Starting in the 1930s, Georges Simenon wrote 75 novels and 28 short stories about the fictional French detective Jules Maigret. Simenon may not be so well known in America today, but in his lifetime he sold about 550 million books worldwide.
Simenon was himself an interesting character. He wrote more than 400 novels, usually in 8 to 10 days. He claimed to have slept with 10,000 women, including the famous dancer Josephine Baker.
Early in his life, he enjoyed spending time with bargemen and other working class and even criminal types. I think this is what makes his stories so colorful. These mysteries are less about whodunnit, or even why, but about revealing these colorful characters and their hidden world.
Simenon’s Maigret books have often been adapted for films and TV. In the early 1990s, Francophone TV got together to produce a series of shows starring Bruno Cremer as the famous detective. Bruno Cremer played Maigret as a very low-key, patient, and slow to come to conclusions detective. When the famous Maigret is asked about his method, he says, “I like to listen.” Maigret observes the scene with a twinkle in his eye; a furtive smile often dances around the corners of his lips. One fan commented that this detective was never vulgar, despite the fact that the stories are pretty lurid.
When Andrea Camilleri, a retired director and filmmaker, began writing his Inspector Montalbano novels in 1994, the Maigret novels were his model. Camilleri’s Montalbano novels were also adapted for television.
Alberto Sironi, director of the Montalbano TV shows, said, “What’s different (from other cop shows) is the ability Camilleri has to tell a story, to present Sicily, a marvel that I myself saw when I was 20. This Sicily is in my memory, a little like the memory of Camilleri in his youth. ...These two things are the most important. First, the idea of story, where the plot’s not so important, but the atmosphere is. . and characters, especially the minor characters.”
Sironi pointed out that Camilleri, who had himself directed a TV series based on the Simenon novels, was deeply influenced by Simenon. Like Simenon, Camilleri’s Montalbano novels feature many colorful Sicilian characters; director Sironi spent months visiting Sicilian theatres, scouting for Sicilian actors to portray these roles. One of my favorite examples of these “real Sicilians,” is the mistrustful housekeeperMontalbano is trying to interview. She mentions that she is a monarchist, and has never supported any of the republican governments. Montalbano slaps his chest. “You’re a monarchist! I’m one, too!”
The Montalbano stories, although set in northwestern Sicily, came to be filmed in southwestern Sicily. The fictional Vigata, where Camilleri’s stories are set, was based on Camilleri’s memories of his hometown, Porto Empedocle. Porto Empedocle has changed so much over the last few decades that it wasn’t suitable for filming these stories set in the world of Camilleri’s memory. The production needed a beach with sand, rare in Sicily, and a Baroque plaza.
Luciano Ricceri, the Montalbano production designer, found these things in the Ragusa -Scicli-Modica area.
This area boasts a fantastic collection of Baroque architecture, through a series of accidents. In 1693, a massive earthquake destroyed many buildings and monuments which were then rebuilt in the Baroque style. In the nineteenth century, various social factors contributed to poverty and unrest in Sicily, which had once been the breadbasket of Europe. Ongoing economic depression preserved the architecture and environment of southwest Sicily.
The TV shows take full advantage of Sicily’s white sunlight, and its striking shadows; the cinematography has a ghostly, painterly quality of a Sicily unchanged by time.
The Montalbano TV show became a huge hit in Italy, and its architecture and spectacular scenery sparked a tourist boom. Over the years, I’ve talked to people working in economic development, and the fact that the Inspector Montalbano TV show sparked a 40% rise in tourism in the southwest of Sicily, is an incredible achievement, even if entirely unintended.
It’s the “atmosphere,” the entree to a mysterious unknown world, that attracts me to both TV shows.
