{"id":1950,"date":"2026-06-29T21:41:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/volkanartz.w23.fr\/?p=1950"},"modified":"2026-06-29T21:54:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:54:43","slug":"premier-amour-par-marcel-pagnol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/volkanartz.w23.fr\/en\/premier-amour-par-marcel-pagnol\/","title":{"rendered":"\"First Love\", by Marcel Pagnol"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I\u00a0was finishing\u00a0Marcel Pagnol's\u00a0childhood memoirs \u2014\u00a0first-rate literature,\u00a0it should be\u00a0said \u2014 which my\u00a0friend C. had been\u00a0kind enough to\u00a0lend me, a book\u00a0caught my eye on his\u00a0shelf:\u00a0\"Le Premier Amour\"\u00a0(\"First Love\").
I naively assumed it was the final volume in that series, the one devoted to childhood and adolescent romance (actually titled\u00a0\"Le Temps des Amours\").<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine my surprise, once home, to discover it was in fact an unproduced screenplay, set, would you believe it, in prehistoric times!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the opening stage directions and notes on intent, it reads essentially as a play \u2014 and a remarkably successful one at that.
Which is why it's the subject of this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Love<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes a good play? (or a good script)
A material capable of awakening the imagination, stirring enthusiasm, and moving us emotionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This piece does all three \u2014 and yet it stands in complete stylistic discontinuity with Pagnol's better-known works, such as the Marseilles Trilogy (Marius \/ Fanny \/ C\u00e9sar)<\/a> or\u00a0Topaze. The shift is apparent both in language and vocabulary (which is quite logicial, considering the prehistoric set), and also because this is, for once, not a comedy.
It is, in short, an artistic oddity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let's picture a tribe fleeing desperately from a wildfire. They take refuge on a bare rocky outcrop overlooking the valley, and count their members \u2014 despite the catastrophe, this in just one crisis among many.
Anyway : life must go on. The very next day, since spring has arrived, the young women of the tribe must go out to \"find babies\" \u2014 the most precious resource for the tribe. They scatter through the surrounding land, soon followed by the clan's men. There is no choosing here; one simply finds one another, by chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But one of the men isn't willing to play along this game. Moved by an strange feeling, he follows one of the women in particular \u2014 the rebel of the group \u2014 and prevents another man from performing \"his duty\". Though this other man is a friend of his, he goes so far as to raise his weapon against him to keep him from reaching that very girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows is a kind of trial, in which our man is judged for the most serious of crimes one could have done : raising a weapon against a fellow tribe member is tantamount to an attack on the tribe itself.
He must explain his act \u2014 which he doesn't deny at all \u2014 without being able to fully account for it. What grips him, of course, is Love. Not only is the tribe unable to grasp this, but worse still, the elder explains the danger it represents: to fix one's attention on a single member of the collective would put the cohesion of the whole group at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great artistic strength of this scene lies in its contrasts: the conversation unfolds with open hearts and genuine tenderness \u2014 and yet the stakes are deadly serious. The young man wants to understand why his transgression is a mortal one, and the old elder duly explains it to him.
What is at stake here is nothing less than the drives of life and death. Rather than an immediate execution, the guilty man is banished \u2014 condemned to live outside the tribe, which is to say, condemned to die before long. And so he departs, exposed to every danger nature has to offer at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moved by a strange impulse, the young woman suddenly decides to go with him. The two of them might form their own small tribe \u2014 but how are they to survive, alone, without a cave, without weapons, with nothing at all, really, naked in the wilderness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I'll leave you to discover what unfolds, but beyond this discovery of Love, there is another: Fire !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Beyond wild animals, cold, hunger, and thirst, there is no greater enemy than Fire \u2014 an almost mystical force that seems to devour everything indiscriminately. When it appears, born of lightning and a raging blaze, there is usually only one response: to run as far as possible from it !
And yet, the woman believes it can be tamed \u2014 that it might even help them, and eventually save from cold the child they will soon bring into the world. The man refuses to believe her, at first, and then lets himself be persuaded.
More dead than alive, he agrees to tempt fate.\nI'll say no more about the plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a dramatist of rare caliber, Pagnol makes us vibrate in sympathy with this unlikely couple. The psychology appears simple \u2014 which is to say, plausible \u2014 and it hits exactly where it should.
These roles would be extraordinary both to play as an actor and to experience as an audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, Pagnol raises fundamental questions whose resonance is still pending today, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n