Imaginary dialogue between Marcel Pagnol and Albert Dubout
by Charactorium · Albert Dubout (1905 — 1976) · Visual Arts · Performing Arts · 4 min read
It is in the studio bathed in Mediterranean light of Saint-Aunès, near Montpellier, that one afternoon in the summer of 1955 I meet up with my old accomplice Albert Dubout. On his table, the pen is still dipped in India ink, and a big ginger cat dozes between the proofs of a poster. We have known each other since the years when he put my well-digger in color on the walls of cinemas, and today I come to get him talking about this Midi that we both love. He is already laughing, knowing that I won't let him hide behind his crowds.
—Albert, when I come into your place I see these sheets black with people. How on earth do you manage to populate an entire stadium with tiny silhouettes?
You know me, Marcel, it's more of a mania than a profession. In the afternoon, I sit down with my pen and India ink, and I place a little woman, then a little man, then a hundred more, and each one must have its own head, its own gesture, its own quarrel. A stadium, a beach, a train station: I fill them one by one, as if I had to know every figure. People tell me you need a magnifying glass to see everything — so much the better, there are hidden stories in the corners for those who look. You who build your films shot by shot, you know what it is: the crowd is not a gray stain, it's a thousand solitudes that I set side by side.
The crowd is not a gray stain, it's a thousand solitudes that I set side by side.
—That fat tomcat sleeping on your proofs follows you everywhere. Tell me, how did your cats become your trademark?
Look at him, the beast, he's making fun of us! My cats came all by themselves onto my sheets, fat, round, greedy, a bit roguish. In the evening, when I finish an illustration by lamplight, there's always one prowling around my table, and I end up drawing it without even thinking. People loved them — they put them on postcards, calendars, they get into homes faster than I do. I think a greedy cat makes people laugh because everyone has one just like it at home. They've become my ambassadors: they travel, they sell, they charm, while I stay quietly in my Midi.
A greedy cat makes people laugh because everyone has one just like it at home.
—Remember 1940, when you designed the poster for La Fille du puisatier? What did you seek to put of my Midi on that cinema wall?
Ah, that one, Marcel, I did it with pleasure! When you entrusted me with your films, I didn't want to make it pretty, I wanted to make it true in my own way — that is, a bit exaggerated. I forced the noses, the shoulders, the sun, so that you could feel Provence just by passing in front of the cinema. A poster must stop the passerby in one second, like a playful slap. Your well-digger and your young girl, I sketched them both caricatural and tender, because that's how you write your people. Our two Midis resembled each other: yours speaks, mine swarms, but it's the same land that laughs and cries.
A poster must stop the passerby in one second, like a playful slap.
—There's that couple everyone knows: the scrawny little husband and the giant wife. Where did you get that conjugal humor, my friend?
It's my own little theater, the one that made so many readers laugh in the press. I set face to face a poor devil thin as a nail and an enormous, thundering wife who runs everything. The comedy comes from the contrast, you know that better than anyone, you who make a Marius and a César dialogue. Every week, this couple offered me a new gag: the argument, the meal, the too-small bed, the walk. People recognized themselves, they laughed at themselves without getting angry, and that's what I liked. I never make fun maliciously; my little husband, deep down, I like him, with his resigned look and his drooping mustache.
Comedy comes from contrast: a poor devil thin as a nail and a thundering wife.
—Here we are in your Languedoc, between market and seaside. What does this land of the Midi give you that Paris never gave you?
Paris, I went up there in the twenties to make a name for myself, and I published my first drawings there. But my heart stayed here, between Montpellier and the coast. The Provençal market, the bullfight, the beaches of Palavas with its little train, all of that already swarms by itself, I just have to look and sketch. The morning light on the Mediterranean gives me my banquet scenes, my Sunday crowds. I need that joyful noise, those people who talk loud and eat well. In Paris, you make a career; here, you make a life. That's why I planted my studio in the sun, far from the salons, with my cats and my ink.
In Paris, you make a career; here, you make a life.
—Go back to your pen, Albert. Tell me truly: isn't that infinite swarming sometimes a torture for the hand and the eye?
A torture? Perhaps, but a torture I wouldn't want to do without. My pen traces thousands of silhouettes, and at the end of the day my fingers are stained with India ink to the bone. The eye tires, the hand trembles a little, but there is an almost childlike pleasure in knowing that none of my little characters looks like its neighbor. I willingly lose myself in it for hours. You see, Marcel, filling a sheet like you fill a village square on a festival day is my way of never feeling alone in front of the page. Each figure keeps me company for the time it takes me to draw it.
Filling a sheet like a village square on a festival day: my way of never feeling alone.
—Between illustrating my books and drawing my posters, is there a work that suits you more, you who love profusion so much?
Both suit me, but they don't require the same breath. A poster is a cry: a single strong image, a striking line, the Midi summed up in a glance. A book is a long conversation: there, I can spread out my profusion page after page, like in that Don Quixote I illustrated in 1938 and which remains one of my joys. When I accompany your Provençal tales, I extend your sentences into drawings, I put faces on your words. I like to go from the cry to the murmur, from the poster that shouts on a wall to the book you open by the fireside. It's the same Dubout, but breathing at two rhythms.
A poster is a cry; a book is a long conversation.
—I've been told that one day your drawings of beaches and bullfights will be kept as a treasure of the Midi. What do you hope to leave to this land?
Oh, I don't have big ideas about that, you know me, I'm a discreet man from the South. What I'd like is for people to keep the laughter and tenderness I put into those beaches, markets, arenas. I sketched the little train of Palavas, the bathers packed together, the bulls and the onlookers, because I love these people and this light. If my sheets make the children here smile long after I'm gone, that will be enough. You leave voices, I leave drawn crowds: deep down, we tell the same southern people, those who talk with their hands and live outdoors, in the sun, shouting and laughing.
You leave voices, I leave drawn crowds: the same southern people.
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This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Albert Dubout's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.