Three early masterpieces from Marcel Pagnol. Criterion Collection Year 2017 Video Release 2017-06-20 Studio Criterion Collection Genre Drama MPAA Rating Not Rated Color Color Runtime 117 Animated Live-Action Full Synopsis In the 1930s, Marcel Pagnol, a leading light of the Paris theater, set out for new horizons as a filmmaker in his native Provence. His early masterpieces Marius, Fanny, and Cesar mix theatrical stagecraft with realistic location photography to create an epic love story from the fabric of everyday life. Gruff, sentimental Cesar music-hall star Raimu owns a waterfront bar in the Old Port of Marseille where his son, Marius Pierre Fresnay , wipes down tables and dreams of a life at sea. The prosperous, middle-aged sailmaker Panisse Fernand Charpin wants to wed Marius's sweetheart, Fanny Orane Demazis , setting up a fateful romantic triangle whose story unfolds across a generation in the films of The Marseille Trilogy, which first earned Pagnol his place in cinema history. If Pagnol is not the greatest auteur of the sound film, critic Andre Bazin wrote, he is in any case something akin to its genius.