An animated look at a filmmaker's life

      To appreciate the animated biopic, A Magnificent Life, a bit of background helps.

    The name Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974) may not have the same kind of resonance with American audiences as French directors such as Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Even when it comes to movies of the 1930s, cineastes are probably more familiar with the work of Jean Renoir and Rene Clair, both of whom were Pagnol's contemporaries. 

   I'm being sketchy, of course, but I begin this way because Pagnol may be better known to French audiences than to American viewers. I'm not even sure Pagnol receives main-course treatment in American film schools.

    If anything, American audiences are familiar with Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs, two 1986 movies directed by Claude Berrie and adapted from a pair of Pagnol's novels.

     Director Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Bellville) has taken on the challenge of bringing Pagnol's life to light with A Magnificent Life, a  Pagnol biography that's animated with detail, style, and affection. Chomet creates an encompassing world for a story about a multi-talented artist who wrote novels, plays, and directed films for which he also wrote the screenplays.

   Chomet tells the story with flashbacks, beginning in 1974. Presumably finished with creating, Pagnol is asked to write articles for Elle magazine. Writing proves difficult, partly because Pagnol’s memory has begun to fade. Enter a young Marcel, a character who serves to trigger memories of the author’s life and give the movie a whimsical touch. Pagnol chats with his younger self.

   An early episode recounts the death of Pagnol's mother. Fifteen at the time of his mother's death, Pagnol already had begun writing poetry. Mom had been his primary audience; her loss proved devastating. 

   The story then finds Pagnol, as a young married man, teaching Latin in Marseille. When he was transferred to Paris, a move he celebrated, his wife objected, but Pagnol's life as a writer began in earnest.

    Chomet goes through the major events in Pagnol's  life: his Paris successes, his return to Marseille, and his work with French actor Raimu, depicted here in amusingly boisterous fashion.

    We also learn about Pagnol's loves and his commitment to putting the Marseille accent into a trilogy of films (Marius, Fanny, and Cesar) released during the 1930s. Perhaps foreshadowing what we think of as "series" storytelling, the films followed the same characters for years. 

    Like all lives, Pagnol's had rough spots. In 1954, he lost his two-and-half-year-old daughter, Estelle. He took more than 10 years before making another film. 

     I saw a dubbed English-language version of A Magnificent Life, which eventually lost steam, as it drew from Confidences, a collection of Pagnol's essays. 

   Chomet's animation creates an absorbing world that brings its own rewards, but the movie does as much telling as showing, and in the end, makes a better showcase for Chomet's talent than for Pagnol's significance as an artist.