The Baker’s Wife / La Femme du boulanger

Marcel Pagnol anniversary & introduction by Pasquale Iannone

When the village baker refuses to bake bread because his unfaithful wife has left with a handsome shepherd… the individual drama takes on a collective dimension. Raimu gives us a prodigious interpretation that made Orson Welles say he was the greatest actor in the world. The film was, along with La Trilogie, one of Pagnol’s greatest successes.

Of the casting of Raimu, Pagnol said: “He’s a prodigious actor… At first he didn’t want to play the baker. It had to be Maupi. But when he read the text, he came to me and said: “Don’t you think I should do it? When he gets drunk and tries to roll a cigarette, he who had never rolled one in his life, he is fantastic, everyone was in admiration, we did not dare stop the camera.”

“Bursting with bucolic vigour and sly satirical wit.” Time Out