At this point, however, Martin returns home to Artigat. Likely having heard about the trial, he makes his way home and disproves du Tihl, who is then arrested and executed for his crime. Martin's family embraces him, but he disparages Bertrande initially for falling for the imposter. After some time, however, the two fall back in love after their long separation, going on to have two more children together. Martin has proven himself, recovered his family and wealth, and returned home for good.
Focusing on the lives of ordinary people, the book is a social history as well as a microhistory. The singular events of Martin Guerre's return function as a means to explore how peasants lived in that era and region. Her book received criticism from historian Robert Finlay, who believed her reinterpretation of Guerre's wife, Bertrande, from a simple-minded woman who was duped to a calculating and active participant in the events was too modern of a view. However, as a very early microhistory and social history, the book is a novel way to explore history and remains influential to this day.
The book centers on the main character, Guerre, who is forced to live in exile for a decade. With his family, wealth, and property unclaimed, an imposter attempts to take his place; Guerre's family's suspicion of the imposter takes them to court. During the trial, Guerre returns home after a decade to reclaim his family, wealth, and identity.
As the bluff, romantic, sensitive soldier who returns to the village after years away (or does he?) he manages to provoke all sorts of reactions from his other on-screen characters as well as the film's audience.
you gotta feel for arnaud and bertrande here - arnaud just wanted a life and was prob gonna make some sick beer with that barley and bertrande just wanted a loving husband. all ripped away due to the law. and martin, that asshole. this is why what's legal is not always what's right
In sixteenth-century France, in the village of Artigat in the region of Languedoc during the reign of FranÃois I, a boy who does not acclimate well to his peers, his community, his work, or the idea of marriage deserts his young bride and both of their families after his father accuses him of theft, only to return many years later to claim what he thinks is rightfully his. Then, of course, problems ensue. Who is this person? Is he really who he says he is? Some say he strongly resembles one Arnaud du Tilh. His deserted wife is only too happy to have him back, and although his parents have both died and cannot verify his identity, others can, including his uncle, who for a time seems to accept and forgive him for what he has done. The story is both legendary (different versions and divergent details depending on the teller) as well as based on actual events (court transcript, official legal records). The academic account by Natalie Zemon Davis is a classic of its kind and is eminently useful for any student of the early modern period. How did a community define itself or react to a stranger? What was a family? What did privacy mean? If someone identified herself as a certain person, did it necessarily follow that others would accept the conception of the self that she had constructed? Would a woman who knew perfectly well that the man in her bed was not her husband be complicit in the ruse? If so, why?
During the medieval times, Martin Guerre returns to his hometown in the middle of France, after being away in the war since he was a child. Nobody recognise him, and the people who knew him suspect he is not Martin, but he knows all about his family and friends, even the most unusual things. Is this man really Martin Guerre?
The show is based on the same French legend as the 1982 movie "The Return of Martin Guerre": In 16th-century France, a man comes to the village of Artigat claiming to be the same Martin Guerre who deserted his wife there seven years ago. The movie was an "Is he or isn't he?" tale, a mystery story with the wife's ambivalent motivations at its center. The musical, which lets us know right from the start that the returning man is not Guerre, hasn't decided what it is.
For their third musical following Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg chose the true story of 16th-century Frenchman Martin Guerre, who left his village for many years only to be replaced by an impostor. The story has been the subject of several artistic treatments, including the films The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) and Sommersby (1993). But for Boublil and Schonberg, whose large-scale musicals tend to be hung on large-scale subjects like the Vietnan War, it seems slight, a modest mystery with a sexy tag (Guerre's wife, you see, has accepted the impostor). Not surprisingly, then, the writers have tricked out their version with weightier concerns, to wit: In this telling, the story is told against the backdrop of the early struggles of the Reformation, so that the issue isn't so much, "Is he or isn't he Martin Guerre?," but instead, "Is he a Catholic or a Protestant?" And in this version, there's no mystery at all -- the impostor doesn't even intend to deceive the villagers, but their desire for Martin Guerre's return (so he can sire a Catholic heir) overwhelms him. When the musical opened in London on July 10, 1996, it was savaged by reviewers, and after limping along for a few months was substantially revised for a more successful reopening on Nov. 11. This London cast album, recorded from July to September, thus captures a show in transition, which may help explain why the lyric sheet doesn't quite match what's sung. The onstage difficulties of the story are less bothersome on record, though the plot remains difficult and not very interesting to follow. The main problem is that, despite the usual over-orchestrated musical bombast disguising relatively simple, repetitive melodic lines (closer to Philip Glass than Mozart), there are no memorable songs on the order of Les Mis's "On My Own" or Miss Saigon's "The American Dream." In fact, much of the score sounds like outtakes from Les Mis, in the service of a much smaller and less comprehensible story.
