Marcellin Babey, Turner

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by Jacqueline Veuve
color, 30 min, 1989

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Marcellin Babey, from the Swiss Jura, is thirty-five years old. He works in an old workshop in the heart of Lausanne, concious that building speculators will oust him some day. As there are no longer any apprenticeships in wood turning in Switzerland, Babey learned his craft from the former owner of his Lausanne workshop, and by going, on foot, to visit old turners in France and Spain.

When he learned from old documents that the inhabitants of the Swiss canton of Vaud used to play bagpipes on holidays before the Bernese Protestants forbade it in belief that it was an instrument of the devil, Babey decided to build the instrument as it used to be. In the film, we see him make and play the bagpipes.

"Precise shots and excellent lighting allow us to follow the making of the bagpipes through its most interesting stages." — Mireille Schnorf L'Est Vaudois Montreux, 1989

other films in the Wood Crafts series:
Armand Rouiller, Sledge-maker
Arnold Golay, Toy-maker
The Bapst Brothers, Carriers
Claude Lebet, Luthier
François Pernet, Carpenter and Sculptor
Joseph Doutaz & Olivier Veuve, Shingle-makers
Michel Marlétaz, Cooper
Pink Mountain Sand

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