6.6 /10 1 Votes
6.5/10 IMDb Directed by Norbert Carbonnaux Distributed by Consortium Pathé Director Norbert Carbonnaux Music director Hubert Rostaing | 3.5/5 AlloCine 6.3/10 SensCritique Music by Hubert Rostaing Initial release 1960 Story by Voltaire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Produced by CLM, Société Nouvelle Pathé (France) Written by Norbert Carbonnaux
Albert Simonin Starring Jean-Pierre Cassel
Louis de Funès Cast Louis de Funès, Jean‑Pierre Cassel, Pierre Brasseur, Daliah Lavi, Michel Simon Similar World War II movies, Comedies, Other similar movies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Candide ou l'Optimisme du XXe siècle (English: Candide, or the Optimist of the Twentieth Century) is a 1960 French comedy drama film directed by Norbert Carbonnaux and written by Carbonnaux and Albert Simonin. It stars Jean-Pierre Cassel as Candide, Pierre Brasseur as Pangloss, Louis de Funès as the officer of the Gestapo, and Daliah Lavi as Cunégonde. The film was released under the titles Candide (alternative French title; USA), Candide oder der Optimismus im 20. Jahrhundert (West Germany), Candide, avagy a XX. század optimizmusa (Hungary), and Kandyd czyli optymizm XX wieku (Poland).
Contents
Plot
The film is a 20th-century adaptation of Voltaire's 1759 social satire novel Candide, ou l’Optimisme. Set in the World War II-era, it follows the adventures of Candide, an orphaned Westphalian brought up in a baron's chalet. He falls in love with the baron's daughter, Cunégonde, and is thrown out of the house when the baron discovers them kissing. When war breaks out in 1939, Candide is drafted and then captured by the Nazis, but escapes and joins the International Red Cross. Candide's improbable adventures take him into a concentration camp to rescue his tutor, Pangloss; then he is off to South America (where he endures a series of revolutions), Borneo (where he is imprisoned by a primitive tribe), Moscow (where he accidentally foments a missile crisis between the Soviet Union and the United States), and New York (where he gets mixed up in a racial clash). Finally, back in France, he retires to a country house with Cunégonde, Pangloss, and a mysterious lady who saved him from a firing squad, and settles down to write his memoirs.
Other film treatments
In 1947 Marcel Carné intended to create a film based on Voltaire's Candide, but production was abandoned. The 1986 film Live from Lincoln Center: Candide was also based on the same novel.