All the Mornings of the World (Tous les matins du monde) Two-Disc Edition
by Alain Corneau
List Price:
Our Price: $20.30
You Save: $14.68 (42%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $15.97 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anne Brochet, Carole Richert, Gerard Depardieu, Guillaume Depardieu, Jean-Pierre MarielleDirector: Alain Corneau
Brand: Koch International
Writer: Alain Corneau
Writer: Pascal Quignard
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Published)
Format: Color, Content/Copy-Protected CD, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 115 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-03-07
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: KOCH LORBER FILMS
Product features:
- It's late 17th century. The viola da gamba player Monsieur de Sainte Colombe comes home to find that his wife died while he was away. In his grief he builds a small house in his garden into which he moves to dedicate his life to music and his two young daughters Madeleine and Toinette, avoiding the outside world. Rumor about him and his music is widespread, and even reaches to the court of Lou
Movie Reviews of All the Mornings of the World (Tous les matins du monde) Two-Disc Edition
Movie Review: All the mornings of the world dawn but once
Summary: 5 Stars
Alain Corneau's 1991 All the Mornings of the World (Fr. Tous les matins du monde) is undoubtedly the most beautiful and meaningful film ever made about music and what it means to be a musician. Working in close collaboration on the scenario with the author of a novel by the same name, Pascal Quignard, Alain Corneau chose among the Baroque repertoire the essential pieces of music for the film, exhuming in the process rare pieces by Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, which he esthetically and philosophically opposed to Marin Marais' own music. These pieces are masterfully interpreted by the world-renowned bass viol player, Jordi Savall, who provided what I would call "the icing on the cake." The film won no less than seven Césars, the French equivalent of the Oscars.
The film relates the real story of Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, with a few fictitious anecdotes added to make it more interesting. As in the novel, the dialogue is simple, using our contemporary vocabulary, but the turn of the phrases are typical of 17th Century parlance, whose style recalls the writings of the French dramatists of that epoch, like Pierre Corneille or Jean Racine. The whole story is told from Marin Marais' point of view. The voice-over by Gerard Depardieu imparts a rhythm to different scenes of the film, and when he recalls the life of the Sainte Colombe family before his arrival in the picture, the words precede the images, which then follow as illustrations.
The music, intimately linked to the story, also provides a rhythm. Almost every scene has to do with music, unless it provides an explanation. During Madeleine's ultimate meeting with Marais, it simply substitutes itself for the words. But at no time in the film are we subjected to any dry, academic discussion of music theory. We are treated instead to some great musical works: the rather little known music of Sainte Colombe, that of Marin Marais, exquisitely played by Jordi Savall, but also the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully (his rousing "March for the Turks' Ceremony"), of Francois Couperin, and of Jordi Savall himself.
The two characters, Monsieur de Sainte Colombe and Marin Marais, differ wildly from one another in their physical appearances, personalities, and manners. de Sainte Colombe first appears dressed in black, to play his viol at the bed side of a newly deceased friend. de Sainte Colombe is a Jansenist, stern, taciturn, and somewhat old fashioned, and he chooses a life of a recluse upon his wife's death. As a Jansenist, he abhors the Jesuits, especially those who live in ostentatious luxury at Versailles. He has problems communicating with other people, including his daughters, his only effective means of expression being his music. He stays silent most of the time, and when he speaks, he is curt, as if incapable of conversation. At the time of the story, he is at an age when a man's character, his personality, does not change. He is also sentimental, staying faithful to the memory of his deceased wife, who appears to him when he plays well.
When Marais first appears, he is dressed in a red jacket. Marin Marais is young, and although a little timid at first, he soon becomes sure of himself. He is "on the go," ambitious, and sees a career in music as a way to change his social class. He is definitely a "social climber." Marais is ruthless in his pursuit of his aims: having drawn the maximum out of Madeleine, her knowledge of the viol and her love, both of which she gave freely, Marais drops her like an old shoe and escapes to the Court. The audition scene unambiguously determines the characters of the two protagonists: the young virtuoso plays facing the audience, in full light, while the Master is shown in profile, partly in the shadow.
This scene also reveals two opposite reasons for playing the viol. Marais, having lost his singing voice after entering puberty, is looking to the instrument for a substitute, just as Sainte Colombe, who lost his wife, is looking to his art as a means to reconnect with her. But the young man, who has been evicted from the Court, also looks at the viol as a form of revenge, which will allow him to satisfy his ambitions. Far from wanting a revenge on his fate, Sainte Colombe is looking for solace, for the appeasement of the internal wound he carries.
