Alice & Eiffel by Janelle Dietrick

Author:Janelle Dietrick [Janelle Dietrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2016-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

Scenes from L’Ami Fritz

40 • L’AMI FRITZ

Beloved, let us love one another. Whoever does not love, does not know God.

—L’Ami Fritz, last line of the novel

It is the duty of all the French. It will take men to remake the homeland.

—L’Ami Fritz, last line of the play

Alice’s first film could not be featured as a main attraction because it was only a minute long. It may not even have had a title in 1896, but Alice said it was a great success. An 1896 news article corroborates Alice’s descriptions of her first film and pairs it with the hit play, L’Ami Fritz.

Adapted from a novel, L’Ami Fritz opened in 1876. It was set in Alsace-Lorraine, which the French had lost to the Prussians in 1871. Year after year, the nostalgic, romantic comedy played in the summer and fall, then more frequently in December, enchanting Parisians with “real food, a real cherry tree, a real pump, and real water.” It became a Christmas Day tradition for “its pretty supper” and the warm feelings it gave the audience.

The first scene takes place at a table where Fritz and his friends eat a full menu starting with a steaming cabbage soup. Fritz is a confirmed bachelor who loves wine and food. He is jolted from his comfortable lifestyle by the farmer’s daughter, Suzel. “A duet by the well,” an 1890 reviewer wrote, “is finished in the cherry tree.”

The part of Suzel was played by Suzanne Reichenberg, who took the stage name, Suzette. She became famous for her scene of “unconscious seduction in the orchard, when she gathered the ripe cherries and dropped them in the outspread hands of her admirer.” Halfway through the play, she pours water from a jug at the well into the mouth of a rabbi who is trying to bring the couple together. At the end of the third act, Fritz proposes to Suzel and she accepts. The play ends with the couple embracing to celebrate their engagement. The novel ends with a wedding.

The novel was so popular it was called the Roman Nationale—the national novel. The story endorsed late nineteenth-century French values: live the good life with friends and family, but most importantly, marry and have children. The play’s authors, Erckmann and Chatrian, were honored with a double statue created by Auguste Bartholdi that was displayed at the Comédie-Française.

L’Ami Fritz was still playing at the Comèdie-Française in 1896, from April through December. On July 30, 1896, a Gil Blas columnist described the play’s influence on Parisians who were leaving in great numbers for their vacations in the Swiss Alps. “This frenzy for the Alps” he wrote, has been “fed by comedies and popular novels.” Trips to Switzerland, he wrote, were “the rage of honeymooners.”

The columnist praised L’Ami Fritz for its heart interest, its sentimental poetry, and its nuptial song: “It is pure! Tenderness without passion, without violence.” After the columnist lauded L’Ami Fritz, he goes on to describe, in the same paragraph, another scene for which he did

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.