It has been said that making a film about a saint is a litmus test for any film director. The reality is that saints, generally speaking, have not had good luck in the celluloid world. Films about the lives of saints have always suffered from multiple defects, by excess or defect. Even until recently, it seemed that the biography of a saint or some aspect of his or her life was a minor genre in the seventh art.

Among the films on this subject that have been saved from mediocrity is Monsieur Vincent. And its greatest achievement lies in the fact that it was able to avoid all the negative pitfalls of an era when it would have been easier and more understandable to fall into them. When most films about saints have gone down in history with more grief than glory, “Monsieur Vincent” has remained and will remain as a model of authentic, simple, profound, realistic and dignified cinema.

Historical background

The idea of making this film did not come from the Congregation of the Mission nor from the Company of the Daughters of Charity. The idea was born in 1942. In the darkest hours of the Second World War, France was suffering great destruction and its people were falling into despair and the deepest disenchantment. And so, Maurice Cloche, a film director, thought of a project as risky as it was idealistic: to do something so that the French could begin to regain hope, illusion and the desire to live and rebuild the country. And he thinks that perhaps a film can produce the miracle of reborn hope and overcome the disasters and wounds of the cruel war. His conclusion was clear: to raise a cinematographic monument to the figure, the mood and the work of a great Frenchman called Vincent de Paul who also fought courageously against misery and the “perverse mechanisms” of another terrible war, that of the Thirty Years; to show on the screen the absolute dedication of a radical Christian, lucid and committed to exhaustion in the difficult and beautiful task of regenerating life and hope for all the hopeless and condemned of the earth.

The film “Monsieur Vincent” began shooting that same year and was completed in 1947. It immediately won two important awards: the Grand Prix du Cinema Francais and the Grand Prix for Acting at the Venice Biennale.

The importance of an excellent screenwriter

Perhaps it may seem an exaggeration to say that, in this film, the text is absolutely fundamental. Director Maurice Cloche was lucky enough to have an exceptional screenwriter named Jean Anouilh, who was already beginning to sound like one of the best playwrights in France and Europe. Some of his plays such as “The Lark”, “Joan of Arc” or “The Red Fish” have remained in the first places of the History of Literature.

Jean Anouilh wrote a script that can undoubtedly be considered the best current translation of the language, the spirit, the figure and the works of St. Vincent de Paul.

Perhaps, as we will see later on, meticulous and zealous historians have serious misgivings about this script, but it is the best Vincentian actualization to date.

To write the script of “Monsieur Vincent”, Jean Anouilh left no stone unturned: he spent two and a half years reading all the writings and correspondence of Vincent de Paul, devoured everything that could be found in the library and in the archives of Saint Lazare and of the Mother House of the Daughters of Charity, questioned specialists, consulted Vincentian scholars (few at that time) and sought the advice of the best historians of the 17th century in France.

It can be said that Jean Anouilh was able to translate into the theological language of today all the evangelical radicalism of Vincent de Paul, without falling into clichés or outdated apologetics. It is curious how many of the most striking expressions in the film sound like the language of the Second Vatican Council. And all this with a scrupulous fidelity to the Vincentian spirit.

The director’s purpose

The viewer who expects to see in this film a linear and historicist biography of St. Vincent de Paul will be totally disappointed. Also he does not understand the intention that Maurice Cloche had and pursued when he set to work on this film.

The reason is very simple: the director never set out to bring to the big screen the exact and exhaustive life of Monsieur Vincent. On the contrary, his intention, admirably captured in the film, has very clear and precise guidelines: to see, to judge and to act.

And from there, the director intends to capture the complex and profound figure of Vincent de Paul, to underline the key stages of his life dedicated to the defense of the marginalized, to discover the upward evolution in the radical commitment of Monsieur Vincent, to delve into the charism of the saint, to emphasize his “conversion” from the socio-economic-political realities. All of this with an all-enveloping and globalizing idea: to bring Vincent de Paul out of the stale archives of history and to make alive, current and dynamic the spirit of a saint of more than four hundred years ago.

Interpretation

One of the most striking aspects of this film is the great work carried out by the actor who plays Vincent de Paul. A role that “embodies” – in the full sense of the word – the actor Pierre Fresnay, converted to Catholicism precisely during the shooting of the film. Such was the impact that the life and work of Vincent de Paul had on him.

One thing is clear: Pierre Fresnay has put himself inside the character of Vincent de Paul in an overwhelming way. The French critic Jean Bernard Luc says that Pierre Fresnay has performed the true miracle of this religious cinema, because he has not limited himself to playing Vincent de Paul, but has brought him back to life.

A complete study could be made of the range of gestures, voice intonation, feelings, humanity, firmness, etc., that the actor Pierre Fresnay brings into play in this film, making a titanic physical, psychological and moral effort to resemble as closely as possible what Vincent de Paul was. Because once you start watching the film, it seems that you are seeing, feeling and touching the real, living Vincent de Paul.

Lack of means

We cannot overlook one of the most relevant characteristics of “Monsieur Vincent.” I am referring to his lack of means, to his economic deprivation. Even in this fact, which may seem trivial to many, the film is consistent with the theme. Obviously, when the film was made, the French economy was not in a state for great miracles. But what could have been a forced obligation has become a virtue.

