Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Not quite a biopic, this is a little slice of Céline's life during his flight to Denmark in 1945, to escape prosecution in France for collaboration. The other "clown" in the title is a handsome young Jewish-American professor at Chicago, Milton Hindus. An admirer of Céline's literary work, he has been corresponding with Céline and sending him food parcels. The film begins with Milton's arrival on a 3-week visit, leaving behind his pregnant wife. Welcomed at first, relations between the two men soon turn sour, while Céline's charming (third) wife, Lucette and Milton form a sincere friendship based on mutual respect. Céline comes over as a very nasty person, rabidly anti-semitic and often unable to control his insane rages. Physically, he is shown as a raddled, ugly man of stunted growth while the Jewish Milton is tall, slim, elegant and intelligent (if naive). The film ends with his return to America and his family, wiser and sadder - but he will publish the book he came to write (without informing Céline). By the way, the French title of the film is: "Louis-Ferdinand Céline" - the clowns phrase is a sub- title.

The real event may have been the start of a subtle movie, unfortunately the movie focused on the Céline described in the Milton Hindus book and forgets that there are generally 2 sides of the story. Thus, we are served a caricature of a man that was already prone to caricaturate himself. The meeting of these two, the genius but antisemitic writer from France and the jewish universitary man from the US, does still present some interest.

This is really the first movie in which Géraldine looks actually like a grandma : black dress, gray pants, dark pullover, hair in bun… This is not really a joke as her couple lives in a old farm, almost like cavemen, with no comfort and rags… And honestly, her pal playing her husband writer Celine would have been more helpful in Quasimodo or Planet of the Apes !!

Anyway, this depressive setting really doesn't help the movie, all the more this is a dreadful, stupid artist Biopic ! Producers take us really for dimwits : a artist releases art works but an artist's life is not an art work ! It's very pretentious to think that the artist life is as essential and important as the art, except for merchants eager to sell us products after products… I got my eye-opener with U2 : i love their music but hearing them talk about it, it's just silly… Now medias fill us up every second with facts about People : it's soup that we don't need, it's pride for them and a punishment for us : we are nothing compared to those artists !

For sure, among Géraldine worst movies ever !!!

I have not read Céline but one bit in the film shows he knows how to write. However, in the film he is rather unsufferable and rather bad. Milton is the naive young man getting a delusion. Reality probably had more sense but the film does informs a bit.