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Georges Bernanos

Dialogues des Carmélites: The Motion Picture(s)

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A Tale of Two Films

Father Bruckberger’s Project for the Big Screen

Bernanos’s Dialogues des Carmélites has twice been used as the basis for a motion picture. The first of these, released in 1960, was due to the efforts of R.L. Bruckberger, O.P., the same person who got Bernanos to write the Dialogues in the first place. (For some details about the film see the IMDb.) As I mention elsewhere, Dialogues des Carmélites was at most a working title, and as originally planned the film would no doubt have gotten a different, more appropriate name, possibly the same as the original novella had: Die Letzte am Schafott = La Dèrnière à l’échafaud = The Last¹ at the Scaffold. But the title used for Bernanos’s text when it was published in 1950 had become too familiar, and the film ended up saddled with this rather strange variant: Le Dialogue des Carmélites.

The film as finally shot and edited has the same characters, the same basic themes, and the same overall action as in Bernanos, but not much else. The opening credits insist on the two-fold origin of the film:

However, the scenario has been greatly changed from what it was in Bernanos, and his words are mostly gone. The long, meaty conversations revolving around the spiritual life have all but vanished. No doubt, since Bernanos remained in good odor with practically everyone in the aftermath of the Second World War, the persons responsible for the film felt it important to keep the connection Bernanos had once had with the film in the awareness of the viewers.

The film certainly looks very good. In fact, it is a pretty fair example of the cinéma de qualité that reigned in post-war France and that the theorists of the New Wave railed against: it was a kind of cinema that promoted respectful, expensively produced, and somewhat lifeless screen versions of the classics. For my part, I am bemused by the presence of a very fresh-faced Jeanne Moreau, playing the indomitable (and mature) Mère Marie de l’Incarnation; around the same time she was getting very different rôles in what would become high points of the New Wave (Ascenseur pour l’échafaud and Jules et Jim). In addition, the appearance of the nuns in general I find off-putting, with their plucked eyebrows and what looks like discreet use of lipstick. (To be fair, both were par for the course in films about nuns at this time.) Madeleine Renaud,² renowned for her stage and screen rôles, makes an excellent Mère Henriette (the first Prioress); Pascale Audret plays Blanche de la Force with a near-expressionlessness that does not serve her or the film very well; someone must have told her that was the proper way to play a nun.

Two Decades Later, a Version for the Small Screen

The second film version of the Dialogues was produced for French television in 1984. It was directed by Pierre Cardinal, about whom I can report to you that his career, from 1961 to the late 80s, was exclusively in that medium. This production contains much more of Bernanos’s text, and for that reason alone deserves the palm. In addition, everyone performs with such sobriety, and at a slow enough pace, that the words are able to have their full impact. The heroine is played by an actress, Anne Caudry, who died unfortunately very young and happens to have been Bernanos’s grand-daughter.

In the next section I provide a link to a videoclip of Blanche’s first conversation with Mme de Croissy (Mère Henriette de Jésus, the first Prioress), with the text of the scene as it appears in this film (which is slightly altered from the original) together with an English translation.

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Videoclip and Text of Blanche’s First Interview (1984)

The 1984 telefilm omits the opening “tableau” set in the Hôtel de la Force and featuring the Marquis de la Force, his son (“le Chevalier”), and his daughter Blanche. It begins rather with Blanche’s initial interview with the first Prioress, in which she declares her wish to enter the Carmelite order. The following changes have been made to Bernanos’s text:

1. The scene opens having omitted several speeches at the beginning of the conversation.
2. Subsequently other short portions are omitted, which I have indicated with a […].
3. Some text has been added, borrowed mostly from the omitted scene between Blanche and her father; these additions are in red.

This clip of the scene from the 1984 film can be found here on YouTube.

