“Journey to the End of the Night,” the literary masterpiece by controversial French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline, is being adapted for the big screen by Joan Sfar (“The Rabbi's Cat,” “Ginsbourg: A Heroic Life”) and Thomas Bidejan (“A Prophet,” “Emilia Perez”).
Acclaimed producers Aton Soumach (The Little Prince) and Alain Attal (Hearts in Motion) are developing the project through their companies, Magical Society (which he co-led with Safar) and Tresor Films.
The Adaptation Project was launched by Safar, a Jewish comic artist, illustrator, thinker and filmmaker whose work promotes tolerance and combats all forms of racism through words and images.
Published in 1932, Journey to the End of Night was the first novel written by Céline, whose real name was Louis-Ferdinand Auguste Dutouche. Céline, who fled to Germany in 1944 and died in 1961 after living for many years in self-imposed exile in Denmark, remained a controversial figure for his anti-Semitic views and publications promoting Nazi ideology during World War II. Nevertheless, Céline is considered one of the giants of French literature and Journey to the End of Night is still taught in high schools. Translated into 37 languages, Journey to the End of Night has sold 10 million copies worldwide.
The book is a darkly comic semi-autobiographical work that follows the journey of anti-oppression hero Ferdinand Bardameau across decades. The book recounts Bardameau's adventures, from World War I to French West Africa and New York, where he finds work on a Ford Motor Company assembly line before returning to France and becoming a doctor in a poor Paris suburb.
Sfar and Bedigin's version of the novel will explore the protagonist's inner journey and dark existential quest in the wake of war and social misery.
“I read Journey when I was fifteen, and it’s one of those masterpieces that shaped me; I read it without knowing anything about Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and you can imagine how complicated my life was later. I can’t forget this book,” says Safar.
“Journey to the End of Night is key to understanding French society, including its darkest and most disgusting aspects,” adds Safar. “I’ve been working on an audiovisual adaptation of this novel for 15 years, and it was the recent encounter with Thomas Bidejan that sparked it all.”
He says Bedigan is his favorite screenwriter because they share “the same tastes, the same laughter, the same hatred.” Sfar says he has “always worked on symbols that unite or divide French society—Gainsbourg, Saint-Ex, Gabriseau”; with this adaptation of Céline, he has reached “a point of maximum tension.” “This is where we need to dig,” Sfar says.
The novel “remains an important key to understanding our time,” says Bidejan. “The list is long of those who have dealt with Bardameau’s adventures, his desperate humor, his clinical insight, the novel’s impetuous structure, its author’s uncontrollable personality, and Céline’s mountainous language.” Bidejan’s recent screenwriting credits include Jacques Audiard’s Cannes-winning musical thriller Emilia Perez.
“It took a giant like Joan to make this project come to life. Our joyful meeting removed any doubts – our shared desire for cinema, for the creation of images and meaning, our unconventional admiration for this great work… and here we are, working hard, full of enthusiasm,” continues Bedigain.
Soumach and Attal, both Jewish, said in a joint statement that the project to adapt Céline's novel was “an enormous responsibility, but also an unprecedented creative adventure.”
“Together with Joan Sfar and Thomas Bidegen, we have the ambition to bring this literary masterpiece to the screen in all its power, depth and complexity,” they added.
The duo said they had “assembled an exceptional artistic team to capture the essence of Céline's tortured and fascinating work.” They also suggested they would take some liberties with the narrative to deliver “a cinematic reinterpretation of Bardameau's existential and tragic journey,” which would showcase “Sfar and Bidejan's unique and individual vision that will resonate with a wide audience.”
