ABSTRACT: A study of the differences among Octave Mirbeau's novel, Le journal d'une femme de chambre (1900), and the three adaptations based on it, the play Le roman d'une femme de chambre by André de Lorde and André Heuzé (1931) and the films by Jean Renoir (1946) and Luis Buñuel (1964), reveals significant differences, not only in the character of the chambermaid Célestine, but also in the socio-political context in which she is presented. The Mirbeau novel shows a morally ambiguous and perplexing woman in a violent diatribe against turn-of-the-century French bourgeoisie. The play, catering to a Parisian bourgeois audience, leaves out the political elements to show only a chambermaid's unpleasant life and ultimate escape. Renoir's movie is a light-hearted fantasy, shaped by its authors' perception of American tastes and by the strictures of the Hayes Code and dominated by the charming presence of Paulette Goddard. Buñuel's film emphasizes sexual desire and depravity while turning the political content into a cautionary tale against neo-fascist ideas in France following the Algerian war.
Anyone who has seen both Jean Renoir's The Diary of a Chambermaid and Luis Buñuel's Le journal d'une femme de chambre is likely to wonder how two such different movies could be adapted from the same novel. While Renoir's film is often dismissed as a light entertainment "made in USA" and therefore not worthy to be considered alongside his pre-war French masterpieces, Buñuel's is a much darker work with overtones of sexual perversion and sadistic brutality. As Peter William Evans summed up the differences in his study of Buñuel's films:
While Renoir's multi-focused film stresses social questions among its many issues, Buñuel's heavily emphasizes sexuality, exploring wild and domesticated desires, taking the audience to the limits of sexual experience, revealing the uncontrollable power and irresistability of sex drives, forcing a realization of the extent to which desire simultaneously ennobles and demonizes, exalts and trivializes, men and women. (143)
The two chambermaids, played respectively by Paulette Goddard and Jeanne Moreau at the peak of their careers, are about as different as one could possibly imagine; yet both can be seen to have originated in traits of the character created by Octave Mirbeau in his 1900 novel. Renoir's work was also based on a theatrical adaptation of the original novel, Le roman d'une femme de chambre by André de Lorde and André Heuzé, which had it premiere at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris in 1931.1 Thus, there are, in fact, three adaptations of the novel; comparisons of the four works allow interesting contrasts to be drawn, not only among the differing characterizations of the chambermaid, but also in regard to the social milieus and the political times in which the works were produced.
Resembling a traditional roman à tiroirs with its many reminiscences of past situations, Mirbeau's novel, through its diary form, allows the chambermaid Célestine to give full voice to her feelings, her longings and her opinions. All chapters except the last are ostensibly written during her service with the Lanlaire family in Normandy, but the reader gets remembrances of her early life in Brittany, of several other jobs in differing families and of many people and incidents that help to form our notions of Célestine by her reactions to them. By allowing us to read her own thoughts, Mirbeau creates a remarkably complex character whose vitality and depth transcends the obviously polemical scope of the anarchist author's scathing portrait of turn-of-the-century French bourgeoisie.
In spite of the disgust shown when she flees her home in Brittany to avoid being made a prostitute like her mother, Célestine is first of all a sexual animal. As she puts it, "Je suis trop amoureuse, oui, j'aime trop l'amour, pour tirer un profit quelconque de l'amour" (42). She has constantly engaged in sexual liaisons with both her masters and her fellow servants. In at least two cases, she reveals true affection in addition to sexual desire for her partners - the valet de chambre Jean and the tubercular Georges, whose grandmother hired Célestine in the hope that Georges would fall in love with her and regain his will to live. Although she obviously enjoys her dalliances, she is critical of the sexual perversions and hypocrisy of her employers. She is sometimes the victim of her scorn, losing a position because of speaking her mind. Célestine has a forceful personality, and her outspoken honesty frequently results in dispute and dismissal.
Regardless of what she says, Célestine is not devoid of self-interest in her sexual exploits. She knows that her physical attractiveness often helps her keep a job, and she often dreams of a protracted liaison (perhaps even marriage) that would allow her to live as her bourgeois employers live. She seriously considers a marriage proposal from the eccentric and somewhat troubling neighbor, Captain Mauger, before she finally agrees to marry the coachman-driver Joseph. In one of her reminiscences of previous jobs, she understands that the parents of Xavier hired her to entice him to stay at home and not spend so much money. She accepts the challenge, even more energetically after Xavier's initial reluctance. However, once Xavier has seduced her, he clearly loses interest, resumes his carousing and even borrows money from Célestine, who then argues angrily with her employers and is fired.
