The Faces of Maigret

Abstract

24 WLT JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2017 E arly last year, fans of the actor Rowan Atkinson were surprised, and many astonished, by the British network ITV’s announcement it would be airing a featurelength adaptation of Georges Simenon’s Maigret tend un piège (Maigret Sets a Trap), with Atkinson in the lead role. Atkinson has been creating notable comic characters from the beginning of his television career in 1979 on Not the Nine O’Clock News and moved on to Blackadder (intermittently from 1982 to 1989) and most memorably Mr. Bean (intermittently 1990–95 and after). He also starred in a number of feature films like Johnny English (2003, a James Bond parody) and Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007, inspired by Jacques Tati’s Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot). A character once seen that cannot be forgotten, Mr. Bean is Atkinson’s most brilliant creation and the identity most often associated with him. Bean speaks very little, and when he does, his words are usually unintelligible. As in Tati’s films and those of the great silent comedians, almost everything is communicated by facial expression and physical action. The idea that Atkinson would take on the role of the taciturn, world-weary detective Jules Maigret is initially so counterintuitive that one expects either total disaster or a stunning coup. It is not as if actors haven’t played against their own popular typecasting. Dick Powell was a song-anddance man in 1930s musicals who in the mid­ -1940s revitalized his career by playing private eye Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet. James Cagney began as a hoofer, became iconic as one of the tough guys of Hollywood gangsterdom, then stunned everyone when he returned to his almost-forgotten roots with Yankee Doodle Dandy. These were successful metamorphoses , but there are dozens more unsuccessful ones. Maigret seems almost the anti-Bean, and British critics were largely unhappy with the contrast. Where Bean is expressive, always seeking approval, twitchy, and childlike, Maigret is thoughtful, deliberate, and much less physically active. The Telegraph expressed the common reluctance that Atkinson was too distinctive to take on the role, which left it “sunk at the start.” The Daily Mirror summarized the critical reaction by saying he “failed to convince.” Metro, a London tabloid, said the movie “bored viewers to tears.” A Guardian headline said simply, “Zut alors!—c’est terrible!” To be fair, the film had high ratings, and another Guardian critic blamed the script but praised Atkinson for being “deeply subtle.” The film will make its way to America eventually, probably via Masterpiece Mystery, and we will judge for ourselves. A second film with Atkinson as Maigret is scheduled, and I suspect some of crime & mystery The Faces of Maigret J. Madison Davis above right Rowan Atkinson as Maigret in the ITV featurelength adaptation of Maigret Sets a Trap. the critics and bloggers will decide Atkinson has “improved” as it becomes easier to see him as the character he is playing rather than a character he has played. If he can get past that, he may face two other problems. The first is that our entertainment at present is very action oriented. Even 1950s Saturday matinee “shoot ’em ups” were slow paced compared to our current swarm of CGIenhanced superheroes. Though traditional cozy mysteries are still very popular, the best-selling crime novels tend to be thrillers —more sensational, more violent—with a ticking clock and a desperate chase closing the story. By contrast, the Maigret stories tend toward the cerebral, even more than the Sherlock Holmes stories. Another problem might be one raised by Christopher Stevens in the Daily Mail (March 28, 2016). Rather than deducing the criminal from scraps of detail like Hercule Poirot, Maigret, he points out, uses psychology. Simenon, in all his novels, is a student of the way people see themselves and the world around them, but his psychological interpretations, particularly in the Maigret novels, can be overly simple. “In his world, men are controlled by their animal lusts,” wrote Stevens. “And women are men’s biggest problem. This notion sits uneasily with modern audiences. We expect our heroes to see women as human beings, not demons sent to...