Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 103

Caprices de Marianne’ led to the film's four main characters correlating with those of the play; a virtuous wife, a jealous husband, a despairing lover and an interceding friend. In both the play and the film the interceding friend is named Octave. Octave is also the only one of the four characters inspired by the play that shares traits with its counterpart. In both works, Octave is a ‘sad clown’ full of self-doubt and self-pity. The characters' names constantly changed between versions of the script. Renoir said that in an early draft, André Jurieux was an orchestra conductor rather than an aviator.

Renoir re-wrote the character Christine for the Austrian actress Nora Gregor and reportedly fell in love with her during pre-production.

Renoir originally wanted the entire cast of ‘La Bête Humaine,’ including Fernand Ledoux, Simone Simon, Jean Gabin and Julien Carette for the film. Gabin was offered the role of André but rejected it and accepted a role in Marcel Carné's ‘Le Jour se Lève’ instead. He was replaced by Roland Toutain. Simon was offered the role of Christine but wanted 800,000 francs, which was a third of the film's entire budget. Simon's salary request was vetoed by NEF administrator Camille François. Ledoux was offered the role of Schumacher. He was married to Simon at the time. He declined when her salary request was denied and instead