Whenever she loses a job and is temporarily destitute, she is tempted by prostitution; she has even been propositioned in the past by a procuress. She refuses, however, to give up the dream of living well that is, paradoxically, a part of her motivation to remain a chambermaid, a position that allows her to partake vicariously in the life of the bourgeoisie. Although she constantly denounces the vicious depravity, the greedy selfishness and the hypocrisy of her masters and mistresses, she cannot accept living in any other milieu. In fact, a large part of her unhappiness in the Lanlaire's Norman manor is related to the provincial lack of sophistication compared to the Parisian households she has served in heretofore. For example, she is unhappy with the fact that Madame Lanlaire does not allow her to dress her, thus cutting her off from the intimacy she enjoyed with her previous mistresses. Although Célestine meditates on the sorry state of servants, treated almost like slaves, exploited in every way, taught every vice, then suspected of disloyalty and theft, she recognizes that she has risen above her humble beginnings, but only to a strange, déclassé status that is between two worlds. She writes in her diary:
Un domestique, ce n'est pas un être normal, un être social... C'est quelqu'un de disparate, fabriqué de pièces et de morceaux qui ne peuvent s'ajuster l'un dans l'autre, se juxtaposer l'un à l'autre... C'est quelque chose de pire : un monstrueux hybride humain... Il n'est plus du peuple, d'où il sort ; il n'est pas, non plus, de la bourgeoisie où il vit et où il tend... Du peuple qu'il a renié, il a perdu le sang généreux et la force naïve... De la bourgeoisie, il a gagné les vices honteux, sans avoir pu acquérir les moyens de les satisfaire... et les sentiments vils, les lâches peurs, les criminels appétits, sans le décor, et, par conséquent, sans l'excuse de la richesse... (176)
Writing and publishing his novel in the midst of the Dreyfus affair, Mirbeau uses Célestine to attack the decadent bourgeoisie of the period, not only through their idleness, their snobbery and their vices, but also by insisting on their anti-Republican, pro-military and anti-Semitic political views. The feuding Captain Mauger accuses his neighbor Lanlaire of insulting the army and of being a Jew and a "dreyfusard" (225). However, Mirbeau also accuses the servants of harboring the same ideas, led on perhaps by their masters. The most virulent right-wing rhetoric comes from the mouth of Joseph: he plots constantly against Jews with his accomplice, the sacristan, and dominates the final scene of the novel by shouting, "Si le traître [Dreyfus] est coupable, qu'on le rembarque... S'il est innocent, qu'on le fusille..."(385).
Célestine too tries to emulate her employers in their political opinions. She has known Paul Bourget and Jules Lemaître and admiringly read their works, although she does remark that the former "n'aime pas les pauvres" (118). She accepts the right-wing ideas swirling around her; but she does so naively, admitting that she does not understand why and saying of her various mistresses, "Au fond, je trouve que les juives et les catholiques, c'est tout un" (138).
Undoubtedly, the most perplexing aspect of Célestine's character is embodied in her attitude toward Joseph. Although she is first repulsed by a man she views as a brutish and sinister peasant, she soon becomes fascinated and even inexplicably attracted by him. Mirbeau would obviously disapprove of Joseph's ultra-rightist, anti-Dreyfusard militancy, but that activity doesn't bother Célestine a bit. What is troubling for her is the suspicion that he is guilty of the rape and murder of "la petite Claire," who was not yet 12 years old. Every time she asks Joseph about Claire, he avoids the question by changing the subject to his interest in Célestine. While becoming more and more convinced of his guilt, she cannot explain her fascination with him, writing, "... je sens qu'il y a entre Joseph et moi une correspondance secrète... un lien physique et moral qui se resserre un peu plus tous les jours..." (187) and "Je crois que cet homme est le diable..." (188).In the novel's final chapter, Célestine writes, after she has agreed to marry Joseph, once he has robbed the Lanlaire's and bought his café in Cherbourg:
C'est curieux, c'est particulier, sans doute, c'est peut-être horrible, -- et je ne puis expliquer la cause véritable de ces sensations étranges et fortes, -- mais chez moi, tout crime, -- le meurtre principalement, -- a des correspondances secrètes avec l'amour... Eh bien, oui, là !... un beau crime m'empoigne comme un beau mâle... (372)
...
