Madeline
USA/Germany 1998
Reviewed by Amanda Lipman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Madeline, an orphan, is the smallest of 12 small girls living in a school in Paris in the mid-50s with their teacher Miss Clavel, a nun. When Madeline is rushed to hospital with appendicitis, she meets Lady Covington, the school's benefactor. Lady Covington dies soon after and her husband decides to sell the school. Later, Madeline has a run in with Pepito, the spoilt, lonely son of the Spanish ambassador next door. Madeline falls into the river and is saved by a dog whom the girls take home and name Genevieve.
Madeline and the girls plot to sabotage Lord Covington's plans to sell the school. The girls visit the circus where Madeline sees Pepito being kidnapped by his tutor and some clowns. She's also taken prisoner. Distraught, Miss Clavel and Genevieve drive all night in search of her. Madeline and Pepito escape on a motorbike after a chase. The next day, Madeline tries unsuccessfully to talk Lord Covington out of selling the school. However, the new owner of the house, the Uzbekhistani ambassador, agrees to let the school and its residents stay.
Review
The charm of Ludwig Bemelmans' Madeline stories resides in the stylised illustrations (well mimicked by UPA's 1952 cartoon) and the simplicity of the rhyming narrative. Capturing these qualities in live action is difficult, so this version, directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer (Party Girl, Woo), has taken the essence of the books - the obedient but naughty little girls, the doting, eccentric Miss Clavel, the colourful Parisian background - and imaginatively filled it out to create a jaunty, good-humoured film with a sumptuous retro look and a contemporary feel.
The repetition of the books' catchphrases is preserved: the girls' chorus of "Good night, good night, dear Miss Clavel" every bedtime, while Miss Clavel nightly intuits that "something is not right" with her girls. This remains charming rather than laboured, largely because of the film's fine performances. Hatty Jones, as the diminutive heroine, is as convincing when she is the rebellious straight talker (giving Lord Covington a piece of her mind, or launching herself at Pepito to save a mouse) as she is when hinting at the anxiety and essential loneliness of the orphaned child.
The other girls are defined by one-liner trademarks, but they spring to life as a group, demurely trotting about Paris by day and horsing around with the cook's enormous bra and cracking fart jokes by night. Nonetheless, crystallised in Madeline's rivalry with one particular girl is a sense of the ambivalence between loyalty and dissonance that occurs in a close community such as this.
Frances McDormand seems made for the role of the liberal, kooky nun, who allows her beloved girls to yell and cluck at each other in the name of "debate", then insists on them being "young ladies", while her own pious demeanour hides a love of fast cars and card-playing. This is a Miss Clavel for the 90s; McDormand's Marge Gunderson (from Fargo) with a touch of Mary Poppins.
Nigel Hawthorne makes all the right noises as the uptight Lord Covington, sole representative of the books' ghoulish board of trustees, here given a specific reason for his bad behaviour. As Madeline, with empathic perception, works out, he takes out his grief for his wife on the school. Pepito, too, compensates for his feelings of abandonment by acting like a bombastic little prince. And Madeline, it is hinted, is a little mixed up after her parents' death. But the bundle of explicatory psychology has just the right weight.
The film even pulls off the wickedly schematic touch that makes all the male characters bad, sad or hopeless, while the women are tough, funny and bright. Helene, the cook, is a gender reversal of the salty old French resistance member. A throwaway turn of the plot at the end reveals that the Uzbekhistani ambassador, who agrees to keep the school going, is not, as we expect, a man but a woman. And Genevieve, the brave dog who saves Madeline, is female - yet not, as the book has it, so that she can produce enough puppies for each girl.
