La Symphonie pastorale (film)
La Symphonie pastorale is a 1946 French language film drama directed by Jean Delannoy and starring Michèle Morgan and Pierre Blanchar.
The film is based on the novella La Symphonie Pastorale by André Gide and adapted to the screen by Jean Aurenche. The film score was by Georges Auric. At the 1946 Cannes Film Festival, it won the Grand Prix (equivalent of the Palme d'Or) and the Best Actress award for Michèle Morgan.
It was the film chosen to be shown at the opening gala of the Cameo cinema in Edinburgh, Scotland in March 1949, and a rare surviving print with English subtitles was shown there again in 2009 to celebrate the film's 60th anniversary, courtesy of the BFI.
Plot summary
The pastor of a mountain village adopts a small blind girl, Gertrude. As Gertrude grows up into an attractive young woman, the pastor, now middle-aged, realises that he is in love with her. To his chagrin, his adopted son, Jacques, is also in love with Gertrude, even though he is shortly to be married to another woman.
La Symphonie pastorale
La Symphonie pastorale is a French novella written by André Gide published in 1919. The work was made into a film in 1946 by Jean Delannoy, with Michèle Morgan in the principal role as Gertrude. A version was produced for Australian television in 1958.
Plot
It is about a pastor who adopts a young blind girl whom his daughter, Charlotte, names "Gertrude". The title refers to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony (also known as the Pastoral Symphony) which the pastor takes Gertrude to hear. It also refers to the pastor's own symphony with Gertrude. His wife, Amélie, resents Gertrude because the pastor dedicates more attention to Gertrude than to their five children. She tries to prompt him to a recognition of the true nature of his feelings for the young woman in his care. Her ability to "see" is contrasted with the "blindness" of the pastor in this regard and the reader is invited to judge him on his intellectual dishonesty. As a religious man, the pastor takes the Bible very seriously and tries to preserve Gertrude's innocence by protecting her from the concept of sin.
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