... Joseph me tient, me possède comme un démon. Et je suis heureuse d'être à lui... Je sens que je ferai tout ce qu'il voudra que je fasse, et que j'irai toujours où il me dira d'aller... jusqu'au crime !... (386)
Mirbeau created in Célestine a very complex character: she is a gold-digger, a sado-masochist, a naive dupe in political matters, a harsh critic of bourgeois decadence and, through all that, an idealist who believes in an eventual bright future for herself. The author's ferocious criticism of French society at the turn of the twentieth century includes the ironic fact that his heroine is a victim who finds herself accepting the values of a world she despises and can escape from her situation only by embracing a brutal thief and murderer. Célestine's complexity is what allows each of the adapters who came later to take some elements of her personality and create such different characters; as we shall see, however, lacking Mirbeau's virulent scorn for his society, none of them makes Célestine entirely a victim.
Lorde and Heuzé had a daunting task in adapting Célestine's rambling and introspective narrative for the stage. They provided several characters, notably her sister Louise and her friend Angèle, with whom the chambermaid can discuss her situation and confide her opinions. In addition, some of the elements of the novel are recounted by Angèle, rather than Célestine. For example, it is Angèle who suspects Joseph of having raped and murdered the young girl; it is she who tells of her former mistress's encounter with the customs officer at the Belgian border (a story told by Célestine in chapter VII of Mirbeau's novel) and of working for an old man with a shoe fetish (from the first chapter of the novel); it is she who tells about a strange employer who eats "des limaces vivantes, des morceaux de caoutchouc et même des bouts de savon" (4.21) and who winds up married to the eccentric Mauger (who has become a count in the play).
In order to incorporate Célestine's reminiscences of her past, Lorde and Heuzé spread the action of the play over a much longer time than the Norman period of the novel. The first tableau takes place in Brittany, showing the sordid surroundings of Célestine's home life and her escape, along with Louise (who escaped well before Célestine in the novel), from their whorish stepmother (rather than mother) in scenes that recall the grotesque scenes of the Grand Guignol (for which André de Lorde wrote many plays). The second tableau shows the employment office for domestic help and the humiliating treatment that Célestine and the others must endure there in order to obtain jobs. Here the sister Louise's character is fused with the novel's Louise Randon, an ugly and incredibly naive Breton girl that the others mock, but for whom Célestine feels pity.
The major action of the play, in the third, fourth and fifth tableaux, takes place in the Paris apartment of the Monsieur and Madame de Tarnes, who have replaced the Norman Lanlaires of the novel. Joseph has become their valet, and both Georges and Xavier are present as members of the same family. Célestine, then, is pushed and pulled back and forth by the amorous attentions and the jealousies of Monsieur de Tarnes, Georges, Xavier and Joseph. In a great argument involving all four and Madame de Tarnes, Célestine explodes in anger and loses her job.
The final tableau shows her installed with Joseph in his café-brothel in Le Havre (rather than Cherbourg), which he has managed to buy with the proceeds of a burglary (not of the Tarnes family, but of another household in the same Paris building). Célestine is now convinced of Joseph's crimes and is miserable because he mistreats her. She confides in Angèle that, although she has slept with many men, with Georges ...
... c'était quelque chose que je ne puis définir... quelque chose qui me prenait toute entière... le cœur et la chair... et qui me révéla des instincts que je ne me connaissais pas, instinct[s] qui dormaient en moi, à mon insu, et qu'aucune volupté n'[avait] encore réveillés ! (5.19)
Somewhat implausibly, Georges arrives to thank Célestine for opening his eyes to the depravity of his family and says he is about to board a ship for the Antilles. After confessing her love for him, Célestine persuades him to take her along and away from Joseph.
