Historical Films:  Which History is Most Important?

     Usually when a historical film is discussed, film critics and historians tend to focus on the historical accuracy of details such as costume, props, speech, and so on.  Of course, all of that is very important if one is concerned with what the audience will take away with them when they leave the movie theater.  But what about the common history that the audience brings into the theater before the film even begins?  What about the history that is unfolding as the screenplay is still being written?  Some film critics have picked up on this fact.  Stuart Airlie said “The relationship between historical films and the times that they depict is complex, as is the relationship between such films and the times that produce them” (“Strange Eventful Histories:  The Middle Ages in Cinema 172). 

But what about the remake of a historical film?  Does this common history change?  Lucy Mazdon, author of Encore Hollywood, and Brigitte Humbert point out that is does because the national cultural identity of the film’s country of origin separates the original from the remake.  Both authors are defending the American remake of the French film and use The Return of Martin Guerre and Sommersby as their examples.  But the focus is politically oriented; identity is linked to politics.  How does this theory work on the basic unit of government: the family?  If the political atmosphere was changing, how did that affect the family which is prominently shown in either film?  Did The Return of Martin Guerre and Sommersby reflect the current family of its respective nation?  Mazdon remarks that both The Return of Martin Guerre and Sommersby are “set in a time of uncertainty and change” (75).  In her article this is the political atmosphere of France and the United States, but that statement is somewhat true for the family as well.   For example, the struggle with national identity parallels the struggle of what makes a family.  David Popenoe writes in his book Disturbing the Nest (1988) that “The term ‘family,’ simple and straightforward though it may seem, refers to a complex social reality” (4).  We see this played out in both films.  In The Return of Martin Guerre, the idea of marriage hinged on whether or not the man who claimed to be Martin Guerre was really who he claimed to be.  In Sommersby, the question of identity does not play such a big part, but it is still important.

The family structure present in each film is representative of the family type native to either country.  For instance, “drawing on cultural resonance” (Humbert 6) the family structure in The Return of Martin Guerre is almost no different than the current families of France.  “The concept of family tends to include extended family as well, often three or four generations” (Asselin and Mastron 59).  Living in one or two houses are Martin, Bertrande, Sanxi, Martin’s sisters and uncle, Bertrande’s mother, and some of Martin’s cousins.  This does not include those who are dead like both of Martin’s parents.  If any relatives, like his cousins, so not live in the family compound then most likely they live in that town.  In modern France, “when it is economically possible, [they] prefer to stay in the same geographic area” (Asselin and Mastron 59).

     In Sommersby, the family structure is more compact and culturally specific to American culture.  The Sommersby family consists of a father (sort of), a mother, and two children.  This is, as most of us know, what is called the nuclear family.  The Sommersbys are “a family situated apart from … the larger kin group” (Rebuilding 40).  Absent are the parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles of either Jack or Laurel.  The character of Pierre Guerre is replaced by Orin, a friend of the family.  Though the audience is not informed about the exact whereabouts of other relatives, it does not change the fact that they resemble the modern American family.  By the time that Sommersby is made the nuclear family is rapidly disappearing, which might account for the shortage of these type of families in the film and town.

     The biggest issue facing the family in each film was the absence of biological father and/or husband.  I say biological because neither the real Martin nor Jack was present to be a father figure to their offspring, and neither is much of a husband.  For my purposes, I choose to interpret this abandonment as the equivalent of divorce.  In The Return of Martin Guerre, the whole story was presented as a rare case because it seems improbable that a man could fool a woman and the village into thinking that he was her long lost husband.  I propose that this situation also reflects the rarity of divorce in the French society in the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.  In 1998, statistics show that only 2 out of every thousand people get divorced in France compared to the 4.3 out of one thousand get divorced in the United States (Encarta “Divorce Rates in Various Countries”).  This figure is taken sixteen years after the movie was made but this statistic is the increase which might make it safe to say that the year 1982 had considerably less divorce rates than today, considering that the French are very family oriented.  Also the census taken in 1982 did not even include single-parent households.  It was not until 1999 when the next census took single-parent homes into consideration (French census bureau?).

     Sommersby represents something more common in the United States.  Divorce and single-parent homes were seen as a growing epidemic in the late 1980s and through to present times.  In 1988, the chance of divorce for the first marriage was “about one in two” (Popenoe, Disturbing 287) and by 1990 the percent ranged from 44% to 66% (Popenoe, “Family” 41).  This causes the dissolution of the traditional nuclear family which most of the American audience was probably familiar with by 1993.

     The return of Martin and Jack as what seemed to be changed men pleased Bertrande and Laurel because the husband that had left was much more overbearing than the one that returned.  “Martin” taught Bertrande how to write, and Jack respected Laurel as a person.  Both women were, in a sense, raised to a position of equality with their husbands.  This change in behavior could represent the demise of the patriarchal family system in the western world.  According to David Popenoe, “The male spouse is losing some power and authority over family decisions to the female, and the power within the home is becoming more symmetrical” (Disturbing 301). 

But this world is still not perfect.  While Martin and Jack are gone the women have to rely on other males within the family or community.  Bertrande is still cared for by Pierre Guerre, Martin’s uncle, and Laurel depends upon Orin for help while Jack is gone.  And neither made much of living while the male was absent.

