I've always felt "La Assommoir" by Zola, the most depressing, heart wrenching book I have ever read. It was almost as if Zola was saying, if you are decent, hard working and try to better yourself and you are a woman, your life will be paved with misery. It is one book I have never been able to reread. Initially, in the book Gervaise is seen as a lovely young mother determined to do her best at honest work for her children as her horrible lover leaves her to escape family responsibility. She meets a roofer Henri, who worships her - and it is all down hill from there. In keeping with Zola's character tie-ins (most of his books were linked), one of her children is Nana, the subject of Zola's most acclaimed book. For some strange reason I felt drawn to the movie - I wanted to see if there was any hope or brightness that I had missed in the book.
This amazing movie starts with a burst of life - a huge fight in the laundry among hot, sudsy buckets of water between Gervaise and Virginie, the sister of the woman who has run off with Gervaise's lover, Lanier, with whom she has had two children. The viciousness and the brutality of the fight is shocking. Gervaise is triumphant, but it is one of the last times she does triumph.
Eventually Gervaise marries - to a good man Henri, who adores her and they eventually have a little girl, Nana. There is also another Zola reference to Therese Raquin, when Henri's sister comments on Gervaise's striking resemblance to Therese "the one who died of consumption". Gervaise longs to have her own laundry but on the day her dreams are to be realised Henri has a horrible accident. He falls off a roof and because of Gervaise's insistence on nursing him herself (instead of taking him to the free hospital) it takes all their savings and prolongs his recovery to six months. At the end of which Henri is a hopeless alcoholic and permanently unemployable. Through the efforts of their good friend Goujet,a blacksmith (who is in love with Gervaise) she is able to open her own laundry but Henri when he is not being a nuisance in the shop, has taken to pawning the laundry items for drinking money.
This is the beginning of the end - Virginie comes back to the street with her husband Mr. Fish, who is a policeman and even though she warmly embraces Gervaise and wants to put the fight behind them, she is a false friend and a troublemaker. Lanier then turns up and the drunken Henri makes a companion of him, even inviting him to take up residence with them as a permanent boarder. Definitely not as black as the book which goes into minute detail of Gervaise's descent into drunkenness, even ending with her living in the tiny closet that Old Bru lived in.
During this time Goujet has gone to prison for inciting the impoverished workers to fight for an extra 5 cents a week. When he comes out and sees the living arrangements between her and Henri and Lanier, he wants nothing more to do with her but agrees to take on her eldest son as an apprentice. The film ends with Gervaise sitting numbly in the tavern while Nana, now a child of the streets, makes herself pretty with grubby ribbons. Maria Schell is just perfect, exactly how I imagined Gervaise would be but for a more uplifting Zola book I would recommend "Ladies Delight", about a young woman who works her way up (virtuously!!) to a powerful position in a department store.
This amazing movie starts with a burst of life - a huge fight in the laundry among hot, sudsy buckets of water between Gervaise and Virginie, the sister of the woman who has run off with Gervaise's lover, Lanier, with whom she has had two children. The viciousness and the brutality of the fight is shocking. Gervaise is triumphant, but it is one of the last times she does triumph.
Eventually Gervaise marries - to a good man Henri, who adores her and they eventually have a little girl, Nana. There is also another Zola reference to Therese Raquin, when Henri's sister comments on Gervaise's striking resemblance to Therese "the one who died of consumption". Gervaise longs to have her own laundry but on the day her dreams are to be realised Henri has a horrible accident. He falls off a roof and because of Gervaise's insistence on nursing him herself (instead of taking him to the free hospital) it takes all their savings and prolongs his recovery to six months. At the end of which Henri is a hopeless alcoholic and permanently unemployable. Through the efforts of their good friend Goujet,a blacksmith (who is in love with Gervaise) she is able to open her own laundry but Henri when he is not being a nuisance in the shop, has taken to pawning the laundry items for drinking money.
This is the beginning of the end - Virginie comes back to the street with her husband Mr. Fish, who is a policeman and even though she warmly embraces Gervaise and wants to put the fight behind them, she is a false friend and a troublemaker. Lanier then turns up and the drunken Henri makes a companion of him, even inviting him to take up residence with them as a permanent boarder. Definitely not as black as the book which goes into minute detail of Gervaise's descent into drunkenness, even ending with her living in the tiny closet that Old Bru lived in.
During this time Goujet has gone to prison for inciting the impoverished workers to fight for an extra 5 cents a week. When he comes out and sees the living arrangements between her and Henri and Lanier, he wants nothing more to do with her but agrees to take on her eldest son as an apprentice. The film ends with Gervaise sitting numbly in the tavern while Nana, now a child of the streets, makes herself pretty with grubby ribbons. Maria Schell is just perfect, exactly how I imagined Gervaise would be but for a more uplifting Zola book I would recommend "Ladies Delight", about a young woman who works her way up (virtuously!!) to a powerful position in a department store.