Many elements of Mirbeau's novel are thus completely missing from the stage adaptation. By setting the major action in the Paris home of the Tarnes family rather than in the Lanlaire's Norman village, Lorde and Heuzé have eliminated the contrast between Parisian and provincial life that is an important motivational factor for the Célestine of the novel. There is also a subtle difference implied by showing an aristocratic Parisian family instead of a financially corrupt Norman bourgeois family. Even more striking is the fact that Mirbeau's quite specific time setting in the midst of the socio-political upheaval of the Dreyfus affair has been completely eliminated in the play, which brings up none of the political beliefs that are given voice in the novel.
Most importantly, the playwrights present a Célestine who shows none of the perplexing moral ambiguity of Mirbeau's heroine. She is hardly convinced of Joseph's crimes until after she goes with him to Le Havre. As in the novel, she is coquettish toward all the male characters, but she displays no more attraction to Joseph than to Monsieur de Tarnes or to Xavier. It is clear, as she says in the final tableau, that she agreed to go with Joseph only because she had lost her job and was destitute. In fact, that development is simply another example of the strength of character and the opportunism that allows her to take charge and make the best of her situation, a trait she shows in the novel as well.
In 1931 the theater was still the most popular form of entertainment for the Parisian bourgeoisie, and Lorde and Heuzé obviously reshaped the satiric anarchist's novel to appeal to their audience. Although they kept intact the picture of the miserable, dependant life of domestic servants, they ignored Célestine's (and Mirbeau's) scathing denunciation of the whole class of employers. They eliminated all the political and anti-Semitic polemics, not necessarily because they were irrelevant at the time of their production, but probably because they were potentially disturbing for their audience. And, of course, the playwrights contrived a satisfying, although implausible happy ending for their Célestine.
While the play suggests the happy ending that Renoir uses for his American-made movie, the film's portrayal of the bourgeoisie is almost as critical as Mirbeau's. In later years Renoir gave this picture of the class as portrayed in the film:
A l'origine et, je crois, également dans sa réalisation, le film est une espèce de course vaine de la part de gens représentant une société déjà morte ; c'est une course de fantômes. Ces gens représentent une bourgeoisie qui n'existe plus, car la bourgeoisie qui les a remplacés est une bourgeoisie qui gagne de l'argent.... La bourgeoisie du Journal d'une femme de chambre est la bourgeoisie du XIXe siècle, qui est en train de s'effriter devant son inutilité et devant son désir absolu de ne rien faire : je prends certains de ses représentants, et je les fais courir les uns après les autres dans une espèce de poursuite, une poursuite vaine qui n'a aucun but. En réalité, Le Journal d'une femme de chambre, sous une autre forme, et quelques années plus tard, c'est le même sujet que La Règle du jeu. (Entretiens, 159)
This bourgeoisie is provincial, as in Mirbeau's novel; but the contrast with Parisian life is not mentioned, perhaps because Renoir and Burgess Meredith thought that American audiences would not understand the differences.2 Instead, the Lanlaires' manor and the village constitute, as Leo Braudy puts it, "a world of enclosures" (92), into which Célestine comes at the beginning of the film and from which she escapes at the end. The most important vices associated with this picture of the bourgeoisie are greed and the desire to dominate, and evil is incarnated only by Madame Lanlaire and by Joseph. It is significant that Joseph gets the Lanlaires' silver, not by theft, but during a dramatic confrontation with Madame Lanlaire in which she is forced to choose between her riches and her desire to keep her son under her thumb. In the "poetic justice" of the ending, she is left with neither her silver nor her son, and Joseph dies at the hands of an unruly mob of townspeople.
In a major departure from Mirbeau's novel, sexual depravity is absent from Renoir's film: Célestine is just coquettish, Monsieur Lanlaire's attempts at seduction are comically ineffectual, and Captain Mauger's approaches culminate in a marriage proposal. The relationship between Célestine and Georges (who is again made a part of the family, rather than a remembrance from the past) develops chastely into love and implied marriage. The only vaguely immoral suggestion comes from Madame Lanlaire, who apparently wants a liaison between her son and Célestine in order to keep Georges at home. (Thus, the tubercular Georges is partially merged with the Xavier of the novel and the play.)
