Marcel Proust's Time Regained (1999)

A lush, elegant epic taking us on a time-swirling trip down the infinitely complex labyrinth that is Marcel Proust's memory lane.

Director:

Raoul Ruiz

Writers:

Marcel Proust (novel), Gilles Taurand (scenario)

Stars:

Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Béart, Vincent Perez

2 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Catherine Deneuve	...	Odette de Crecy
Emmanuelle Béart	...	Gilberte
Vincent Perez	...	Morel
John Malkovich	...	Le Baron de Charlus
Pascal Greggory	...	Saint-Loup
Marcello Mazzarella	...	Marcel Proust
Marie-France Pisier	...	Madame Verdurin
Chiara Mastroianni	...	Albertine
Arielle Dombasle	...	Madame de Farcy
Edith Scob	...	Oriane de Guermantes
Elsa Zylberstein	...	Rachel
Christian Vadim	...	Bloch
Dominique Labourier	...	Madame Cottard
Philippe Morier-Genoud	...	Monsieur Cottard
Melvil Poupaud	...	Le Prince de Foix

Storyline

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is on his deathbed. Looking at photographs brings memories of his childhood, his youth, his lovers, and the way the Great War put an end to a stratum of society. His memories are in no particular order, they move back and forth in time. Marcel at various ages interacts with Odette, with the beautiful Gilberte and her doomed husband, with the pleasure-seeking Baron de Charlus, with Marcel's lover Albertine, and with others; present also in memory are Marcel's beloved mother and grandmother. It seems as if to live is to remember and to capture memories is to create a work of great art. The memories parallel the final volume of Proust's novel.

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Plot Keywords:

oneiric | memory | proust | marcel proust | deathbed | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | War

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Details

Official Sites:

Kino International

Country:

France Italy Portugal

Language:

French

Release Date:

19 May 1999 (France)

Also Known As:

Marcel Proust's Time Regained

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Box Office

Budget:

FRF65,000,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$247,728

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$248,653

Company Credits

Production Co:

Gemini Films, France 2 Cinéma, Les Films du Lendemain

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The third time that Chiara Mastroianni has acted alongside her mother, Catherine Deneuve.

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Connections

Referenced in Ricardo Aronovich, avec mes yeux de dinosaure du cinéma (2011)

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Soundtracks

Le temps retrouvé (Vocalise)
Written by Jorge Arriagada
Performed by Natalie Dessay (soprano)

User Reviews

Chilly Coffee-table Ornament

TIME REGAINED

(Fr., dir. Raul Ruiz, 165 min.) doesn't even pretend to stand on its own; is an homage useless and unintelligible to anyone who hasn't read and remembered Remembrance of Things Past. Having digested only the first 2 of the 7 novels which comprise this opus, and this long enough ago to have allowed memory of them to deteriorate, I confess much of the film remained beyond me. But even with the book as scorecard, the film functions as hardly more than a metasoap opera, a costume pageant of the book's characters who parade by, talk and walk, without ever coming to life.

Nothing much happens onscreen; the movie is practically void of action. Despite impeccable staging, it consists largely of one conversation after another, endless scenes of dinners, lunches, social gatherings, etc., in which people dispassionately discuss events and relationships that have already transpired elsewhere. To make up for this, Ruiz moves furniture about, has near and far fields migrate disjointedly in opposite directions, litters the screen with symbols and leitmotivs, and mingles different times in the same frame, so that, like Bruce Willis in Disney's Kid, Proust observes, is observed by, and even converses with his younger self. Scenes shift so fluidly back and forth through time that one easily gets lost, disoriented, unless thoroughly familiar with the book.

The movie fails, has to fail, because of the impossibility of translating the book to film. The book is too introverted, too subjective, too fundamentally static and multilayered. Cinema-time is linear and dynamic; even though it can create the illusion of multiple things happening at once, it is restricted to a sequence of events, actions, happening one after another, one at a time, all of which are, above all, visual, graphic, right there before your eyes. The novel, however, layers the past on the present so that the two effectively coexist, are simultaneous; and delves into subjective states and ideas, interweaves mood, reminiscence, and philosophizing inseparably with place and person. The subject of time and memory, as elusive and evocative as it is on the page, is near nigh impossible to get hold of with film, that most literal and physical of mediums. It's like trying to photograph the passage of mist, of fog--all you see is a mess of grey.

The movie also fails because it can only gloss the myriad details with which the novels slowly, deliberately mount their magnificent edifice. In the end, all you get here is a rushed visit, a mad dash through a museum of images, a disordered travelogue of the psyche.