     The next biggest issue involving the families depicted in The Return of Martin Guerre and Sommersby was the idea of marriage.  There were two ideas of marriage presented in the plot of both films.  The first setup is the traditional sense of marriage: one man and one woman joined “in the legally based pair-bond of marriage” (Popenoe, Disturbing 300).  The second setup is the pair-bond that is non-marital where a man and a woman live together but are not legally married.  David Popenoe calls the former pair-bond the “Bourgeois Nuclear Family System” (299) and the latter bond “Postnuclear Family System.” (300).  He claims that the “Bourgeois” system is fast becoming a relic of the past and the “Postnuclear” was fast becoming the trend in the western world.  This disappearance of the relic is shown in The Return of Martin Guerre by how much time is devoted to the concept of marriage and then how much time is devoted the idea of the non-marital unit.  The marriage of the real Martin and Bertrande was shown for the first third of the film while Bertrande’s relationship with the fake Martin made up the remaining two thirds of the movie.  There are not too many happy moments presented in the marriage and the second relationship is shown almost as a bed of roses.  Since the French are still somewhat of family oriented society and have a liberal view of marriage, they, I think, are still holding more tightly to the vestiges of the legal union than the Americans but are not unwilling to move on to the next level.

According the Marital Status and Living Arrangements:  1994 report, “There were 7 unmarried couples for every 100 married couples in 1994, compared with only 1 for every 100 in 1970” in the United States (v).  Sommersby drives home this point rather effectively.  The audience never even sees the real Jack Sommersby except for a brief shot of a photograph that Laurel hurriedly takes out of a drawer.  Since the photograph is a record of the past and this is linked with Laurel’s bad memories and the real Jack’s burial at the very beginning of the movie, Sommersby paints a grim picture of the “Bourgeois” form of family.  And as I said before, there is no screen time given to the real Jack Sommersby and most of the film is devoted to the fake one.  Now, it is not being said that the traditional marriage has disappeared from the American landscape, but it could be said that other forms of pair-bonding are being accepted in lieu of what has generally been accepted in the past.

Continuing on this line of thought, non-marital pair bonding usually takes place to mutually benefit both partners.  This game of give and take also shows up within the films.  One benefit that both partners gain from this bond is sex.  In both The Return of Martin Guerre and Sommersby, the women, especially, seem to enjoy this either this more loving or, at least, better sex partner.  The men also seem to enjoy acquiring access to regular sex with a beautiful woman along with the property that they have taken over.

But the situations slightly differ in how the marriage was affected.  In The Return of Martin Guerre, Bertrande was still legally married to the real Martin but is having an extramarital relationship with another man that produced a child.  In Sommersby, Laurel is just a widow who is living with a man to whom she is not married.  In some sense, Bertrande is still in the Nuclear family system because “sexual intercourse was for the most part restricted to the marital pair-bond.  This does not mean that no sexual activity took place outside of the marriage” (Popenoe, Disturbing 300).  Laurel, on the other hand, has graduated from the old and is deeply entrenched in the new because her relationship “satisf[ies] the adults’ needs for an intimate relationship” (301).  What does that say for France and America respectively?  France may not be moving at such a rapid pace as their cousins across the big pond.  Yet, their idea of marriage leaves a bit more leeway for fulfilling relationships than the rigid ones that Americans impose on themselves with their “puritanism and prudery” (Asselin and Mastron 142).

Interestingly, The Return of Martin Guerre and Sommersby comment on how children fit into the family picture.  In the French film, the audience sees very little of Sanxi, and when he is seen it is within the context of the rest of the family and the community.  “French child rearing emphasizes the family and society, and to some extent the child” (Asselin and Mastron 65).  He has no voice but is included in all family activities.  According to Au Contraire! : Figuring Out the French, this is common practice in France.  Children are not given much authority, but they are taught how they fit into the society around them and how they will fit when they are older.

Robert, in Sommersby, has considerably more voice and screen time throughout the film compared to his French counterpart Sanxi.  He even contributes to the buying of tobacco seeds.  This family is a bit more child-oriented.  “American child rearing emphasizes the child first … American parents usually try to give their children every opportunity to express themselves” (Asselin and Mastron 65). 

But even this looser form of child rearing does not detract from the fact that the narrative, as was The Return of Martin Guerre, was mostly focused on the interaction of two adults who were together for love, not for the sake of producing offspring to take over the land when they were gone.  This is a sign of the postnuclear family unit.  Couples have fewer children.  In Sommersby, Laurel has the typical number of children for the modern American family (you know, 2.4).

Ginette Vincendeau’s article ”Hijacked” talks about how “Sommersby substitutes moral certainty for the French play on identity” (qtd. in Humbert 11).  She goes on to talk about how Jack Sommersby is a heroic figure and Arnaud du Tilh is just a man who assumes another man’s identity.  If we place this in the context of the family, we would see that Arnaud is really trying to take on the identity of the Guerre family not just Martin’s individual personality.  Jack is trying to reverse the individual actions that the real Jack had previously committed.  Arnaud’s failure comes when he tries to break some of the family rules and that is a red flag, for Uncle Pierre anyway, that this man may not be who he says he is.  “[T]he French family is a source of identity and identification for its members” (Asselin and Mastron 63).  “What you do as an individual is what counts and what forms the basis of identity for most Americans” (64).  Horace trips up because he did not thoroughly evaluate Jack Sommersby’s character before assuming it. 

I hope that this essay has adequately explained how The Return of Martin Guerre and Sommersby differ because of the presence, absence, or make up of the family.  Whether or not the people watching either of these films identified with characters onscreen, who knows?  But what is evident is that the plot of the remake was changed because of the absence of family.  And when family is absent one, like Horace, must rely solely on what one can accomplish and what others think of you.