One must bear in mind that the Motion Picture Production Code (sometimes known as the Hayes Code) was still in full effect in Hollywood when Renoir's film was made. It is therefore not surprising that elements such as the shoe fetish and the rape and murder of the young girl have no place in the movie. Because of the limits imposed by the Hayes Office, Americans were perhaps disappointed, as Célia Bertin suggests (288), not to witness the erotic adventures of a stereotypical French maid. It is also in accordance with the Code that Joseph is not allowed to escape unpunished with his ill-gotten riches to a café on the Norman coast. However, it is equally likely that many of the departures from the details of the novel and the play were brought about by Meredith's knowledge of normal American tastes and expectations. What was formerly a dark socio-political diatribe against a corrupt society featuring a morally ambiguous heroine has become a light fantasy of greed punished and love triumphant featuring a strong young woman whose sincerity prevails against the hypocrisy of those around her (See Bazin 91).
It is certainly clear that Meredith fleshed out the character of Captain Mauger to give himself a more interesting role to play. Although he bears a strong resemblance to Mirbeau's character, Mauger is less mysterious and more humorous in the movie. Instead of consciously killing and eating his pet Kléber (a ferret in the novel, but a squirrel in the film) at Célestine's instigation, he unconsciously suffocates it in the excitement of his amorous dalliance with the chambermaid. The enigmatic neighbor of the novel has become a harmless eccentric, hopping around gleefully and throwing stones into the Lanlaires' garden with only a slight hint of potential danger. The audience can laugh at his shenanigans and find him quite likable. With Renoir, he has even become a liberal, at odds with the Lanlaires because of their ultra-rightist political views. And we can feel genuinely sorry for him when he is robbed and killed by Joseph (a less salacious crime than the murder-rape of a child).
Other characters also present significant differences from their counterparts in the novel or the play. The cook Marianne does not have an affair with Monsieur Lanlaire and become pregnant, perhaps a bow to the Hayes Code but certainly a move to insure that the husband remains a non-threatening and humorously appealing character. Joseph, played with great style by the sinister-looking Francis Lederer, hardly resembles the brutish peasant of Mirbeau's novel; he is coolly domineering with a sophisticated air. Although he joins the Lanlaires in drinking to the death of the Republic, he is not the ultra-rightist, anti-Semitic fanatic of the novel. The film does, however, emphasize his cunning and his sadistic method of killing geese, in preparation for the denouement. Louise is no longer Célestine's sister, but she retains the lack of physical beauty and the extreme naivete of her character in the play and of the Louise Randon of the novel. Although she serves as a confidant, her most important role in the film is to allow Célestine to discover and develop her strength and self-confidence.
When she threatens to leave with her if Joseph sends Louise back to Paris, Célestine discovers for the first time her ability to stand up for others and therefore for herself. It is that strength, although present in both the novel and the play, that is the primary characteristic of the film's heroine, fashioned by an admiring Renoir and by her husband Meredith as one of Paulette Goddard's most memorable roles. Renoir may have originally intended for his Célestine to be another example of the vamp he had presented in such films as La Chienne, but, as Raymond Durgnat notes, "Diary of a Chambermaid is the first Renoir film in which a woman is both the most vigorous character and our identification figure" (323). Although, as in the novel, Joseph tries to convince Célestine that the two of them are alike under the skin, Durgnat writes:
There is nothing in Paulette Goddard's glamourous and warm-hearted chambermaid to suggest anything of the sort, nor is it easy to believe that she has ever been a servant before; she is definitely lady enough to marry the son of the household at the upbeat ending.... (258)
Durgnat seems to be ignoring the change that comes over Célestine once she has stood up for Louise at the beginning of the film; she is still a servant, eager to please her employers, but no longer willing to accept degradation and mistreatment. Moreover, it can be argued that she remains a gold-digger to the end, making an obvious play for Georges's attentions and getting just what she wants when he takes her away in the train. To her credit, however, it is clear that she despises Joseph and agrees temporarily to leave with him only out of desperation (a borrowing from the play) and that her affection for Georges is genuine. She is, then, a gold-digger who falls in love, perhaps in spite of herself, and will undoubtedly live "happily ever after" in that love. The extent to which audiences can accept that ending is a tribute to Renoir and Meredith's screenplay, but even more to the charm and acting skill of Paulette Goddard.
