Return Of Martin Guerre Analysis

Return of Martin Guerre

When it comes to film, there are many examples which would be considered, “historically accurate” to the time that the film is portraying. Many films such as Glory, Gettysburg, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Gods and Generals to name a few in my opinion, accurately portray the events and situations in history. When dealing with the french film, Le Retour de Martin Guerre, many aspects of the Movie that I found are historically accurate, while some of the situations portrayed, are unfortunately not. Le Retour de Martin Guerre is a film that takes place in the peasant town of Artigat in the 1500's. A very young man at the time, named Martin Guerre, also married a very young woman at the time, who was named Bertrande de Rols. The issue that pops up is the fact that this marriage between Martin Guerre and Bertrand de Rols was an arranged marriage. Granted, this was a very common occurrence back in the 1500's, which is historically accurate, but I believe that the
marriage, and certain other situations, in my opinion, are the reasons why this whole situation of Martin Guerre leaving, occurred in the first place. The marriage was arranged to secure agreements between the two families that were involved, which included social, economic, and business arrangements. These actions were not very uncommon either back in the 1500's, but most of the time, like in Martin's and Bertrand's case, did not go along very well. To be honest, Martin Guerre was not a very good husband at all. Very abusive, and neglecting, Bertrand had to suffer through a lot of issues because of this arranged marriage. Still a very young Martin, who was now around 24 years old at the time, essentially ran away from his village, leaving his wife ,child, parents, and his home behind. For eight years Bertrande raised her son, lived, worked, and ultimately waited. She was neither a wife, nor essentially a widow. She was stuck in between two opposing worlds. When it comes to history, the act of marriage that is portrayed in this case is unfortunately very realistic in how it accurately occurred in the 1500's. When you ask someone and what they would think of marriage in the 1500's, I would assume they would say that marriage was a very sacred bond between two people, and above all, very religiously supported. But in reality, it was the complete opposite. The attitude toward marriages in the 1500's were essentially business contracts, or social agreements in reality, which in my opinion, was unfortunate. Fortunately for the film, it is accurately portrayed pretty well. The next crucial aspect of the film is when the imposter of Martin Guerre, whose real name is Arnaud du Tilh, showed up at the village, eight years after the real Martin Guerre had left in 1556.
Friends, family, and Bertrande accepted Arnaud as the real Martin Guerre, although there were people who had doubts, which is where another historical point is brought up. This day and age, with all the advances in technology and ways of identification, such as photographs, cameras, and computers, it would be almost impossible to get away with a crime such as what Arnaud had committed, which is one of the reasons why Arnaud was able to live under the shadow of Martin Guerre for so long without incident. But also at the same time, one would also assume that a long time friend or family member would surely recognize the face of the real Martin Guerre versus someone completely different, which to me is very interesting, and fascinating that this deception had lasted for so
long. Lastly, was the fact that the real Martin Guerre had shown up for the trial to testify at the exact moment as they were about to announce the verdict for Arnaud. It might have just been a coincidence or not, but how did the real Martin Guerre know that the trial was taking place? Again going back to talking about technology, the only ways of communication back then was either through word of mouth, or by messenger, and also many people did not know how to read or write, which makes transferring of information difficult for many people. To conclude, some historical aspects of the film, just can't be answered. They can't be answered not because they cant be proven or not, but because it is simply a historical film for entertainment purposes, and because it is for entertainment, it really is not a requirement to be one hundred percent historically accurate.