Portrayals in Print and Screen
The Old Lady's place in the public consciousness and its striking shape have inspired many portrayals in film and literature.
- Jean Grémillon directed Gardiens de Phare (The Lighthouse Keepers) (1929), a film telling the story of a lighthouse keeper and his son who are stranded by the storm in a lighthouse off the coast of Brittany (La Vieille). The son is suffering from rabies.
- Breton folklorist Anatole Le Braz wrote a novel, Le Gardien du Feu (1900), whose story is set in La Vieille.
- Yves Heurté, Le Phare de la Vieille, Seuil Jeunesse, 1995 ISBN 2-02-023174-3: Narrative fiction taking place in La Vieille.
As well as its role as a location in fiction, documentaries chronicling the lighthouse plus the human element have been produced.
- Les Gardiens du feu (Keepers of the Light) (1992): A 52-minute documentary, directed by Jean-Yves Le Moine and Thierry Marchadier for 1+1 Production, chronicling the life of two keepers of the oil-powered lighthouse. Marchadier followed this up in 1996 with the 52-minute documentary La lumière et les hommes (The light and the men), which focused on the electrification and automation of La Vieille.
- The actor Jean Rochefort acted as patron for a 2005 documentary, Phare de la Vieille.
La Poste, the French postal service, commemorated La Vieille lighthouse together with the environs of Pointe du Raz on a postage stamp, in 1946 and again in 2003.
Read more about this topic: La Vieille
Famous quotes containing the words portrayals, print and/or screen:
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I’ve forgotten
If I ever read it.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“We like the chase better than the quarry.... And those who philosophize on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)