This lack of means can be seen in several frames: some repeated characters, actors playing two roles (which may mislead the viewer), scenes that could not be made grandiose, such as the galley race, the simplicity of the palaces… All of this demonstrates something evident in the history of cinema: with a great lack of means, excellent films can also be made. And in this film this cinematographic axiom is especially true. Some critics have said that, without a doubt, this film could be among the hundred best in the history of cinema.

Historical licenses

A Vincentian scholar, Fr. André Dodin, often repeated that this film contains many “historical errors.” He discovers as many as thirty-four. For example, he points out that when Vincent de Paul arrived in Chátillon-les-Dombes the church was not in ruins; that the clergy had not abandoned the village; that in 1617 there was no plague in Chátillon; that he did not meet Louise de Marillac in 1617 but in 1624; that Madame de Gondi did not go to Chátillon, although she did influence the return of St. Vincent; that Vincent de Paul did not have a solitary residence in Paris; that he never wore spectacles; that he was not expelled from St. Lazare, although he did have trials; that it was in 1613 that he met Fr. Portail; that there were no confessionals in Montmirail; that galley races did not exist and even less the participation of the Chaplain; that taking the place of a galley slave was more than impossible under any pretext; that the night walks in search of abandoned children could not take place because the streets were chained shut, these night walks were invented in 1864; that there was no opposition and even less repugnance from St. Louise de Marillac and her “daughters” on the question of abandoned children; that Nuncio Craziani is a fictitious figure; that the conversation with Jeanne is imaginary; that St. Vincent never abandoned a benefice; that there was no failure in the work of the abandoned children; that there was never a renunciation by St. Vincent of his goods; that his stature is slightly increased; that Louise de Marillac was smaller; that there are omissions such as “the formation of the clergy”, “the work of the seminaries”, “the reform of the Religious Orders”, the “work of the Spiritual Exercises”, the “Tuesday Conference”, “the direction of the Visitandines,” his opposition to Mazarin….

It has already been said that Maurice Cloche never intended to make an exact and accurate historical biography of Vincent de Paul. If anyone looks at this film as a purely historical work or with an attitude of scrupulous literalism, he is hopelessly mistaken and proves that the seventh art is not his forte. This is what usually happens to fervent historians without much imagination for celluloid. No one denies the so-called “historical errors”, but in cinema they are usually called “historical licenses,” which does not mean that it is a fantasy or invented film. In “Monsieur Vincent” there is a real and true historical basis, but it is not an aseptically historical life about Vincent de Paul.

Fundamental guidelines

If we want to highlight the main lines or the fundamental points of reference that vertebrate this film, we must highlight two: the integral human deliverance (something that is pleasantly surprising because of its connection with the theology and the post-conciliar pastoral on evangelization) and the incarnation, foundation and basis of all Christian liberation.

And these references open up in a range of major themes that permeate the film. Themes that are absolutely key to understanding this film in all its depth. For example, love, the Christian conception of the world, the selfish and unsupportive society as a terrible machine that produces poor and marginalized people, charity, very different from a virtue that calms bad consciences, justice, the two faces of the Church (the Church of the poor and the Church that appeases and sanctions the powerful), the organization of charity…

And, as a luminous focus that gives meaning to everything, the “gaze of faith” or, in today’s language, the poor as sacrament of Christ. Certainly, nothing will be understood of the life and work of Vincent de Paul without this “turning of the medal”, without the discovery of Christ in the person of the poor. This film constantly underlines it.

The value of symbols

If there is something intrinsically linked to cinematographic art, it is symbolism. The language of signs and symbols is, properly and specifically, the language of cinema. When it is said that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” the secret of cinema is being hit on the bull’s eye.

And in the film “Monsieur Vincent” this magic language could not be missing. Above all, it is necessary to underline two symbols to which the director of the film has resorted several times, but without overusing them too much: the large steps of Vincent de Paul and the depth of his gaze in the short and medium shots.

They are symbols that are easy to understand and that, in a way, emphasize and enhance the film’s questioning intention. If this film has its origin in awakening a despondent people from despair, these two symbols constitute a call to “get going”, to rise from prostration. These two symbols come to tell us that we must hurry, like Vincent de Paul, to help the miseries of the condemned of the earth because “not to help is to kill” and because, as a contemporary of St. Vincent, Blaise Pascal, said, “Jesus will be in agony even to the end of the world. We must not sleep during that time.” The fixed, questioning gaze, between severe and tender, of that fighter for the cause of the poor is a cry and a “disturbing” invitation. It even creates a certain uneasiness. And, of course, it is hopelessly stuck in the pupil of the most skeptical spectator.

Conclusion

This film, which was “censored” and branded as “subversive” when it premiered in a public cinema in Spain in the early 1960s, is a sharp call to a radically evangelical commitment. Perhaps it is more necessary today than at the time of its production. Because it is the best antidote against a “spiritualistic and disincarnated” Christianity, and it fills with freshness an atmosphere too full of sterile Byzantinisms and paralyzing legalisms.

Celestino Fernández, C.M.