Pastoral Symphony (film)

Pastoral Symphony
Pastoral Symphony
	film poster
Directed by	Jean Delannoy
Written by	Jean Aurenche
Based on	Pastoral Symphony by André Gide
Produced by	Joseph Bercholz ; Edouard Gide
Starring	Pierre Blanchar; Michèle Morgan ; Jean Desailly
Cinematography	Armand Thirard
Edited by	Suzette Bouveret
Music by	Georges Auric
Production; company	Les Films Gibé
Distributed by	Pathé Consortium Cinéma
Release date	September 1946 (Cannes Film Festival);
Running time	110 minutes
Country	France
Language	French

Pastoral Symphony (French: La Symphonie pastorale) is a 1946 French drama film directed by Jean Delannoy and starring Michèle Morgan, Pierre Blanchar and Jean Desailly.^[1]

The film is based on the novella La Symphonie Pastorale by André Gide and adapted to the screen by Jean Aurenche.It was shot at the Neuilly Studios in Paris with sets designed by the art director René Renoux. Location shooting took place around Rossinière in Switzerland. The film's score was by Georges Auric. At the 1946 Cannes Film Festival, it won the Grand Prix (equivalent of the Palme d'Or) and the Best Actress award for Michèle Morgan.

It was the film chosen to be shown at the opening gala of the Cameo cinema in Edinburgh, Scotland, in March 1949, and a rare surviving print with English subtitles was shown there again in 2009 to celebrate the film's 60th anniversary, courtesy of the BFI.

Plot summary

The pastor of a mountain village adopts a small blind girl, Gertrude. As Gertrude grows up into an attractive young woman, the pastor, now middle-aged, realises that he is in love with her. To his chagrin, his adopted son, Jacques, is also in love with Gertrude, even though he is shortly to be married to another woman.

Jacques's fiancée is jealous of Gertrude and arranges for her to see a doctor in the hope that she might be cured and to enable Jacques to choose equally between the two women.

Miraculously, Gertrude's sight is restored and she returns to the village a changed woman. Unable to accept Jacques' love and disappointed by the pastor's affections for her, she realises that her former happiness has been lost forever.

Cast

Michèle Morgan as Gertrude
Pierre Blanchar as Le pasteur Jean Martens
Line Noro as Amélie Martens - sa femme
Jean Desailly as Jacques Martens - son fils
Andrée Clément as Piette Castéran
Jacques Louvigny as Castéran
Rosine Luguet as Charlotte Martens
Mona Dol as Soeur Claire
Robert Demorget as Pierre Martens
Hélène Dassonville as Mademoiselle de la Grange
Germaine Michel as La vieille paysanne
Florence Brière as Une amie de Gertrude
Albert Glado as Paul Martens

References

^ Crisp p.122

Bibliography

Crisp, Colin. French Cinema—A Critical Filmography: Volume 2, 1940–1958. Indiana University Press, 2015.
Leahy, Sarah & Vanderschelden, Isabelle. Screenwriters in French cinema. Manchester University Press, 2021.

External links

Pastoral Symphony at IMDb
‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› La Symphonie Pastorale at AllMovie
La Symphonie Pastorale at filmsdefrance.com

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[1] Crisp p.122

[1]

v t e Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or
1939–1975	Union Pacific (1939) No festival held (1940–1945) Brief Encounter (1946) The Last Chance (1946) The Lost Weekend (1946) María Candelaria (1946) Men Without Wings (1946) Neecha Nagar (1946) Pastoral Symphony (1946) The Red Meadows (1946) Rome, Open City (1946) Torment (1946) The Turning Point (1946) Antoine and Antoinette (1947) Crossfire (1947) The Damned (1947) Dumbo (1947) Ziegfeld Follies (1947) No festival held (1948) The Third Man (1949) No festival held (1950) Miracle in Milan (1951) Miss Julie (1951) Othello (1951) Two Cents Worth of Hope (1952) The Wages of Fear (1953) Gate of Hell (1954) Marty (1955) The Silent World (1956) Friendly Persuasion (1957) The Cranes Are Flying (1958) Black Orpheus (1959) La dolce vita (1960) The Long Absence (1961) Viridiana (1961) O Pagador de Promessas (1962) The Leopard (1963) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965) The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (1966) A Man and a Woman (1966) Blowup (1967) Festival cancelled while in progress (1968) if.... (1969) MASH* (1970) The Go-Between (1971) The Mattei Affair (1972) The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1972) The Hireling (1973) Scarecrow (1973) The Conversation (1974) Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975)
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2001–present	The Son's Room (2001) The Pianist (2002) Elephant (2003) Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) L'Enfant (2005) The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) The Class (2008) The White Ribbon (2009) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) The Tree of Life (2011) Amour (2012) Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) Winter Sleep (2014) Dheepan (2015) I, Daniel Blake (2016) The Square (2017) Shoplifters (2018) Parasite (2019) No festival held (2020) Titane (2021) Triangle of Sadness (2022) Anatomy of a Fall (2023) Anora (2024)