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Home > Composers Datebook > Marais goes to the movies


	Podcast:		Composers Datebook
	Episode:		Marais goes to the movies
	Category:		Health
	Duration:		00:01:59
	Publish Date:		2018-05-31 00:00:00
	Description:		A talented performer sacrifices everything, including his integrity, his happiness, his friends and even his lover to climb to the top, only to realize (too late!) what he has sacrificed along the way... Yes, thanks to countless Hollywood “show-biz” films, the basic outline is familiar, and, whether based on fact or fiction, has resulted in countless movies: some memorable, some not. In 1991 a French film was released that combined some fact and a lot of fiction to tell the story of a 17th century performer and composer named Marin Marais, who was baptized in Paris on today’s date in 1656. Marais was a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, a kind of early variant of the modern cello. Sparked by the period-instrument movement of the late 20th century, interest in Marais’ music had been growing for some time before the release of the film, which was titled “Tous les matins du monde,” which translates as "all the mornings of the world [leave] without [ever] returning." Well, it DOES sounds a lot better in French... Anyway, in the film, Gérard Depardieu plays the world-weary, elderly Marin Marais, with the role of the fiercely ambitious, young Marais taken by Depardieu’s actor son, Guillaume. Whether or not it tells the truth about Marais, in a darkened theater, for the space of an hour or two, the film does conjure up some haunting images and ideas as a backdrop for some equally haunting music from the 17th century.
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