The Maigret variations.

In 1932, Jean Renoir directed « La nuit du carrefour », a film adaptation of the eponymous novel by Georges Simenon. His brother, Pierre Renoir, was a likely Maigret : middle-aged, overweight, a massive, often silent, presence ; too bad he wore a bowler hat.

Misty and foggy black and white photography made justice to the writer’s celebrated « atmosphere », but Simenon did not like the film : how could he have ? However true to the novel, the film was Renoir’s.

Commissaire Maigret was born the year before, as « Pietr le Letton » was published. Never shy of self-promotion, Simenon had launched his character’s career by hosting a « bal anthropométrique » which was one of the high-water marks of the Parisian season.

There have been twenty-five, if not more, Maigrets since Pierre Renoir. Among them, Abel Tarride, probably the most forgotten, Harry Baur the most intriguing, Albert Préjean, a former flying ace, who starred in René Clair’s « Sous les toits de Paris », by unanimous agreement the worst.

There were also British, Italian, German, Russian, Japanese Maigrets (Charles Laughton, Maurice Manson, Gino Cervi, Heinz Rühmann, Vladimir Samoilov, Kinya Aikawa), though a non-French Maigret seems as bizarre as a French Philip Marlowe.

In the 1950’s, Jean Gabin plays Simenon’s commissaire in three movies, including Jean Delannoy’s « Maigret et l’affaire Saint-Fiacre », a 1959 adaptation of a 1932 Maigret book, one of the better in the series, if there is such a thing as a better or lesser Maigret novel.

Many things have changed since « La nuit du carrefour » : Maigret is now a brand name. In 1932, Maigret was neither in the book, nor the film title ; in the 1950’s, the commissaire’s name is the selling argument for both novels and film adaptations. « La nuit du carrefour » was a Renoir film, « Maigret et l’affaire Saint-Fiacre » is a Maigret film : Jean Delannoy, the director, is an employee at the commissaire’s service.

Enjoying a Maigret novel is an acquired taste. Reading one does not sweep you off your feet, but teases your curiosity enough, though you cannot pinpoint why, that, after a while, you try a second one : the novels are short, an easy read, they require very little investment in money, time and attention ; like their paperback format a pocket, they fit a busy schedule which would not accommodate a more substantial book.

Little by little, Maigret grows on you, the commissaire stories do not become an addiction, but a habit, a need. After believing they are in endless supply, you ration yourself and put aside some of the 75 Maigret novels Simenon wrote from 1931 and « Pietr le Letton » to 1972 and « Maigret et monsieur Charles », for future consumption.

You want your Maigret novels to be as reliable as their title character : you want no surprises, but endless variations on a handful of plots, locations, stereotypes and do not mind, from time to time, a feeling of « déjà vu » or « déjà lu ».

Their ordinary plots bathe in a world of their own : a world without years and dates, which seems to be floating back and forth between the nineteen thirties and the nineteen fifties, but never ventures beyond the very early nineteen sixties. It is a seamless world untouched by History, bypassed by WW2, immune to political and economic crises ; a slightly unfocused, blurred universe, with no sharp edge, very often watery : the commissaire’s office oversees the Seine river, his investigations often take him to canal shores and sea harbours ; a world of shiny cobblestones under a street lamp, of ominous fog horn in the dead of the night, of persistent rain over Paris, of misty windows in overheated offices, bars and restaurants, where the commissaire spends an inordinate amount of time, drinking white wine, beer, « fine à l’eau », eating stodgy « plats du jour ».

After drinking and eating, Maigret digests, ruminates, smokes his pipe, heats his back in front of his office stove, waits. And, in his standstill world, things eventually happen, cases get resolved, through minimal action of his, as a natural process triggered by his sole presence.

A Maigret film adaptation is a strange challenge. While films are prototypes, the charm of the Maigret novels is cumulative : you need the perspective of many years and many books to appreciate them fully ; the individual stories stand alone but are also pieces of a larger puzzle which reveals their true scope.

A film project now takes years from start to completion. In the 1930’s and 1950’s, it would take no less than one year. Simenon took one week to write a Maigret novel.