Edit
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
Plot Summary
|
Plot Synopsis
Taglines:
Heaped With Honors As Few Films Achieve
See more »
Edit
Did You Know?
Quotes
Gervaise Macquart Coupeau, une blanchisseuse douce et courageuse:
Morning came and he still hadn't returned. He'd been out all night. It was the first time. I was so proud to have the handsomest guy around, me, the gimp.
See more »
Connections
Version of
Faldgruben (1909)
See more »
Soundtracks
"Laissez-moi dormir"
Music by
Georges Auric
Lyrics by
Raymond Queneau
Performed by Maria Lopez
See more »
Maria Schell plays the titular character in this film adaptation of Emile Zola's novel L'Assomoir. This is like the saddest movie ever. I seriously wept for twenty minutes after it finished, and every time I think of it I start to tear up again. Schell plays a poor washerwoman with little luck in men. Her first man, who never married her, leaves her with two young boys for another woman. Her next man, her first husband (played by Francois Perier), becomes a slave to wine, chronically unemployed and defying his wife and family at every turn for another drink. Sure, this is your typical suffering woman narrative, but, Hell, women have suffered throughout history, and this is a downright powerful story. The characterizations are very complex, and every actor in the film is absolutely perfect. L'Assomoir came in the middle of a cycle of twenty novels. Gervaise's daughter, Nana, was the focus of a later novel in the series (Jean Renoir adapted that novel, called Nana, in 1926).