Prieure.  Je vois que les sévérités de notre règle ne vous effraient pas?	Prioress. I see that the severities of our rule do not frighten you?
Blanche. Elles m’attirent.	Blanche. They attract me.
Prieure. Oui, oui, vous êtes une âme généreuse. (Un silence.) Retenez pourtant que les obligations les plus légères en apparence sont bien souvent, dans la pratique, les plus pénibles. On franchit une montagne et on bute sur un caillou.	Prioress. Yes, yes, you have a generous soul. (A silence.) Keep in mind however that the obligations that seem the lightest are quite often, in practice, the most burdensome. One crosses over a mountain and one trips over a pebble.
Blanche. Oh! ma Mère, il y a autre chose à craindre que ces petits sacrifices… Elle s’arrête, interdite.	Blanche. Oh, Reverend Mother, there are other things to be feared than these little sacrifices… She stops, unable to go on.
Prieure. Oui-da? Et quels sont ces beaux sujets de crainte?	Prioress. Is that so? And what are these fine subjects of fear?
Blanche (d’une voix de moins en moins assurée). Ma Révérande Mère, je ne saurais… il me serait difficile… ainsi… sur le champ… Mais, avec votre permission, je réfléchirai là-dessus et je vous répondrai plus tard…	Blanche (in a voice that is less and less assured). Reverend Mother, I couldn’t possibly… It would be difficult for me… in this way… just now… But, with your permission, I will think about it and will answer you later…
Prieure. À votre aise… Me répondrez-vous dès maintenant si je vous demande quelle idée vous vous faites de la première obligation d’une Carmélite?	Prioress. As you wish… Will you answer me right now if I ask you what your idea is of the first obligation of a Carmelite?
Blanche. C’est de vaincre la nature.	Blanche. It’s to overcome nature.
Prieure. Fort bien. Vaincre, et non pas forcer, la distinction est de conséquence. A vouloir forcer la nature, on ne réussit qu’à manquer de naturel, et ce que Dieu demande à ses filles, ce n’est pas de donner chaque jour la comédie à Sa Majesté, mais de le servir. Une bonne servante est toujours où elle doit être et ne se fait jamais remarquer.	Prioress. Very good. To overcome, and not to compel by force3 ; the distinction is an important one. In attempting to force nature, one succeeds only in being unnatural, and what God asks of his daughters is not to put on a show every day for His Majesty, but to serve him. A good servant is always where she needs to be and never draws attention to herself.
Blanche. Je ne demande qu’à passer inaperçue…	Blanche. All I ask for is to pass by unnoticed…
Prieure (souriante, avec une pointe d’ironie). Hélas! cela ne s’obtient qu’à la longue, et de le désirer trop vivement ne facilite pas la chose… Vous êtes d’une grande naissance, ma fille, et nous ne vous demandons pas de l’oublier. […] Oh! oui, vous brûlez de prendre la dernière place. Méfiez-vous encore de cela, mon enfant… À vouloir trop descendre on risque de passer la mesure. Or, en humilité comme en tout la démesure engendre l’orgueil, et cet orgueil-là est mille fois plus subtil et plus dangereux que celui du monde, qui n’est le plus souvent qu’une vaine gloriole.	Prioress (smiling, with a touch4 of irony.). Alas, that’s something that comes only with time, and desiring it too strongly doesn’t help matters… You are of a great birth, my daughter, and we are not asking you to forget it. […] Oh, yes, you are on fire to take the last place. Beware of that too, my child… From wanting too much to descend one is liable to exceed proper limits.5 Well now, in humility as in everything excess6 breeds pride, and that pride is a thousand times subtler and more dangerous than the world’s pride, which most often is only a foolish vanity.
Blanche. Je ne méprise pas le monde. Il est à peine vrai de dire que je le crains. Le monde est seulement pour moi comme un élément où je ne saurais vivre. Oui! ma mère, c’est physiquement que je n’en puis supporter le bruit, l’agitation; les meilleures compagnies m’y rebutent. Qu’on m’épargne cette épreuve à mes nerfs, et on verra ce dont je suis capable.	Blanche. I don’t despise the world. It is scarcely true to say that I fear it. The world is simply for me like an element in which I couldn’t possibly live. Yes, Reverend Mother, it is physically that I cannot bear its noise, its agitation; the finest assemblies in it put me off. Spare me this trial of my nerves, and I will show you what I am capable of.
Prieure.  Qui7 vous pousse au Carmel?	Prioress. What draws8 you to the Carmelite order?
