France loves politics. Mine is country where every citizen has an opinion, a country where dispute is a tradition, resistance is worn as a badge of honour and universal suffrage is sacrosanct. It is little wonder therefore, that from Jean Jaurès to Georges Clémenceau, and on to General De Gaulle, politicians have loomed large in the national psyche making an impression on both the French people and on French history. Simply put, France has been engaged, for some time now, in a passionate affair with those who rule it…
This is nevertheless a romance with the associated clichés of irrationality, of love-blindness, of heart-before-head. It has seen men elevated to the heights of power with little or no justification and, conversely, has seen them fall from grace into obscurity or even ridicule just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time… Paul Deschanel is one such man: a victim of this complicated love affair.
Elected “Président de la République” in 1920 Deschanel advocated votes for women, the abolition of the death penalty, an end to colonisation, alongside labour (and a host of other) reforms… So how did it happen that 7 months later this visionary leader had lost the presidency, died of grief and incurred the enduring scorn of the nation. Indeed, he was later voted the worst politician ever; just ahead of Hitler!
My curiosity in the fate of Paul Deschanel all started with the following words: “I have invented cubism!” These were the words of a First World War veteran, trying to make light of his disfigured face and put me at ease. I was with my father, himself an injured veteran of the Algerian war, in Moussy-le-Vieux the historic home of France’s “gueule cassées” (broken faced). He may have wanted to amuse me, but as a young child I was rather startled by his appearance and escaped to the refectory of this institution, where the bronze torso of Paul Deschanel sat proudly in state. When I asked who he was, nobody could answer, they were all laughing. Someone mentioned a curious story about a fall from a train, but nothing that could explain his bronze and proud presence!
Many years later, I came to understand that during his short mandate, Paul Deschanel had given the “gueules cassées” a castle near Paris, where they would be able to live out of the sight of the rest of the population behind high stone walls – the gaze of others having become so unbearable for them. This was an act of charity, but also a very important political gesture. Yet the recipients of his kindness had forgotten this charity, and instead turned their own mocking gaze upon him… All the tragicomedy of Paul Deschanel is here…
“The sublime is so close to ridiculous” said Napoleon, and on this point, I agree with him. I decided to make my first feature film on this forgotten President. And when my producers asked me to make a short film about it as an introduction to the feature film, we decided to shoot the 3 days following his fall from the presidential train. These were the three days he chose to spend with the crossing keeper’s family rather than returning to Paris, the three days that cost him his reputation as the President. “The President and the Crossing Keeper” was born. All the poetry, and the humanity of Paul Deschanel is here… He was not made to be President, merely to have ideas – but it was his ideas that made him Presidential.
It was so enjoyable to tell a story that treads this fine line between tragedy and comedy: on one side, a family who can’t believe they are entertaining the President and on the other a President who is happy to be treated as just anyone or indeed a nobody…
We worked with the actors who played the Radeau family on the concept of survivors’ guilt, a complex which drove the crossing keeper, after the loss of his son in the First World War, into an unbounded devotion to God. This in turn led him to welcome this strange arrival – a man pretending to be the President – into the family home, and to give him their son’s room. Simplicity and humanity.
Touched by this treatment, the President indulges in their generosity and stays with his hosts…
I wanted that real story to be treated with beauty, humanity and humour, to pay tribute to what Paul Deschanel could have done, if the world hadn’t been so cruel.
Jean-Marc Peyrefitte at Austin Film Festival in 2019
And for its world premiere, I had the chance to show the short in Austin… I arrived (due to many problems with immigration and after a 48-hour trip) right in the middle of the screening… I was able to see my movie as it was shown at last. The film was so warmly welcomed by the Austin Film Festival audience, that, just like Paul Deschanel with the crossing keeper, I would have been happy to stay here in Texas forever!
I hope so much, I will be able to show the feature film in Austin…
– Jean-Marc Peyrefitte, Co-writer and Director The President and the Crossing Keeper