The actual playing of the viol by the two protagonists could not be more different: Marin Marais' playing is dexterous, and a display of its virtuosity, in search for an audience's approval, while Sainte Colombe's is inspired, passionate and full of sorrows. Their environments are also at opposite ends. Sainte Colombe's house is calm, rustic: it's the country, but Marais' residence is in Versailles, at the Court of Louis XIV, with all its brilliance, luxuries and happenings.
Gerard Depardieu's son, Guillaume, just starting in his acting career, interprets Marin Marais as a young man. He succeeds well at projecting the character of a somewhat shallow but determined young man. Gerard Depardieu appears in the first six minutes of the film, and later toward the end of the film as the mature Marin Marais. His acting is conveying the depressed state of mind of Marais in a convincing manner. But, through his voice-over, he has an imposing presence all along the film's duration, which gives a sense of nostalgia and regret to the story. But it is Jean-Pierre Marielle's performance which steals the show. He is just outstanding as the austere, taciturn Jansenist. Marielle has acted in more than one hundred films, and his Monsieur de Sainte Colombe is certainly one of his best performances. Anne Brochet's acting is delicate, as a simple and sincere young woman, and Carole Richert, as her "sister," is a convincing as an easygoing Toinette. Violaine Lacroix and Nadège Teron, in their roles as the two daughters in their earlier years, were an inspired choice. Their personalities and acting well defines the differences in the characters of the two sisters, which are later developed by Brochet and Richert.
The film also pays tribute to 17th Century painting. Lubin Baugin, a Jansenist friend of Sainte Colombe, famous for his still lifes, paints the pictures "Still Life with Wafers," and "Still Life on the Chessboard." Also, one cannot watch this film without comparing Yves Angelo's gorgeous cinematography to the paintings of Georges de la Tour. Clearly influenced by Caravaggio, de la Tour's themes were few, as he tried to refine his chiaroscuro technique. He was a specialist of night paintings, depicting interior scenes lit only by the glare of candles. Angelo's images are stunning in rendering this effect in the interior scenes. The light is somber and dark in Sainte Colombe's premises, translating the state of mind of the artist and his humble life, while it is bright and warm at the Court, reflecting the ostentatious life surrounding the King.
Corneau's many close-up shots and extreme close-up shots bring intimacy between the characters and the viewer, producing an intimate contact with the actors' deepest feelings, which could not possibly be rendered by dialogue. This requires the outstanding acting of the two actor-musicians, especially during their music-playing scenes. Which brings up another type of "acting," that of faking the playing of the instruments, as none of the actors is a musician, or even a viol player. Thus, the two Depardieux and especially Marielle underwent several months of serious training on the instrument. The results are that the fingerings on the frets of the viols follows precisely the music being played, and the facial expressions of the actors also mirror what one would expect from real performers. This is not a trivial achievement, which contributes greatly to make the transformation of the actors into musicians convincing.
The film is an ode to the inner beauty and the meaning of music, and its main theme is the love of music. All the characters in the film are connected to it; the teacher and composer Sainte Colombe who improved the viol; Marais also teacher and composer; the two daughters who give recitals with their father, and the Kings' representatives. At first, there is a divergence of views between the two protagonists as to the purpose of music and of being a musician. Marais is after a brilliant career, with all the socio-economical advantages it brings, as opposed to a solitary, ascetic, and uncompromising Sainte Colombe who is searching only to perfect his art to an absolute. He plays for himself only, and not on a stage, in front of a public, and certainly not at Louis XIV's Court. His love of music is unselfish and total, while Marais sees in the viol a means to an end. Savall was careful in his choices of the pieces to be played by the two characters in order to illustrate their different approaches to music. However, Savall chose Le tombeau des regrets, the piece Sainte Colombe composed for his dead wife, for Marais' "last/first" lesson from his Master, which they play together in a mutual understanding. Their antagonism resolves itself in a final confrontation, which turns out to be reconciliation, as Marais finally understand the true meaning of music and that of being a musician.