In 16th-century South-West France, Martin Guerre is a young man married to Bertrande de Rols. One day, he runs away from his village. Nine years later, a man claiming to be Martin Guerre (Depardieu) returns and everybody recognizes him, including his wife Bertrande (Baye). Over time, various people in the village begin to doubt that this man is the real Martin Guerre. Things come to a head when he demands money from his uncle, who responds by accusing him of being an impostor.
During the middle of the 16th century, Martin Guerre returns to his village in southwestern France, after being away in the war for almost a decade. The villagers who knew him as a young man suspect he is not Martin, but he seems to know all about his friends, his family and his wife, even the most unusual things. Is this man really Martin Guerre?
After multiple legal cases, including an appeal of an initial guilty sentence, Arnaud was about to be acquitted when the real Martin Guerre returned from Spain to reclaim his identity. Arnaud du Tilh was sentenced to death.
Martin Guerre was a young man who, in 1548, disappeared from the southern French village of Artigat after being accused of stealing grain from his father. Eight years later, a man arrived in Artigat claiming to be Martin. He was accepted as such by Guerre's wife Bertrande and family, and lived with Bertrande as her husband for three years, although some villagers entertained doubts about his identity. Rumours, encouraged by Guerre's uncle Pierre who was involved in a property dispute with his supposed nephew, began to spread that this "Martin" was in fact an impostor. He was arrested and placed on trial, but his intimate knowledge of Guerre's past life and the support he still enjoyed from many villagers seemed likely to secure his acquittal. During the trial, however, there was a dramatic development; another man turned up claiming to be Martin Guerre. It was quickly established that the newcomer was indeed the true Martin and that the impostor was in reality a man from a neighbouring village named Arnaud du Tilh. Du Tilh was convicted and subsequently hanged, adultery and fraud being capital offences in the France of this period.
A number of writers and film-makers have taken inspiration from these events, Whereas the later American film "Sommersby" tells a fictitious tale loosely based upon the story of Martin Guerre, transferring the action to nineteenth-century Virginia, Daniel Vigne's film is a reasonably accurate version of the historical events, aiming at a reconstruction of 16th century French peasant life.
The main role, that of du Tilh, is taken by GÃrard Depardieu, possibly France's finest modern screen actor. His attempts to conquer Hollywood have not been very successful, but I have never seen him give a poor performance in his native language, and this is a fine one, playing his character as a plausible and at times almost likable rogue. He is particularly good in the electrifying trial scene. Whatever else du Tilh may have been, he was clearly a consummate actor, and Depardieu's impassioned speeches reflect his character's knowledge that he needs to give the performance of his life, as that life now depends upon his acting skills.
Just as it seems that du Tilh has succeeded in his imposture, Vigne interrupts the proceedings with a brilliant coup de cinema; the sight of a man with a wooden leg entering the courtroom. Or rather the sight of the wooden leg itself- the angle from which the scene is shot means that we see this before we see the man's face. (We have heard it suggested that the newcomer cannot be Martin Guerre because the real Martin, after leaving the village, joined the army and lost a leg in battle).
Other acting fine contributions come from Roger Planchon as Jean de Coras, the humane and sceptical lawyer in charge of the investigation, and Nathalie Baye as Bertrande, a young woman placed in a difficult situation by the return of her supposed "husband". It is implied that Bertrande, despite her doubts, welcomed du Tilh into her bed because he was both a better lover and a more considerate husband than the departed Martin, who seems to have been deficient in both departments. I would, perhaps, have welcomed a greater exploration of why du Tilh might have tried to claim another man's identity, although Vigne possibly wanted to create a sense of mystery by keeping alive as long as possible the thought that Depardieu's character might actually be the real Martin.
Vigne makes use of few bright colours other than the green of the vegetation and the red of the judges' robes during the trial; in the days before chemical dyestuffs bright colours did not play a large part in the lives of the peasantry. Visually, however, the film is suffused with a warmth of tone reminiscent of an Old master painting; I was particularly put in mind of the works of Breughel and Georges de la Tour celebrating peasant life.
It is sometime said that the British are obsessed with the glories of their past, and that in the cinema this is reflected by the large number of films made on a historical theme. French film-makers, however, seem equally obsessed with history, and this was particularly true in the eighties and nineties. "Le Retour de Martin Guerre" is one of a number of fine French films on a historical theme to date from this period. (Others include "Jean de Florette", "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Le Colonel Chabert", all of which also starred Depardieu). It is well-filmed and well-acted and takes an intelligent and humane look at the strange historical events which inspired it. 8/10
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