The film begins in 1999. A conductor on tour in the United States, Pierre Morhange, learns of the death of his mother. He returns home to France for the funeral. But now there’s a knock on the door. It is Pepinot, a former classmate, who brings him the diary of Clément Mathieu, one of their former supervisors at the boarding school.
In 1949, Clément Mathieu, a failed musician, was hired at Fond de l’étang, a boarding school for so-called difficult young people, children of the war, orphans or sons of single mothers.
Clément Mathieu (Gérard Jugnot) with the young student Pierre Morhange (Jean-Baptise Maunier). [Vega Distribution]
The establishment is strictly managed by Monsieur Rachin, who applies repressive discipline. Clément Mathieu is a pawn. His role: to watch the children. But when he discovers that the children are writing rude songs regarding him, he decides to teach them to sing.
A good teacher, he manages to impose his authority with humor and skill. He transforms the negative energy of these young rebels through music. Better, he spots a talent, a pearl: Pierre Morhange (Jean-Baptiste Maunier). A child with a golden voice initially refractory to exercise and who becomes a talented soloist.
The Fond de l’Étang boarding school choir is improving rapidly. The ambient climate relaxes. Then everything will turn around.
>> To see: the trailer of the film
A painful childhood
The scenario of “The Choristers” takes its plot from a film by Jean Dréville released in 1945, entitled “La cage aux rossignols”. This film, Christophe Barratier, sees him in the cinema, as a child. The story speaks to him. The director had a painful childhood. His parents, an actress mother, a father who works in the cinema, separate. Very young, he was placed with his grandmother in the provinces.
In the school playground, I was a bit like Pépinot, the orphan in the film. I came to the gate to wait for a father who did not come. I saw my mother, but I resented her.
The filmmaker chooses to temper the remarks of “La cage aux rossignols” on the scale of great feelings and to situate his film rather on the side of idealism.
With his screenwriter Philippe Lopes-Curval, who was introduced to him by Gérard Jugnot with whom he wrote “Monsieur Batignole”, among other things, the director seeks to work on childhood, fears, the feeling of abandonment.
“I wanted to deal with universal childhood, rediscover the psychoanalytical virtues of the tale. My childhood wounds are common to many,” he explains.
The two men prune the backward side of the story, work on credibility. “I chose to drop the very ‘happy ending’ and strongly characterize four or five of the children, unlike the original film where they form a mass from which only two of them emerge. I wanted to find a balance. It’s dramatic comedy, but it’s comedy all the same”, book Christophe Barratier.
“The choristers”, a film by Christophe Barratier. [Vega Distribution]
To interpret the 70 children in the film who play the residents of the hostel, the director auditions more than 300 children in real difficulty, recruited from hostels or from high schools in difficult suburbs.
>> To listen: an interview with Christophe Barratier recorded at the release of the film regarding his career, Gérard Jugnot, the children selected and his projects
