“Journey to the End of the Night” by Louis-Ferdinand Céline will be adapted for the very first time for the cinema under the direction of Joann Sfar, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Thomas Bidegain. Alain Attal and Aton Soumache are co-producing the film.
A first! Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s masterpiece, Journey to the End of the Nightwill be transposed to the big screen under the direction of philosopher and comic book author Joann Sfar. The information was revealed by The French Film which indicates that the companies Magical Society (Aton Soumache) and Trésor Films (Alain Attal) are co-producing the adaptation.
The screenplay is co-written by Joann Sfar and Thomas Bidegain, a great collaborator of Jacques Audiard who notably worked on A Prophet and more recently Emilia Perez. According to the press release, the co-writers will propose a reinterpretation of the novel: “A personal and fascinating approach that captures all the intensity and complexity of this literary masterpiece exploring the torments of the human soul through the prism of war and social misery.“.
A key novel for “understanding French society”
“I read The Journey at the age of 15 and this work is one of the masterpieces that shaped me.enthuses Joann Sfar. [Le roman] is a key to understanding French society, including its darkest and most revolting aspects. I have been working on an audiovisual adaptation of this novel for fifteen years and it was my recent meeting with Thomas Bidegain that triggered it all.“
This is not the first time that Joann Sfar has stepped behind the camera. The author had already directed the biopic on Serge Gainsbourg in 2010, but also The Rabbi’s Cat the following year, The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun in 2015 and Little Vampire in 2020. Journey to the End of the Night marks his return to directing a live-action film.
Monument of literature
This classic of French literature is Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s very first novel. It was published in 1932 and received the Prix Renaudot before being translated into 37 languages. The book follows the fate of the young Ferdinand Bardamu, considered the author’s literary double, as he enlists to fight in the First World War.
The viewer follows the path of horror of this anti-hero as he subsequently discovers the hell of colonialism in Africa and the dizzying America of the interwar period.
A first in cinema, really?
If this adaptation finally sees the light of day, others have already tried. In an article published in 2020, The World recalled that many filmmakers had failed to realize the project. Among them, Abel Gance, director of Napoléon in 1927, but also Claude Berri, Louis Malle, François Dupeyron, Federico Fellini, Julien Duvivier and Claude Autant-Lara.
The newspaper specifies that Michel Audiard, a great French screenwriter, wanted an adaptation directed by Jean-Luc Godard and with Jean-Paul Belmondo in the lead role.
No release date has been announced yet.