Of the three adaptations, Buñuel's film is in many respects the closest to Mirbeau's novel. The screenplay, the first of a long series of collaborations between Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, follows the events of the Norman story in the novel, with none of Célestine's reminiscences woven in, except for the story of the shoe fetish, in which the old man has become the father of Madame Monteil (Buñuel and Carrière having abandoned the punning name Lanlaire for the Norman employers). Among the most notable plot differences are the fact that Joseph does not steal the household silver (which is never mentioned) and the marriage of Célestine and Mauger. The movie does contain many elements from the novel that did not find their way into either the play or the Renoir film, such as Monsieur Monteil and Mauger accusing each other before a magistrate (chapter XI), the argument between Monsieur and Madame Monteil over his attentions to Célestine (chapter VI) and Madame's conversation with the priest about the appropriateness of substituting "certaines caresses" for normal sex acts with her husband (chapter II).
Unlike both the play and Renoir's film, Buñuel's movie emphasizes sexual depravity, perhaps no more than Mirbeau's novel, but certainly more vividly. Monsieur Monteil is masterly played by Michel Piccoli as a sexually frustrated husband who relentlessly chases Célestine until he sees that he has no chance of succeeding and then goes after Marianne using the same lines that he has previously used with Célestine. Most striking is this film's treatment of the rape-murder of "la petite Claire." Buñuel brings the young girl into several scenes, allowing the audience as well as Célestine to establish a sympathy for her, and then he almost shows the crime itself, showing Joseph chasing her through the woods, cutting to suggestive shots of a wild boar chasing a rabbit and finally to a shot of the dead girl with the snails she has gathered crawling over her legs.
The character of Joseph is very close to Mirbeau's; he is a brutish peasant, quite unlike the sinisterly sophisticated conniver of Renoir's film. He also shows all the right-wing fanaticism that is so important in the novel. There is no mention of the Dreyfus affair, Buñuel and Carrière having decided to set their story in the early 1930s rather than at the turn of the century. Joseph and his friend the sacristan have thus become representative of the emerging fascist movement in France, anti-Semitic and xenophobic and determined to help prevent the triumph of the Front Populaire. He has the last word in the film when, viewing a rightist demonstration from the door of his café, he shouts "Vive Chiappe!" (the rightist politician who was instrumental in banning Buñuel's L'Âge d'or in 1930). The later setting not only gives the filmmaker the opportunity to settle an old score, it also provides for political commentary that was more relevant to the times in which the film was made. In 1964, the thousands of pieds noirs recently arrived in France from the newly independent Algeria were already joining native French in expressing the anti-Arab sentiments spreading through the French right wing. Many of Joseph's statements in the film sound remarkably like those uttered in a political movement that has culminated in Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National.
Captain Mauger, played by Daniel Ivernel, is a less eccentric character than the one played by Burgess Meredith, even less than Mirbeau's. There is no mention of his habit of eating everything, including flowers and insects. He is seen primarily as petulant and childish, throwing rocks and trash into his neighbors' garden. As in the novel, no explanation is offered for his animosity toward the Monteils and even less for his reconciliation with them (which does not occur in the novel). He fires his housekeeper-mistress Rose so that he can propose to Célestine, rather than waiting for her death as in the novel. In his final appearance, he is being ordered about like a servant by Célestine; and Marianne has joined their household, making possible the interpretation that Mauger is destined to follow in the path of Monsieur Monteil.
Buñuel somewhat expands the role of Marianne, played by one of his favorite actresses, Muni. She has some of the characteristics of the Louise of the Renoir film and of Mirbeau's Louise Randon. In the novel, Célestine finds Marianne's joy over her liaison with "Monsieur" ridiculous (chapter XV); but Buñuel's character is much more ambivalent. She is shown looking longingly at Monsieur Monteil while serving his dinner, then crying when he propositions her. According to Evans, "What to Monteil is no more than the gratification of a fleeting urge is to her a desperate measure for recognition and love" (143).
Marianne does not serve, however, as a confidant for Célestine; the audience must rely on her actions and on Jeanne Moreau's expressive face for any insight into this chambermaid/s thoughts. It is clear that she dislikes the provincial setting and would prefer to return to a position in Paris, a decision she makes following the death of Madame Monteil's father. It is equally clear that she has a motherly affection for Claire and that the reason she changes her mind about leaving is so that she can seek out Claire's murderer and bring him to justice. Like the Célestine of the novel, she searches Joseph's room for incriminating evidence; but she goes even further, taking the metal toe tap from Joseph's shoe and planting it at the crime scene. Whereas Mirbeau's Célestine is drawn toward Joseph by a strange and ambivalent attraction, Buñuel's character is obviously using her feminine wiles in an attempt to induce Joseph to confess to the rape-murder.
