Country: FR
Run Time: 189 minutes
Plot
Even in 1945, Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise was regarded as an old-fashioned film. Set in the Parisian theatrical world of the 1840s, Jacques Prévert's screenplay concerns four men in love with the mysterious Garance (Arletty). Each loves Garance in his own fashion, but only the intentions of sensitive mime-actor Deburau (Jean-Louis Barrault) are entirely honorable; as a result, it is he who suffers most, hurdling one obstacle after another in pursuit of an evidently unattainable goal. In the stylized fashion of 19th-century French drama, many grand passions are spent during the film's totally absorbing 195 minutes. Amazingly, the film was produced over a two-year period in virtual secrecy, without the knowledge of the Nazis then occupying France, who would surely have arrested several of the cast and production staff members (including Prévert) for their activities in the Resistance. Children of Paradise has gone on to become one of the great romantic classics of international cinema. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Shooting secretly over a two-year period during the German Occupation of France, director Marcel Carné and writer Jacques Prévert produced their grandest masterwork. In the 19th century Paris theater world, life and performance become interchangeable, as the complex romantic entanglements of Arletty's inscrutable Garance with superficial actor Frederick, a wealthy count, and especially Jean-Louis Barrault's sensitive mime Baptiste become fodder for the masses crowding the "Street of Crimes" and the theater's uppermost balcony. Structured as two intricate "acts" complete with curtains rising and falling, the film reveals the creative power of idealized love in Baptiste's exquisite mimes of his fateful passion for Garance, even as the ebb and flow of human behavior thwarts that ideal. Magnificently recreating the period and its tradition of popular entertainment, Les Enfants du Paradis was released to international postwar acclaim for its spectacular beauty and excellent acting, while Prévert's intelligent script was nominated for a screenplay Oscar. Even as Carné fell out of artistic favor after the 1940s, Les Enfants du Paradis's glorious visuals transcended its association with the maligned French "Tradition of Quality," maintaining its legacy as Carné and Prévert's crowning achievement. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Maria Casarés - Nathalie; Fabien Loris - Avril; Etienne Decroux - Anselme Deburau; Louis Salou - Count Edward de Monteray; Jane Marken [Jeanne] - Madame Hermine; Pierre Palau - Director; Gaston Modot - The Blind; Paul Frankeur - Inspector of Police; Jean Carmet; Robert Dhéry - Celestin; Jean Lanier - Iago; Léon Larive - Stage Doorman at "Funambules"; Marcel Pérès - Director at "Funambules"; Jacques Castelot - Georges; Paul Demange - Second Author; Auguste Boverio - First Author; Guy Favieres - Debt Collector
Credit
Léon Barsacq - Art Director, Alexandre Trauner - Art Director, R. Cabutti - Art Director, Mayo - Costume Designer, Marcel Carné - Director, Madeleine Bonin - Editor, Henri Rust - Editor, Joseph Kosma - Composer (Music Score), George Mouque - Composer (Music Score), Maurice Thiriet - Composer (Music Score), Roger Hubert - Cinematographer, Marc Fossard - Cinematographer, Fred Orain - Producer, Jacques Prévert - Screenwriter
