Shooting of Henri Verneuil’s 'Mayrig' in Marseille |
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First broadcast date
05/31/1991
Abstract
Shooting of Henri Verneuil’s autobiographical film ‘Mayrig’ in Marseille. The film traces the Armenians’ arrival in Marseille in the 1920’s, fleeing the Turkish genocide.
Production companies
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France 3 Marseille - Own production
Personalities
- Verneuil Henri
- Cardinale Claudia
- Shariff Omar
Secondary themes
- Society and way of life / Migrations
Credits / Cast
- Girard Hugues - Journalist
Map locations
- France - South East - Marseille
Context
Henri Verneuil in Marseille
Bernard Cousin
In 1985, Henri Verneuil (his real name was Achod Malakian), 65 years old, came to Marseille, the town where he spent his childhood, the novel which he had just written after the death of his mother and which was inspired mainly from his own memories as a 5 year old Armenian landing at Marseille, with his family, and who like many others, had fled Turkey in the years following the Armenian genocide.
At that point Henri Verneuil had a long and successful career as a film-maker behind him, having made 35 feature films, of which twenty were seen by more than two million spectators, the rrecord being held by La Vache et le prisonnier (The cow and the prisoner) 1959 with Fernandel, which brought in 9 million spectators. He worked with some of France's greatest actors (Fernandel, Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura). A good professional (writer and director), influenced by the American cinema, he worked in different genres: comedy, police films, war films, spy films. His films were always aimed at the general public and thus he was often targeted by the critics.
A man who is the perfect example of someone assimilating himself into French society, as his professional name shows, was interested in his own history and Armenian roots by publishing Mayrig – "mummy" in Armenian. The enormous success of the book led him to transfer it to the screen in two full-length feature films: Mayrig in 1991 and 588, rue Paradis in 1992, with Omar Sharif, Claudia Cardinale anbd Richard Berry. He portrayed a family in exile and their integration in the world of Armenians in Marseille after the Great War. It was the period when members of this large community -- which managed to integrate into Marseille very successfully -- turn to the past, demanding official recognition of the genocide, and more genrally, to their Armenian roots and culture. The writer Jean Kéhayan said about this: "This role as catalyst for the Armenian community, which is perhaps one of the acts which afterwards led to the recognition of the genocide by the French parliament, I was the witness to how he first showed Marseille. More than a thousand extras, all Armenian, and all those who had followed the filming which carried on in a passionate celebration, were conscious that something imnportant waqs happening: this film was going to take revenge on all the silences which up until then had weighed so heavily."
Bibliography:
Roger Vignaud, Henri Verneuil, Marseille, Autres temps Editions, 2008.
Henri Verneuil, Mayrig, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1985, also in English as a Kindle book via Amazon UK