As in the novel and the other adaptations, this Célestine is a coquette and a gold-digger, but she does not openly espouse the right-wing opinions of those around her. Her strength lies in her seductive beauty, and by marrying Mauger she escapes her condition to become an imperious mistress of the household like those she has served up to now. Apparently the only sour note in her triumph comes when she learns that Joseph has been released due to lack of evidence. While she does not share the fate of Mirbeau's heroine, her marriage does not seem quite as happy an ending as that of the play or of Renoir's film.3
Thus, all four chambermaids are gold-diggers who manage to leave behind the life of a domestic servant. Only the original in Mirbeau's novel gives the impression that the escape will lead to further depravity and eventual unhappiness. Each knows how to use her femininity and her seductiveness to get what she wants; yet all except Buñuel's Célestine show themselves capable of true love (for Georges). Each shows a measure of strength beyond what would normally be expected of a chambermaid, but in both the novel and the play that strength leads to dispute and dismissal. In the play and in Renoir's movie Célestine is a fundamentally positive character with whom the audience can identify, although the chambermaid in the play is less pro-active and inherently less interesting. Although Mirbeau's Célestine is the only on to openly admit her attraction to the evil in Joseph, both his and Buñuel's are more troubling because of their amoral sexuality. Interestingly, they are also the ones who are most openly scornful of their bourgeois employers.
Each of the four chambermaids is eager to escape from a social condition viewed from the perspective of the era in which the individual works were produced. The world of Mirbeau's Célestine is a decadent and corrupt bourgeoisie seen through the eyes of a virulent anarchist; his is a socio-political polemic of the time of the Dreyfus affair imbued with mistrust for political remedies. Lorde and Heuzé wrote for a Parisian bourgeois audience and eliminated all the political messages of the novel; even their social commentary is blunted, seemingly aimed at a particular family of aristocrats rather than at a whole class. Renoir's social criticism is innocuous, perhaps because of his and Meredith's notions of American tastes; and the political elements are almost reduced to a an attempt to provide some French local color in what is basically a fantasy setting. Buñuel's film was produced amid the permissiveness of a later era and another country, where sexual depravity could be shown more openly, and its political elements make for a cautionary tale warning of the dangers of xenophobia in the period following the Algerian war.
In spite of their similarities, each Célestine is influenced, even if only in negative reaction, by the world in which she operates; and each of these worlds is largely a product of its creator's perspective on the times and the audience for which the work is intended.
NOTES
1This play was apparently never published. The author was fortunate to obtain a copy of the typed script from the heirs of André de Lorde through the gracious assistance of Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques in Paris. Note that, although the on-screen credits for the Renoir film say the adaptation is based on a play by André Heusé (sic), André de Lorde and Thielly (sic) Nores, I have found no other mention of the third author. The typed script has separate pagination for each of its six tableaux; therefore, reference will be made to both tableau and to page (e.g., 4.12 would refer to page 12 of the fourth tableau). [Back to article.]
2Although the on-screen credits name only Meredith as screenwriter, the filmographies in almost all books on Renoir say the screenplay is by both Renoir and Meredith. In fact, Renoir had created at least treatments, if not full screenplays, well before he came to America, probably already basing his adaptation on the play (which, as far as the author can discern, was never translated into English). That fact, along with the usual improvisation that Renoir used to shape his films during shooting, seems sufficient to justify giving both men credit for the adaptation. [Back to article.]
3Nor is Joseph's denouement completely unhappy; he has found another woman to work with him in his café, a woman who looks enough like Célestine that some have mistakenly thought that she is Célestine (see Bergan 259 and Braudy 141). [Back to article.]
WORKS CITED
Bazin, André. Jean Renoir. Paris: Champ Libre, 1971.
Bergan, Ronald. Jean Renoir: Projections of Paradise. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1994. (copyright 1992)
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Copyright 2003 by Dan M. Church