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Storyline
Gervaise Macquart, a young lame laundress, is left by her lover Auguste Lantier with two boys... She manages to make it, and a few years later she marries Coupeau, a roofer. After working very hard a few more years, she succeeds in buying her own laundry (her dream)... But Coupeau starts to drink after having fallen from a roof, and Lantier shows up... A faithful adaptation of Emile Zola's novel "L'Assomoir", depicting the fatal degeneration of a family of workers, mainly because of alcohol. Written by
Yepok
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Plot Synopsis
Taglines:
A Most Unusual Love Story in a Most Unusual Motion Picture!
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Quotes
Gervaise Macquart Coupeau, une blanchisseuse douce et courageuse:
[
singing "Let Me Sleep"]
What's the use of dreaming of birds and nests If the bird flies away and abandons the nest If the pigeon dies so does his mate What's the use of dreaming of birds and nests What's the use of sleeping if the night disappears If I must wake and face the day If I only wake to shed more tears What's the use of sleeping If the night disappears Days and nights whirl through my head Days and nights fill me with dread What's the use of dreaming Let me sleep Let me...
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Connections
Version of
Faldgruben (1909)
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Soundtracks
"Laissez-moi dormir"
Music by
Georges Auric
Lyrics by
Raymond Queneau
Performed by Maria Lopez
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Why Maria Schell?If you have read Zola's masterpiece -"l'assommoir" the seventh of the Rougon Macquart saga,and one of the finest, surpassed only by "Germinal"- ,you wonder why Clement chose her when the part was tailor made for Simone Signoret.On the other hand ,Suzy Delair was the ideal Virginie Poisson,hypocrite venomous and vile .They say her buttocks were "dubbed" (by Liliane Montevecchi's) during the famous scene of the spanking ! René Clément did a good job even if his adaptation seemed sometimes tame and timid .Zola's depictions are so intense that it's hard to transfer them to the screen.But the " fête de Gervaise " ,with the gargantuan meal comes close to fully recreate it,and it was not easy since in the book it spreads over about twenty pages.
Despise some reservations,this is an unqualified must for good cinema lovers.