World City Guide

Culture

La Provence is the local daily paper and it has listings for films, events, etc. (website: www.laprovence-presse.fr). Also try La Marseillaise (website: www.lamarseillaise.fr).

Good online guides with events listings include www.bestofprovence.com and www.tout-marseille.com

To buy tickets for events online try La Fnac (website: www.fnac.com), Virgin (tel: (04) 91 55 84 11), Billetel (tel: 0892 692 694) or Ticketnet (tel: 0892 390 100; www.ticketnet.fr). Tickets are also often available directly at the venue.

Music: The Opera de Marseille, 2 rue Moliere, 1e (tel: (04) 91 55 14 99 or 91 55 21 07, 91 55 11 10 for tickets) 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 Vélodrome, Boulevard Michelet, 8e, one of the venues for the 1998 World Cup. Le Moulin, 47 boulevard Perrin, 13e (tel: (04) 91 06 33 94) is a popular small venue hosting big names.

Lots of theatres, such as the Théatre Toursky (see below) and churches (see Abbaye de St Victor in Key Attractions) also have recitals and gigs. La Friche la Belle de Mai, 41 rue Jobin (tel: (04) 95 04 95 04; website: www.lafriche.org), a former squat in a disused factory complex, has become a thriving alternative cultural centre featuring concerts of all kinds, exhibition, theatre etc. It is well worth checking out too. So is Dock des Suds, 12 rue Urbain V (tel: (04) 91 99 00 00; website: www.dock-des-suds.org), a very ‘in’ venue which hosts a variety of events throughout the year.

Theatre: The Théatre National de la Criée, 30 quai de Rive Neuve, 7e (tel: (04) 96 17 80 00; website: www.theatre-lacriee.com) is the main theatre in Marseilles, showcasing a wide variety of productions, but there are plenty of other theatres throughout the city, including La Minoterie, 9-11 rue d’Ozier, 2e (tel: (04) 91 90 07 94; website: www.minoterie.org); Théatre Toursky, 16 passage Leo Férré, 3e (tel: (04) 91 02 58 35; website: www.toursky.org); Théatre Off, 9 rue Nau, 6e (tel: (04) 91 33 12 92; website: www.theatre.offcaramail.com); Théatre du Merlan, avenue Raimu BP 153, 14e (tel: (04) 91 11 19 20; www.theatre-merlan.org) and Théatre du Gymnase, 4 rue du Theatre Francais (tel: (04) 91 24 35 24). Small local theatres like La Baleine qui dit ‘vagues’, 48 rue Barbaroux, 1e (tel: (04) 91 48 95 60; website: www.labaleinequiditvagues.com) and the Chocolat Théatre, 59 cours Julien (tel: (04) 91 42 19 29) also put on interesting plays, some for children.

Dance: The Ballet National de Marseille (tel: (04) 91 32 72 72; website: www.ballet-de-marseille.com) performs at the Opera de Marseille (see Music).

Film: Cinemas in the centre of town include UGC Capitole, 134, La Canebière, 1e (tel: 0836 68 68 58); Pathé Madeleine, 36, avenue Foch, 4e (tel: 0836 68 20 22); Cinema Le Prado, 36, avenue du Prado , 6e (tel: (04) 91 37 67 13), Le Chambord, 283, avenue du Prado, 8e (tel: (04) 91 25 71 11) and Le César, 4, place Castellane, 6e (tel: (04) 91 37 12 80), all showcasing mainstream movies. For arthouse cinemas, try Les Variétés, 37, rue Vincent Scotto, 1e and Le Mirroir, a real gem in the Vieille Charité (tel: (04) 91 14 58 88), which showcases little known movies from around the world.

Too many movies have been shot in Marseilles 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 Marseilles 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 Gérard 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, colourful city, in keeping with descriptions of the city by other Provencal authors such as Fredéric Mistral or Alphonse Daudet. But others, such as Alexandre Dumas, Prosper Merimée 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, Marseilles 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.