Noblesse oblige (Kind Hearts and Coronets) est un film britannique de Robert Hamer, sorti en 1949.
Synopsis
Héritier éloigné de la maison ducale d'Ascoyne-Chalfont, Louis Mazzini élimine successivement, par des méthodes aussi variées qu'inventives, tous les prétendants qui le séparent du titre, avant finalement de tuer le duc lui-même lors d'une partie de chasse, en maquillant l'assassinat en accident. Le soir où il est enfin proclamé duc, un officier de police vient l'arrêter pour un meurtre qu'il n'a pas commis, celui du mari de sa maitresse. Condamné à mort, il écrit dans sa cellule de prison des mémoires où il relate ses crimes réels.
Le matin où Louis doit être pendu, un coup de théâtre de dernière minute prouve son innocence, et il est libéré. À sa sortie de prison, un journaliste lui demande s'il va publier des mémoires. Il s'aperçoit alors soudain avoir laissé son manuscrit dans sa cellule... L'histoire s'arrête là.
Le film, d'un humour noir très britannique, est un des plus représentatifs des grands succès produits par les studios d'Ealing dans les années d'après-guerre. Avec un délicieux cynisme truffé de références littéraires, il décrit les travers de l'aristocratie anglaise de l'époque édouardienne à travers les portraits successifs des membres de la famille d'Ascoyne, tous plus loufoques les uns que les autres, et tous interprétés par Alec Guinness.
Fiche technique
Distribution
Autour du film
- À souligner la performance d'Alec Guinness, qui incarne huit personnages dans le film, dont un de femme. À l'origine il ne devait en jouer que quatre mais il insista pour les interpréter tous.
- Dennis Price interprète de son côté deux rôles, à savoir Louis d'Ascoyne Mazzini et son père.
- Le titre original provient du poème Lady Clara Vere de Vere d'Alfred Tennyson. L'extrait exact en est : Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.
- Après avoir descendu d'une flèche le ballon de Lady Agatha d'Ascoyne, Louis Mazzini cite Henry Longfellow : « I shot an arrow in the air / She fell to earth in Berkeley Square ».
- Le château de la famille d'Ascoyne est en fait le château de Leeds.
- La censure américaine fit modifier la fin délicieusement ambiguë du film et supprima des propos satiriques visant la religion.
- Le leitmotiv musical du film est l'aria Il mio tesoro de l'opéra Don Giovanni de Mozart
- Le film a été élu sixième meilleur film de tous les temps par le British Film Institute en 1999.
- Il est classé dans le Top 250 du site américain IMDB avec une note de 8,4/10.
Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British black comedy film starring Dennis Price, Alec Guinness (as eight members of the D'Ascoyne family), Joan Greenwood and Valerie Hobson. The plot is loosely based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman,[1] with the screenplay written by Robert Hamer and John Dighton and the film directed by Hamer. The film's title derives from Tennyson's 1842 poem Lady Clara Vere de Vere: "Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood."[2]
Kind Hearts and Coronets is listed in Time magazine's top 100[3] and the BFI Top 100 British films.[4]
In 2011, the film was digitally restored and re-released in selected British cinemas.[5]
Plot
In Edwardian England, Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), tenth Duke of Chalfont, writes his memoirs while in prison awaiting hanging the next morning. Most of the film consists of a flashback in which Louis narrates the events leading to his imprisonment.
After his mother elopes with an Italian opera singer (also played by Price), she is disowned by her aristocratic family, the D'Ascoynes, for marrying beneath her. The couple are poor but happy, until he dies upon seeing his newborn son for the first time. As a boy, Louis' only friends are a local doctor's children: a girl named Sibella (Joan Greenwood) and her brother. When Louis becomes a young man, his mother writes to Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, a banker, for assistance in launching her son's career. Lord Ascoyne refuses to acknowledge their existence, and Louis is forced to accept employment as a draper's assistant. When Louis' mother dies, her last request – to be interred in the family vault – is denied. Louis vows to avenge her.
After Sibella ridicules his offer of marriage, Louis attends her wedding to Lionel (John Penrose), a former schoolmate with a wealthy father. He then has a chance encounter at his workplace with one of those in line for the family title of Duke of Chalfont: Ascoyne D'Ascoyne (Alec Guinness in the first of eight roles as the D'Ascoynes). An altercation results in Louis' dismissal from his job in trade. Louis then decides to eliminate those who stand between him and the dukedom.
After causing the deaths of Ascoyne D'Ascoyne and his mistress in a boating accident, Louis writes a letter of condolence to his victim's father, Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, who relents and employs him as a clerk in his private banking firm. Slowly becoming a man of means, Louis discreetly sees Sibella. He next decides to murder Henry D'Ascoyne, an amateur photographer, but is also charmed by Henry's wife, Edith (Valerie Hobson). After killing Henry with a darkroom explosion, Louis attends the funeral and views for the first time the remaining D'Ascoynes, including Ethelred, the current (eighth) duke.
Louis poisons the Reverend Lord Henry D'Ascoyne, then meets with a now-bankrupt Lionel, who begs for an extension of his loan. Noting he would prefer that "someone else pay for Sibella's extravagances", Louis agrees. He then pierces the balloon from which suffragette Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne is dropping leaflets, remarking, "I shot an arrow in the air. She fell to earth in Berkeley Square." Boer Wars veteran General Lord Rufus D'Ascoyne falls victim to an explosive gift of caviar, while Louis' quandary as to how to reach Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne is solved when he insists on going down with his ship after causing a collision.
