Monsieur Vincent

There are many heart-rending scenes in this film, like taken directly from the reality of the 17th century with all its infernos of gutter life of the poor, the hungry, the sick and the invalids - they are all here, collected in Monsieur Vincent's hospitals for everyone in need, in whatever condition they are, and his hospitals and almshouses are always crowded, even with beggars and invalids fighting over beds that just have become vacant after one patient has died. Pierre Fresnay makes an unforgettable impersonation of the great pioneer of charity, penetrating deeply into the mind and character of the humble priest, who basically had to stand alone all his life against the overwhelming inhumanity of man, and even of women. It is a rich film, not hesitating to expose every aspect of the saint's difficult life and all his adversities, as even the beginning of the film brings you right down the shocking abyss of the horrible recklessness of man, as he gets stoned by the villagers, hiding behind their closed windows, when he comes to take his office as a vicar in a village that has been without a priest for ten years, all the villagers having turned savage as a result. It is a walk through a hell that never ends, and when Monsieur Vincent finally feels his end is coming (at almost 80 years), his dominating feeling is of insufficiency, that he hadn't done enough, that he hadn't really done anything at all during his 50 years of constant overwork, only for the poor and the endless crowd of interminable and eternal incurable misery...

This film of Maurice Cloche was financed by 'the faithful' via national subscription and covers forty years in the life of Vincent de Paul who was canonised in 1737 for his sterling, tireless and utterly selfless work amongst the poor and down trodden of seventeenth century France. It is by nature episodic but that does not lessen its power to move. Cloche has been fortunate enough to secure the services of Pierre Fresnay. The chance to play the title role must have seemed manna from Heaven to this brilliant, mercurial actor who was not exactly riding high in the popularity stakes following investigations into alleged collaboration during the Occupation. His performance is one of the treasured few that transcend the art of film acting. Humanity and humility abound in his characterisation with never a trace of self-righteousness. The cast is uniformly excellent notably Aime Clariond, Jean Debucourt, Lisa Delamare and Gabrielle Dorziat. Claude Renoir has created 'painterly' images whilst Rene Renoux and Rosine Delamare contribute their customary excellence of production and costume design. Superlative title music by Jean-Jacques Grunenwald who had already shown his credentials by composing music for two 'religious' films of Robert Bresson and who was to become titular organist at Saint Sulpice in Paris. Excellent dialogue by playwright Jean Anouilh. Ironically the film poses the question as to whether those who receive charity are grateful or in fact despise those who are dispensing it. Revealing indeed is Vincent's instruction to one of his novices that the poor must be induced to forgive you for the bread you give them! It also questions the moral ambiguity of the Ladies of Charity who shun a foundling that they regard as being conceived in sin. Deservedly heaped with awards including the Oscar for Best Foreign Film before that category became a competitive affair this piece can truly be called a 'labour of love'.

I saw this film at St. John's Prep in Brooklyn, NY, around 1959. The school was run by the Vincentian Fathers (Congregation of Missions-CM). I was surprised to see that Jean Anouilh had written the screenplay; he also wrote Becket. It was somewhat episodic. But I remember each one. He was not a patsy. Food line for the needy. He stops one man and feels his muscles and asks what's wrong with him. Instead, he steers him to a job on the docks. A job is a job and one could argue about unionizing later.

A man with the history of Vincent De Paul would daunt any biographer trying to do him justice, but Maurice Cloche and company hold a decided edge over the monumental task. To undertake it with them, they have the mercurial Pierre Fresnay to play "Monsieur Vincent." Fresnay is critic John Simon's favorite actor, and if there was nothing more than "Grand Illusion" with which to justify his choice, it would still be a worthy one. This movie merely confirms his pre-eminence and our towering esteem.

It opens with De Paul entering the village Chatillon-les-Dombes where he is to assume the vacant post of parish priest and is welcomed with a stoning as he tries to save the life of a girl who has been boarded up in the house where her mother lays dead of what the villagers suspect is the plague. After petitioning the lord of the village to help without success, he takes matters into his own hands, acquiring the help of the church's caretaker to feed the famished child and bury the dead woman. He reprimands the villagers for their lack of charity, and sets out to administer the sacraments and help the family who took the orphaned girl in. He spurs on the people to such heights of charity with his sermons that they offer the family far too much to eat or store, and recognizing the waste that would ensue, he sets out to organize the people to provide for all those wanting with necessities.

The needs of the poor that Vincent De Paul tried to fill went far beyond the French countryside settings of Chatillon and Clichy. He rubbed elbows with nobility and even the royal family. This provided him with the opportunity to minister to the poor in all states of life, whether they were prison inmates or galley workers or refugees (of which there were thousands given the state of turmoil France was in at the time) or the unemployed. While he was breaking new ground on how the Church should organize itself to serve the poor (He founded the Ladies of Charity made up of noblewomen and the Daughters of Charity made up of women of lesser station.), he was also settling moral issues (The most dramatic one is the controversy he has with the charitable organizations over the taking in of foundlings.), advising against duelling, tutoring noblemen's children, and counselling priests and establishing new outlooks on how to take in new ones. The movie can only graze the surface of the phenomenal work of this great man. A much longer runtime would be in order; it could touch on the earlier part of De Paul's life (He had been abducted by Barbary Coast pirates and sold into slavery where he remained for two years under the control of an apostate priest turned Muslim whom he later converted and with whom he returned to France.) and deal with more controversial issues (His denouncing of the Jansenists; his failed plea with the minister Mazarin to leave France to stop the war.). Given the time "Monsieur Vincent" has to pay its homages, the movie uses it laudably well. Whatever its limitations, this is one of the greatest biographical movies ever made.

With a very young Michel Bouquet as a consumptive with whom Father De Paul shares his rented room and who opens the cleric's eyes to a society fraught with misery.

Pierre Fresnay stars as the famous Catholic saint. This film is a biography of the man but it doesn't really follow his entire life--just from the time he founded his charity for the poor until his death. So, exciting stuff in his life before this isn't even mentioned--such as his being captured and enslaved by Barbary pirates!! I think they chose to do that in order to tighten the focus of the film. Instead, it focused on the selflessness of the man, the wretchedness of the poor and the many good things he got his lady followers to do.

The film is very simply made and the film seems straight forward and without the excesses of some religious movies of the day. In other words, Vincent is a man who is driven--but with no halos or crazy music or insane stares into space. I liked the film and it's a religious movie that is approachable and excels with its simplicity.