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Indicate the correct answer in the spaces below (a, b, c, etc.) as you watch the film. You may want to print out the answer sheet and questions before you watch the film. Relay answers to your teacher by E-Mail, Fax, or Mail using this form. A copy of your answer sheet should also be included in your "Journal" (at the back).

A. Kelley, 154 Chandler Dr., West Chester, PA. 19380-6805

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E-mail: kak7@psu.edu

Answers:

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The Return of Martin Guerre 18 Questions

This film was successfully adapted in a U.S. version set during the Civil War, but the original set in the XVIth century is more exciting, inasmuch as it is historically absolutely true. The documents were discovered by the American historian, Natalie Zelon Davis, nearly 40 years ago. History used to deal with nations and outstanding people. In the 1960s the French started studying municipal and parish records. This way, we learned much more about ordinary people. In some parts of the world people still live very much like these French peasants of the 1500s, and most of our ancestors probably didn't live very differently, even in the 1800s. Lives were "filthy, brutal and short," not many people could read and write before, say, 1850. First industry, then compulsory education, changed our world totally. People flocked to the cities to work, conditions improved (slowly). Now we can take more charge of our fates. This story takes place when a middle class is just starting to emerge from the peasantry.

1. The Return of Martin Guerre is drawn from

a) the Bible b) legal records c) a novel d) a biography

2. The story took place during which century?

a) the fifteenth b) the sixteenth c) the seventeenth d) the eighteenth

4. The main protagonists in the film are a) poor serfs/peasants b) aristocrats

c) peasants who are fairly rich and now own some land d) bourgeois (middle class)

5. Martin's parents own

a) a castle b) a manor house c) a fairly large farm house d) a cottage

a) a very dignified ceremony b) a very religious affair

c) religious but also a jolly, vulgar, and rather gross rite d) extremely solemn

7. For Martin and his wife, in sexual terms, the marriage a) is extremely satisfactory

b) is not satisfactory at all c) brings problems d) b and c

8. "Love" wasn't taken for granted. Marriage is an arrangement to

a) to produce children who work/inherit

b) to produce alliances between families who want to increase their property or ties

c) involve all relatives concerned, not just two getting married d) all the above

9. Martin Guerre can't take being married, so one day he

a) just takes off b) leaves his wife c) disappears d) all the above

10. Some years later a tall, tough man (played by Gérard Depardieu) arrives and says he

a) is a friend of Martin Guerre b) has been a soldier for many years

d) b and c

11. Martin Guerre's wife (who ought to know) a) says the man is Martin Guerre

b) says the man is not Martin Guerre c) doesn't say anything

d) says she will not sleep with this man

12. Time passes. The man is accepted. Evidently, Martin Guerre's wife a) loves this man b) is much more satisfied now than she was when she just married

c) either thinks the man is Martin Guerre or wants him to be Martin Guerre and is very happy married to him

d) all the above

13. Among the other peasants, however, the general belief is

a) that this is not Martin Guerre b) that this is Martin Guerre

c) that this might well be Martin Guerre d) all the above, opinions are divided

14. Some years later, when everything seems to be going very nicely with this Martin Guerre,

a) another Martin Guerre arrives b) the other one is the right age

c) there is going to be trouble now d) all the above

15. The situation ends up with a

a) legal battle b) thorough investigation, all documented c) war d) a and b

16. The final decision is that a) Gérard Depardieu is not Gérard Depardieu

b) Gérard Depardieu is the real Martin Guerre

c) the Martin Guerre played by Gérard Depardieu is not the real one

d) there is no such person as Martin Guerre

17. The result of this is a) the character played by Depardieu is hanged

b) the wife remains silent. She has said she thought the Depardieu character was Martin She shows little emotion; she cannot be accused of complicity

c) the lawyer who wrote the document, is fully aware what has happened and feels very sorry for the people involved

d) all the above

18. At the end of the events outlined in the film, the narrator tells us that

a) only a few years later, the lawyer too was executed for being a protestant

b) all these events took place at the time of the "religious wars" in Europe, a time of social turmoil

c) one might also say they took place when a middle class, the one most people now belong to, first started to exist

d) all the above