This is not a book written by a film historian, nor is it a book dedicated to the life of a man named Jean Moncorgé, but a book about the singularity of a body and the qualities of the character called Gabin who inhabited that body in the movies.
Why this particular actor at that particular point in cinema? Because they coincide with the incarnation of a people which, in France at that time, carried both the morale and the esthetics of resistance to power, of loyalty, endurance and freedom that were inseparable from the sonority of a certain laugh, a certain tone, a certain voice. From the marvelous movies of the 30s– La Belle équipe (They Were Five), Les Bas-fonds (The Lower Depths), Le Jour se lève (Daybreak) – to some of the later, and perhaps less well-known films – Le Rouge est mis (Speaking of Murder), Voici le temps des assassins (Deadlier than the Male), Un singe en hiver (A Monkey in Winter), Le Chat (The Cat) – Gabin and the French cinema of his time – occupied and charmed by Gabin – forever remain the incarnation of that kind of integrity and freedom, which can still bring tears to our eyes today.

A passionate book, and a nostalgic one, that takes us through forty years of French history, from the Popular Front of 1936 to Pompidou’s reign...