Activites in Marseille

Music: The Opera de Marseille, 2 rue Moliere, 1e is the main venue for classical music and opera. Big rock and pop concerts take place at Le Dome, 48, Avenue de Saint-Just, 4e, or at the Palais des Sports, 81 rue Raymond Teisseire, 9e, sometimes also at the Stade Velodrome, Boulevard Michelet, 8e, one of the venues for the 1998 World Cup. Le Moulin, 47 boulevard Perrin, 13e is a popular small venue hosting big names.

Lots of theaters, such as the Theatre Toursky (see below) and churches also have recitals and gigs. La Friche la Belle de Mai, 41 rue Jobin , a former squat in a disused factory complex, has become a thriving alternative cultural center featuring concerts of all kinds, exhibition, theater etc. it is well worth checking out too. So is Dock des Suds, 12 rue Urbain V , a very ‘in’ venue which hosts a variety of events throughout the year.

Theater: The Theatre National de la Criee, 30 quai de Rive Neuve, 7e is the main theater in Marseille, showcasing a wide variety of productions, but there are plenty of other theaters throughout the city, including La Minoterie, 9-11 rue d’Ozier, 2e; Theatre Toursky, 16 passage Leo Ferre, 3e ; Theatre Off, 9 rue Nau, 6e ; Theatre du Merlan, avenue Raimu BP 153, 14e and Theatre du Gymnase, 4 rue du Theater Francais . Small local theaters like La Baleine qui dit ‘vagues’, 48 rue Barbaroux, 1e and the Chocolat Theatre, 59 cours Julien also put on interesting plays, some for children.

Dance: The Ballet National de Marseille performs at the Opera de Marseille.

Film: Cinemas in the center of town include UGC Capitole, 134, La Canebière, 1e ; Pathe Madeleine, 36, avenue Foch, 4e ; Cinema Le Prado, 36, avenue du Prado , 6e , Le Chambord, 283, avenue du Prado, 8e and Le Cesar, 4, place Castellane, 6e , all showcasing mainstream movies. For arthouse cinemas, try Les Varietes, 37, rue Vincent Scotto, 1e and Le Mirroir, a real gem in the Vieille Charite ), which showcases little known movies from around the world.

Too many movies have been shot in Marseille over the years to list them all here. Two of the most famous are, maybe not surprisingly, gangster movies: Borsalino (1970), with Alain Delon and Jean Paul Belmondo, two of the most famous French actors ever, and The French Connection (1971), with Gene Hackman. Both brought the city some fame, if not exactly the kind it needed to help its reputation.

The movies that really put Marseille on the map, though (at least for the French) is the famous Marcel Pagnol’s trilogy, La Trilogie Marseillaise, which includes Marius, Fanny and Cesar (all shot in the 1930s). So did Marius et Jeannette (1997). Acclaimed director Bertrand Blier shot two of his movies in Marseille, Trop Belle Pour Toi (1989), a comedy starring Gerard Depardieu, Carole Bouquet and Josiane Balasko, followed a few years later by 1,2,3 Soleil, with Anouk Grinberg and Marcello Mastroiani. More recently, The Chateau d’if has been the setting for many a movie inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo novel, including The Man in the iron Mask, starring Leonardo di Caprio (1998), and The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), with Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce.

Literary Notes: Marcel Pagnol’s famous trilogy, Cesar, Marius and Fanny, which takes place on the quays of the Vieux Port, is a nostalgic portrayal of a friendly, colorful city, in keeping with descriptions of the city by other Provencal authors such as Frederic Mistral or Alphonse Daudet. But others, such as Alexandre Dumas, Prosper Merimee or Emile Zola (in Les Mysteres de Marseille, written in the 1860s), were fascinated by the violence and the mystery surrounding the Provencal capital, and the picture they paint of it is not such a rosy one. For them, Marseille was very much the gate to the East it was for Albert Camus. Also worth mentioning are the creative mysticism of Jean Giono and the current trend which uses this melting pot the Phocean city is as a background for ‘roman noir’, as exemplified by Patrick Cauvin and Jean Claude izzo.