When Edith agrees to marry Louis, they notify Ethelred. Ethelred invites Louis to the family estate, where he informs Louis that he intends to marry to produce an heir. A now anxious Louis quickly arranges a shooting "accident", but before murdering Ethelred tells him the reason for doing so. Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, who has suffered a stroke, is spared Louis' attentions as he dies from the shock of learning that he has acceded to the dukedom, to Louis' somewhat relief. Louis becomes the tenth duke, but his triumph is short-lived.
Lionel is found dead following Louis' rejecting his drunken plea for help to avoid bankruptcy. Louis is charged with his murder and tried by his peers in the House of Lords. Sibella perjures herself and incriminates him. Ironically, he is convicted of the one death of which he is innocent.
Louis is visited in prison by Sibella, who hints she could exonerate him if he would dispose of Edith and marry her. Louis indicates agreement, and moments before his hanging Lionel's suicide note is conveniently produced. Upon his release, Louis finds both Edith and Sibella waiting for him. Pondering his dilemma, Louis quotes from The Beggar's Opera: "How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away!" When a representative of Tit-Bits magazine interrupts his reflections to ask for the publication rights to his memoirs, Louis suddenly realises he left his incriminating manuscript in his cell.
American version
To satisfy the Hays Office Production Code, the film was censored for the American market.[6] Ten seconds of footage was added to the ending, showing Louis' memoirs being discovered before he can retrieve them; which is implied in the original film in any case. The dialogue between Louis and Sibella was altered to downplay their adultery; derogatory lines about the Reverend were deleted; and in the nursery rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe", sailor replaced the word nigger. The American version is six minutes shorter than the British original.
Cast
- Dennis Price as Louis Mazzini and his father
- Alec Guinness as the Duke, the Banker, the Parson, the General, the Admiral, Young Ascoyne, Young Henry, and Lady Agatha
- Valerie Hobson as Edith
- Joan Greenwood as Sibella
- Audrey Fildes as Mama
- Miles Malleson as the Hangman
- Clive Morton as the Prison Governor
- John Penrose as Lionel
- Cecil Ramage as Crown Counsel
- Hugh Griffith as the Lord High Steward, who presides over Louis' trial
- John Salew as Mr. Perkins
- Eric Messiter as Inspector Burgoyne, of Scotland Yard
- Lyn Evans as the Farmer
- Barbara Leake as the Schoolmistress
- Peggy Ann Clifford as Maud Redpole
- Anne Valery as the Girl in the Punt, Ascoyne D'Ascoyne's mistress
- Arthur Lowe as the Tit-Bits Reporter
Production
Guinness was originally offered only four D'Ascoyne parts, recollecting: "I read [the screenplay] on a beach in France, collapsed with laughter on the first page, and didn't even bother to get to the end of the script. I went straight back to the hotel and sent a telegram saying, ‘Why four parts? Why not eight!?'"[7]
The exterior location used for Chalfont, the family home of the d'Ascoynes, is Leeds Castle in Kent, England.[8] The interior was filmed at Ealing Studios. The village scenes in the film were actually filmed in the Kent village of Harrietsham.[9]
Reception
Bosley Crowther, critic for The New York Times, calls it a "delicious little satire on Edwardian manners and morals" in which "the sly and adroit Mr. Guinness plays eight Edwardian fuddy-duds with such devastating wit and variety that he naturally dominates the film."[10] Praise is also given to Price ("as able as Mr. Guinness in his single but most demanding role"), as well as Greenwood and Hobson ("provocative as women in his life").[10]
Roger Ebert lists Kind Hearts and Coronets among his "Great Movies",[11] stating "Price is impeccable as the murderer: Elegant, well-spoken, a student of demeanor", and notes that "murder, Louis demonstrates, ... can be most agreeably entertaining".[12]
Novel
Reviewer Simon Heffer notes the plot of the original Roy Horniman novel was darker (e.g., the murder of a child) and differed in several respects. A major difference was that the main character was the half-Jewish (as opposed to half-Italian) Israel Rank, and Heffer noted that "...his ruthless using of people (notably women) and his greedy pursuit of position all seem to conform to the stereotype that the anti-semite has of the Jew."[1]
Historical source
The death of Admiral Horatio D'Ascoyne was inspired by a true event: the collision between HMS Victoria and HMS Camperdown off Tripoli because of an order given by Mediterranean Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon.[13] The Victoria was sunk, losing over 300 men (including the admiral).
Radio adaptations
The film has been adapted for radio, including a version produced on BBC Radio 4 featuring Robert Powell and Timothy Bateson (first broadcast in 1990),[14] and another for BBC7 featuring Michael Kitchen as Mazzini and Harry Enfield as the D'Ascoyne family.
On 19 May 2012, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a sequel to the film called Kind Hearts and Coronets – Like Father, Like Daughter. In it, Unity Holland (played by Natalie Walter), the biological daughter of Louis and Sibella, is written out of the title by Lady Edith d'Ascoyne. Unity then murders the entire d'Ascoyne family, with all seven members played by Alistair McGowan.[15]
Digital restoration
The Criterion Collection released a two-disc set that featured both versions of the film.[16] UK distributor Optimum Releasing released a digitally restored version for both DVD and Blu-ray on 5 September 2011.[17]
Informations
techniques sur le document |
| •Création: 19 décembre 2013 |
•Classement: G |
•Durée totale: 106 minutes |
| •Creation: December 19 2013 |
•Rating: G |
•Total duration: 106 minutes |
| •GGTV |
•Droits d'auteur/Copyrights: GGTV |
•Contact/Comments |
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