Blanche. Votre Révérence m’ordonne-t-elle de parler tout à fait franchement?	Blanche. Does your Reverence order me to speak completely frankly?
Prieure. Oui.	Prioress. Yes.
Blanche. Hé bien, l’attrait d’une vie héroïque.	Blanche. Well then: the appeal of an heroic life.
Prieure. L’attrait d’une vie héroïque ou celui d’une certaine manière de vivre qui vous paraît—bien à tort—devoir rendre l’héroïsme plus facile […] ?	Prioress. The appeal of an heroic life, or the appeal of a certain manner of life that seems to you—quite wrongly—bound to make heroism easier […] ?
Blanche. Ma révérende mère, pardonnez-moi, je n’ai jamais fait de tels calculs.	Blanche. Reverend Mother, forgive me, I have never made such calculations.
Prieure. Les plus dangereux de nos calculs sont ceux que nous appelons des illusions…	Prioress. The most dangerous of our calculations are those that we call illusions…
Blanche. Je puis avoir des illusions. Je ne demanderais pas mieux qu’on m’en dépouille.	Blanche. I may have illusions. I ask nothing better than for someone to strip me of them.
Prieure. Qu’on vous en dépouille… (Elle appuie sur ces mots.) Il faudra vous charger seule de ce soin, ma fille. Chacune ici a déjà trop à faire de ses propres illusions. N’allez pas vous imaginer que le premier devoir de notre état soit de nous venir en aide les unes aux autres, afin de nous rendre plus agréables au divin Maître. Notre affaire est de prier, comme l’affaire d’une lampe est d’éclairer. Il ne viendrait à l’esprit de personne d’allumer une lampe pour en éclairer une autre. « Chacun pour soi », telle est la loi du monde, et la nôtre lui ressemble un peu: « Chacun pour Dieu! » Pauvre petite! Vous avez rêvé de cette maison comme un enfant craintif […] rêve dans sa chambre obscure à la salle commune, à sa lumière, à sa chaleur. Vous ne savez rien de la solitude où une véritable religieuse est exposé à vivre et à mourir. […] Oh! mon enfant, il n’est pas selon l’esprit de Carmel de s’attendrir, mais je suis vieille et malade, me voilà près de ma fin, je puis bien m’attendrir sur vous… De grandes épreuves vous attendent, ma fille.	Prioress. For someone to strip you of them… (She emphasizes these words.) You alone must take responsibility for that task, my daughter. Each of us here is already too busy just taking care of her own illusions. Don’t go imagining that the first duty of our state is to come to each other’s aid, so as to make each other more agreeable to our divine Master. Our business is to pray, in the same way that the business of a lamp is to illumine. It would never occur to anyone to light a lamp so as to illumine another lamp. “Everyone for himself,” such is the law of the world, and ours resembles it a little: “Everyone for God!” Poor little one! You have dreamed of this house the way a fearful child […] dreams in his dark bedroom of the common room, of its light, its warmth. You know nothing of the solitude in which a real religious9 is exposed to living and to dying. […] Oh, my child, it is not according to the spirit of the Carmelite order to become sentimental, but I am old and sick, I am very near to my end, and surely I may grow sentimental over you… Great trials await you, my daughter.
Blanche. Qu’importe, si Dieu me donne la force. Silence.	Blanche. What does it matter, if God gives me the strength. Silence.
Prieure. Ce qu’il veut éprouver en vous, n’est pas votre force, mais votre faiblesse. […]	Prioress. What he wants to test in you is not your strength, but your weakness.[…]
Blanche. Oh! ma mère, par pitié, laissez-moi croire qu’il est un remède à cette horrible faiblesse qui fait le malheur de ma vie! Oh! ma mère, ma mère, si je n’espérais pas que le Ciel a quelque dessein sur moi, je mourrais ici de honte à vos pieds. Il est possible que vous ayez raison, mais Dieu ne m’en voudra pas. Je lui sacrifie tout, j’abandonne tout, je renonce à tout pour qu’il me rende l’honneur.	Blanche. Oh, Reverend Mother, for pity’s sake, let me think that a remedy exists for this horrible weakness that makes my life so wretched! Oh, Reverend Mother, if I didn’t hope that Heaven had some plan for me, I would die here for shame at your feet. It may be that you are right; but God will not be angry with me. I sacrifice everything to him, I abandon everything, I give up everything, so that he may give me back my honor.
