The film adaptation of Céline’s book Journey to the End of the Night, a project by Joan Sfar, director, and Thomas Bidegain, screenplay, is still in the very early stages of production.
Published in 1932, Céline’s first novel became a worldwide success, arousing enthusiasm but dividing critics mainly due to its sympathy for Nazi ideology during the Second World War. The author’s anti-Semitic views did not affect Sfar, a cartoonist, illustrator, thinker and filmmaker of Jewish origin, who read the book at the age of 15 and continued to think about it until he made the decision to turn it into a film, after meeting Bidegain, whom the director calls his ‘favourite screenwriter’.
The authors have already leaked rumours about the adaptation, taking liberties, they say, in order to give “a cinematic reinterpretation of the tragic existential journey of Bardamu”, the novel’s narrator and protagonist, in the hope that their work “will be understood by the general public”.
The film’s production is entrusted to Aton Soumache (best known for The Little Prince) and Alain Attal (he is behind L’Amour ouf) who are developing through their respective companies: the Magical Society (jointly led with Sfar) and Tresor Films.
📸 Agence de presse Meurisse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
