tintin-23 The film relates the real story of Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, one of the most renowned viol players of the 17th Century, with a few fictitious anecdotes added to make it more interesting.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 music, intimately linked to the story, also provides a rhythm. Almost every scene has to do with music, unless it provides an explanation. Along the way, we are treated to some great music: the little known music of Sainte Colombe, that of Marin Marais, both 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. Sainte Colombe is a Jansenist, stern, taciturn, and somewhat old fashioned, and he chooses a life of a recluse upon his wife's death. His only effective means of expression is his music. Sainte Colombe's house is calm, rustic: it's the country. Marin Marais is young, ambitious, and sees a career in music as a way to change his social class, and he is ruthless in his pursuit of his aims. Marais' residence is in Versailles, at the Court of Louis XIV, with all its brilliance, luxuries and happenings.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, ionate and full of sorrows. 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.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. Throughout the film, the voice-over 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. Anne Brochet's acting is delicate, as a simple and sincere young woman, and Carole Richert, as her sister, is 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 chiaroscuro paintings of Georges de la Tour. Angelo's images are stunning in rendering this effect in the interior scenes.Alain Corneau's many close-up shots and extreme close-up shots bring intimacy between the characters and the viewer, producing an intimate 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.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 music. At first, there is a divergence of views between the two protagonists as to the purpose of music and of being a musician. 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 a 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. 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. 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.All the Mornings of the World is an exquisite film, with great acting, great cinematography and atmosphere, and of course great music, which will certainly appeal to music and history enthusiasts, but also to people eager for new aesthetic experiences.
rake-7 First let me say that I am typically very favorable on historical drama in general and music history in particular--The Red Viloin, Farinelli, Topsy-Turvy, Amadeus--fine pictures all, in their own ways. Tous Les Matins du Monde begins auspiciously, and unfolds with such grace and skill that for the first half, at least, one is easily given over to the assumption of being gratefully ensconced in a wise and perceptive story of loss, love, and art. Few films set in the 17th century are as evocative of the period; the music itself is transcendent; and there are moments and genuine epiphany, even if they are a bit more intellectual than emotional. But Tous Les Matins du Monde turns out to be a crafty deceit, one that I find to be so terribly, typically French: the notion that suffering itself connotes importance, that joy is for wimps, and that redemption is embodied in art alone (i.e. the sublime expression of suffering). This is a bit like the notion that being cynical is the same as being smart. It looks a lot like truth, but when you scratch the surface you find only a lazy potential for real insight. Such is the unfortunate scope of Tous Les Matins du Monde. By the last third of the picture, one begins to realize that it has nothing very much more to say than what it had been offering all along. That's not a story, it's a premise. It's a good thing the music contains so much range of emotion, because everything else in the picture is striking a single note. The perfunctory and somewhat ridiculous intellectual exchange at the end about the "answer" to what music is only serves to emphasize the limitations of the exercise. In true French fashion, the pretense of gravity is meant to be taken for the real thing.
maleesh First things first, this is a film very much about music, so if you do not like "classical" music, then find something else. It is something like a short philosophy of music according to M. de St. Colombe and Marin Marais, two very different composers---how close the movie is to the "real" St. Colombe and Marias, confessedly, I do not know, but this is not a documentary, so it really does not matter. There is also a very beautiful exploration of love and its various manifestations in friendship, parenthood, and sexual relations. The movie is heavy, burdened by sadness and melancholy; but it is a beautiful film and worth viewing so long as you are prepared for its weight. Its tones are elegiac, autumnal, meditative, and inward, as is the haunting music given us by Jordi Savall and co. The acting, sets, and cinematography are all excellent (hence the 10 rating). If you want something light then this is not the film for you; if you are, however, in a mood for a film that mourns with dignity, then you have found the right one.