Credits
- Producers
- Saul Cooper
- Pancho Kohner
- Allyn Stewart
- Screenplay
- Mark Levin
- Jennifer Flackett
- Screen Story
- Malia Scotch Marmo
- Mark Levin
- Jennifer Flackett
- Based on the book by
- Ludwig Bemelmans
- Director of Photography
- Pierre Aïm
- Editor
- Jeffrey Wolf
- Production Designer
- Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski
- Music
- Michel Legrand
- ©Global Entertainment Production GmbH & Co. Film KG
- Production Companies
- TriStar Pictures presents a Jaffilms production
- A Pancho Kohner/Saul Cooper production
- Executive Producer
- Stanley R. Jaffe
- Production Co-ordinator
- Aude Boedec
- Unit Production Manager
- Olivier Thaon
- Unit Manager
- Arnaud Dupont
- Location Managers
- Jean-Pascal Gautier
- Gonzague Isle de Beauchaine
- Stéphane Alain Floc'h
- Post-production Supervisor
- Susan Lazarus
- Assistant Directors
- Thierry Verrier
- Camille Chaumeil
- Script Supervisor
- Sylvette Baudrot
- Casting
- UK:
- Karen Lindsay-Stewart
- US:
- Pat McCorkle
- France:
- Sylvie Brocheré
- Camera Operator
- Georges Diane
- Steadicam Operator
- Eric Leroux
- Visual Effects
- Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc
- Special Effects
- Graham Longhurst
- Graham Hills
- Art Directors
- Bertrand Clercq-Roques
- Gérard Drolon
- Rebecca Holmes
- Set Decorator
- Aline Bonetto
- Scenic Artist
- Stuart Clarke
- Costume Designer
- Michael Clancy
- Costume Supervisor
- Germinal Rangel
- Key Make-up
- Nathalie Tissier
- Hair Stylists
- Alain Bernard
- Jean-Pierre Caminade
- Title Design
- Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc
- Opticals
- Cineric Inc
- Music Editor
- David Carbonara
- Soundtrack
- "In Two Straight Lines" by/performed by Carly Simon; "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale" music by Michel Legrand, Paul Weitz, Miranda Thompson; "What a Wonderful World" by George David Weiss, Bob Thiele, performed by Louis Armstrong
- Sound Mixer
- Michel Kharat
- Re-recording Mixer
- Michael Barry
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Stuart Levy
- Sound Editors
- Rick Freeman
- Jac Rubenstein
- Melanie Ryder
- Michael W. Mitchell
- ADR
- Editors:
- Kenton Jakub
- Annette Kudrak
- Foley
- Artists:
- Brian Vancho
- Ryan Collison
- Editor:
- Steven R. Visscher
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Rémy Julienne
- Daniel Vérité
- Michel Norman
- Animal Trainer
- Michael Flaesch
- Cast
- Frances McDormand
- Miss Clavel
- Nigel Hawthorne
- Lord Covington
- Hatty Jones
- Madeline
- Ben Daniels
- Leopold the tutor
- Arturo Venegas
- Mr Spanish Ambassador
- Stéphane Audran
- Lady Covington
- Katia Caballero
- Mrs Spanish Ambassador
- Chantal Neuwirth
- Helene the cook
- Kristian de la Osa
- Pepito
- Clare Thomas
- Aggie
- Bianca Ströhman
- Victoria
- Christina Mangani
- Chantal
- Rachel Dennis
- Lucinda
- Pilar Garrard
- Beatrice
- Jessica Mason
- Serena
- Alix Ponchon
- Lolo
- Emilie Jessula
- Elizabeth
- Eloïse Eonnet
- Sylvette
- Alice Lavaud
- Veronica
- Morgane Farçat
- Marie-Odile
- Alexis Desseaux
- Louis the painter
- George Harris
- Mr Liberian Ambassador
- Marie-Noëlle Eusèbe
- Mrs Liberian Ambassador
- Ash Varrez
- Mr Indian Ambassador
- Vayu Naidu
- Mrs Indian Ambassador
- Alexandre Arbatt
- Mr Uzbekhistani Amabassador
- Katia Tchenko
- Mrs Uzbekhistani Amabassador
- Julien Maurel
- Raphaël Beauville
- Choukri Gabteni
- Idiots Popopov
- Luc Florian
- chief gendarme
- Luca Vellani
- chauffeur
- Emile Abossolo M'bo
- circus barker
- Marianne Groves
- admitting nurse
- Christian Mulot
- hospital doctor
- Christophe Guybet
- paramedic
- Nani
- Genevieve
- Certificate
- U
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 8,012 feet
- 89 minutes 1 second
- Dolby/SDDS
- Colour by
- Technicolor