Prieure.  […] Ma fille, nous ne sommes pas une entreprise de mortification ou des conservatoires de vertus, nous sommmes des maisons de prière, la prière seule justifie notre existence. […] Ainsi chaque priere, fût-ce celle d’un petit pâtre qui garde ses bêtes, c’est la prière du genre humain. (Court silence.) Ce que le petit pâtre fait de temps en temps, et par un mouvement de son cœur, nous devons le faire jour et nuit. Non point que nous espérions prier mieux que lui, au contraire. Cette simplicité de l’âme, ce tendre abandon à la Majesté divine qui est chez lui une inspiration du moment, une grâce, et comme l’illumination du génie, nous consacrons notre vie à l’acquérir, ou à le retrouver si nous l’avons connu, car c’est un don de l’enfance qui le plus souvent ne survit pas à l’enfance… Une fois sorti de l’enfance, il faut très longtemps souffrir pour y rentrer, comme tout au bout de la nuit on retrouve une autre aurore. Suis-je redevenue enfant?… Blanche pleure. Vous pleurez?	Prioress. […] My daughter, we are not an enterprise of mortification or conservatories of virtues, we are houses of prayer. Prayer alone justifies our existence. […] Hence, each prayer, were it that of a little shepherd boy guarding his sheep, is the prayer of the entire human race. (Short silence.) What the little shepherd boy does from time to time, and through an impulse of his heart, we must do it day and night. Not that we would hope to pray better than he, on the contrary. That simplicity of soul, that tender abandonment to the divine Majesty which is in him an inspiration of the moment, a grace, and as it were the illumination of genius, we dedicate our lives to acquiriing it, or of finding it again if we have known it, for it is a gift of childhood that most often does not survive childhood… Once out of childhood, it is necessary to suffer a very long time to (be able to) go back inside it, as at the very end of the night one discovers yet another dawn. Have I become a child again?… Blanche cries. Are you crying?
Blanche. Je pleure moins de peine que de joie. Vos paroles sont dures, mais je sens que de plus dures encore ne sauraient briser l’élan qui me porte vers vous. […]	Blanche. I am crying less from sorrow than from joy. Your words are hard, but I feel that even harder ones couldn’t possibly destroy the eagerness I feel to join you.10 […]
Prieure. Il faudrait le modérer, sans le briser. Croyez-moi, c’est une mauvaise manière d’entrer dans notre règle, que de s’y jeter à corps perdu, ainsi qu’un pauvre homme poursuivi par des voleurs. Notre règle n’est pas un refuge. Ce n’est pas la règle qui nous garde, ma fille, c’est nous qui gardons la règle. Dites-moi encore: avez-vous, par extraordinaire, déjà choisi votre nom de carmélite, au cas où nous vous admettrions à la probation? Mais, sans doute, n’y avez-vous jamais pensé?	Prioress. The point is to moderate it, not to destroy it. Believe me, it’s a bad way to enter our rule, throwing yourself into it heedlessly, like a poor fellow chased by thieves. Our rule is not a refuge. It is not the rule that keeps us, my daughter; it is we who keep the rule. Tell me this too: have you, which is very unlikely, already chosen your religious name, in case we admit you to probation? But, no doubt, you have never thought of it?
Blanche. Si fait, ma mère. Je voudrais m’appeler soeur Blanche de l’Agonie du Christ.	Blanche. On the contrary, I have, Mother. I would like to be called Sister Blanche of the Agony of Christ.
La Prieure sursaute imperceptiblement. Elle paraît hésiter un moment, ses lèvres remuent, puis son visage exprime tout à coup la fermeté tranquille d’une personne qui a pris sa décision.	The Prioress starts imperceptibly. She seems to hesitate for a moment, her lips move, then all at once her face expresses the tranquil firmness of a person who has made her decision.
Prieure. Allez en paix, ma fille.	Prioress. Go in peace, my daughter.

1. Feminine singular, as the German and French make clear but the English does not.[↩]
2. Her husband, Jean-Louis Barrault, has a cameo in this film as a mime, who is actually named “Baptiste,” just like the more famous mime he had portrayed 15 years earlier in Marcel Carné’s les Enfants du paradis.[↩]
3. Or more simply: “to vanquish, not to force”[↩]
4. Or, if you prefer: “a pinprick”[↩]
5. Literally: “to pass beyond the mesure”[↩]
6. “lack of measure, lack of moderation”[↩]
7. In modern French the interrogative form “qui” by itself cannot mean “what” as a subject. You have to say “qu’est-ce qui” (= what is it that). “Qui” by itself can only mean “Who.” But it was not so in older French, and “qui” could mean “what.”[↩]
8. Literally: “pushes”[↩]
9. I.e., a nun.[↩]
10. More literally: “could not break the impulse/momentum bearing me towards you.”[↩]

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