Another theme is Death. The first images of Sainte Colombe, showing him playing his viol at the bedside of his dead friend, identify him with funeral music. In the recalling of Sainte Colombe's life, Marais presents his teacher as a man familiar with death: "He viewed the world in the bright flame of the torch lit by the bedside of the dying." This baroque theme of the juxtaposition of life and death permeates the whole film. The type of painting by Lubin Baugin ("Still Life on the Chessboard") was called a "vanity," a popular genre in the Baroque era, especially in Holland, and had a symbolic value connected to the Ecclesiastic quotation "vanitas vanitatis," -- vanity of vanity, all is vanity, which is in keeping with this particular theme. The message is to meditate on the world's pleasure as death threatens. The opposition between life and death appears in the duality between the two sisters; one chooses life and the other chooses death. The wife's death leads Sainte Colombe to close himself from the world and compose "Le tombeau des regrets." And it is Madeleine's death which leads Marais to reaching his full potential as a composer. Views of the blue pond, scene of death, alternate with views of the shack, scene of free improvisations. As such, death proves to be a source of life, and art makes it possible to revive the beloved. As Orpheus with his lyre, Sainte Colombe with his viol is able to recall his dead wife from Hades. But in order to dispel any notion of the fantastic, before showing the apparitions of the beautiful deceased, the camera always shows Sainte Colombe's ecstatic look. Finally, Marais, now an accomplished artist, can honor Madeleine's memory by playing "La reveuse," transcending his pain in music and in dreams.
Summary of All the Mornings of the World (Tous les matins du monde) Two-Disc Edition
In the dazzling tradition of Amadeus, Tous les Matins du Monde is a seductive tale of music and passion set in provocative 17th century France. Academy Award® nominee Gérard Depardieu (Best Actor ? Cyrano de Bergerac) stars in a fascinating story filled with romance, lust, desire, devotion, revenge and intrigue. A reclusive composer and his two beautiful daughters? lives are forever changed by a flamboyant young student who enters their lives. See for yourself why critics and audiences alike are applauding this magnificent film and celebrated winner of 7 César Awards including Best Picture!Background on the Film The film is the result of the collaboration between novelist Pascal Quignard, director Alain Corneau and musician Jordi Savall who wanted to do a film on music. Quignard wrote and adapted the book to a screenplay.
The film was a phenomenal success and sold 2 million tickets in the first year and was distributed in 31 countries. The soundtrack was certified platinum (500,000 copies) and made Jordi Savall an international star.
Gérard Depardieu plays a court composer at Versailles whose sense of artistic emptiness causes him to reflect upon his old music teacher (Jean-Pierre Marielle), a man who taught him more than music but whom he ultimately betrayed. (The younger version of Depardieu's character is portrayed by the actor's son, Guillaume.) Alain Corneau's gorgeous 1991 film has a slow, deliberative air about it, with little dialogue and a painterly look (shot by cinematographer-director Yves Angelo, maker of Colonel Chabert) that paradoxically inspires both excitement and meditation. A period costume piece that chooses to understate pageantry for ideas and emotions, this film is quite special. --Tom Keogh
Similar DVD Movies
La Vie en Rose (Extended Version)HBO HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2007-11-13; Published: 2007-11-01; DVD
Best price: $7.08
Price in other shops:
VatelBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2001-08-07; Published: 2001-08-01; DVD
Best price: $9.45
Price in other shops:
Tous Les Matins Du Monde - Tous Les Matins Du MondeRelease date: 2002-03-12; Music CD
Best price: $14.98
Price in other shops:
Le Roi Danse (Original French Version with English Subtitles)Published: 2000; DVD
Best price: $15.00
MoliereSony; Release date: 2008-01-22; DVD
Best price: $8.92
Price in other shops:
Un Coeur en Hiver ( A Heart in Winter )Koch International; Release date: 2006-11-07; DVD
Best price: $13.94
Price in other shops:
Cyrano de BergeracSony; Release date: 2004-02-10; DVD
Best price: $7.17
Price in other shops:
![Tous les matins du monde [Bande Originale du Film] [Hybrid SACD] Image](/images/Tous-les-matins-du-monde-Bande-Originale-du-Film-Hybrid-SACD-B00064X3KY-X.jpg)
Tous les matins du monde [Bande Originale du Film] [Hybrid SACD]Release date: 2006-03-06; Music CD
Best price: $17.17
Price in other shops:
The Count of Monte CristoKoch International; Release date: 2005-12-06; DVD
Best price: $14.39
Price in other shops:
Jean De Florette / Manon of the Spring (Double Feature)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2007-07-24; Published: 1987; DVD
Best price: $12.65
Price in other shops: