Maigret

Well......having recently obtained MhZ Choice thru Roku, will be able to do a sloooow binge-watch this whole Winter of my now recent favorite French detective, Maigret! I had seen bits and pieces on PBS, but MhZ has them all: all 9 years! Dragging out my special snacks, along with tooth-picks to prop up my eyelids and eye-drops to reduce the tell-tale redness, its going to be an occupied Winter fer shur! Deepest thanks to French television! Viva le France! I wonder if I'll be able to speak French when finished? EMBRACE the sub-Titles!

There have been some outstanding portrayals of Maigret, the most recent Rowan Atkinson versions being quite good, but Bruno Cremer best invokes the spirit of books. Maigret is NOT a procedural, although they are certainly mysteries. They are about people and the human condition, best demonstrated by Maigret's compassion. Sometimes for victims, and yes, sometimes even for the criminals. If there is any failing at all in this fine series, it is the relative absence of his wife, who features more strongly in the books and some other versions. One of the most re-watchable series, I had depended on MHZ to view it and finally obtained a DVD set of the entire series. If you love mysteries, you simply can NOT skip over Maigret.

An excellent detective series for any nation, and yet I've seen a lot of them, ancient or modern.

Quickly, what differentiates this Maigret 1991 from other detective series is the atmosphere, the weightlessness and above all the reality that sticks to the skin of this universe.

Maigret is a gruff bear, certainly, but he has the gift of empathy: he loves people (even delinquents) and that can be seen on the screen.

Everyone has a chance with him: he takes his time to live with them, to live in the dirt, to live in the filth of this world in which he appears like a breath of air.

I like Bruno Cremer in this series because he is both human and the God of this world.

I'm more than tired of the series that we see too often in videos on demand, in which the houses don't have an ounce of dust, in which everything is smooth, all the actors are beautiful and all the investigations are solved with DNA.

No, that's not the truth.

The truth, the reality, is rather in the darkness and filth depicted by this series.

For me, it is masterful.

There are two great Maigret adaptations available online or in DVDs from the 1990s, the British version done by Granada for two seasons in 1992, starring Michael Gambon, and the Dune French version that lasted from 1991 until 2005 with Bruno Cremer. Both have strong qualities, although in many ways they are completely opposite. Gambon's Maigret is affable, poetic, emotional, sympathetic, and works in close concert with his men; his Paris (Budapest) is sunny and bright. Cremer's Maigret is taciturn and intense, preferring to wait silently while people reveal themselves, riding his men hard at times, especially the often incompetent officers he encounters outside of Paris; and his Paris (Prague) is always gray or pitch black, dark wet streets, his pipe glowing. In many ways the visual look of the shows are opposite, with the British series relying more on the romance and nostalgia of Paris, while the French series is a showcase for the dark psychological mysteries of Simenon. The French series hews more closely to the original stories, and also has the advantage of the episodes being 30 minutes longer; it is also a more complete canon, with nearly 5 times as many stories. In the Gambon series, Gambon is more pleasant, his men work with him as a clever team, and we see much more of Mme. Maigret, who appears in nearly every episode, but the humor and the characterizations are typically British, which can be somewhat disconcerting. The Cremer Maigret varies in quality with the directors, but he is almost always brilliant, playing his hunches and guiding his investigations with a deep psychology that truly honors the original Simenon novels. And it goes almost without saying, the French version pulls no punches and has a much darker way of exploring aspects of the French character that the heart of Simenon; Cremer spends a lot of time listening to people and asks questions which seem strange but reveal hidden truths. Gambon's Maigret does more of the talking and seems to succeed more through luck and teamwork, which may be failings of the shorter format and the transition from French to English storytelling. I'm fond of them both, but the Cremer Maigret is one of my favorite television programs, with plenty to love, at over 75 hours. It is also possible to watch the Cremer Maigret's over and over, picking out new clues and details, but there is no such depth to Gambon's Maigret.

I'm a big fan of Simenon's Maigret. I've read several of the novels and seen all of the movies from Pierre Renoir to Jean Gabin and Charles Laughton. I have seen the very limited Rupert Davies clips on YouTube and I wish there were more to see. Davies looks a lot like Gabin. I didn't care for the Richard Harris Maigret and at first Michael Gambon left me cold but I've changed my opinion somewhat after a second viewing of that series. About a year ago I discovered the episodes featuring Bruno Cremer. I was unfamiliar with Cremer other than seeing him in the excellent Sorcerer film (I think people avoided because of the title). I immediately fell in love with the series. Cremer to me is the Maigret that reminds me the most of the one in the novels. His physical appearance is right (to me). His ability to quietly observe and hone in one the trivial details that almost always are crucial to solving the mysteries. His intuition almost from the start at what or who is behind the crimes and his friction with the judges is the Maigret I recognize. I understand criticism of the slow-moving aspects of the series. But I enjoy watching the patience of this brilliant investigator. The criticism that he's more involved than a man of his rank should be is the exact quality of the author's character and the reason he's disliked by many of his fellow officers and by the judges who think he's too involved. I now have all of the DVD sets in my collection but I continue to watch the episodes in order on MHz Choice that streams on my ROKU players. I'm glad I discovered this great series and if you're a true fan of Simenon and Maigret you would be advised to check it out even if you're not a fan of subtitles. It's worth the effort. In fact, it's worth checking out MHz Choice. I've watched other very entertaining shows on that streaming channel as well from France and other countries.