The Emperor of Paris (2018) caught my eye when I was Women Crush Wednesday-ing Freya Mavor. What can I say, I like a “gritty underside” story when it’s well done, I have a thing for Vincent Cassel, and I was in Paris? The film is a biopic about Eugène-François Vidocq (1774-1857), a criminal turned “criminologist” in very early 1800s France. He was the inspiration for both Valjean and Javert in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, and is known as the “father” of the French police force.
The film spans about 1799 through about 1811, beginning with Vidocq’s imprisonment on what was called a “bagne” in the south of France, a penal colony on galley ships that were no longer in use. He escapes and heads to Paris, remaking himself as a respectable fabric merchant. When his identity is discovered, he tries to find the people actually responsible for the crimes with which he is charged, along the way connecting with a prostitute (Freya Mavor) and a baroness (Olga Kurylenko: The Death of Stalin, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote). Overall, I found the film entertaining, although I fast-forwarded through the final mano-a-mano fight and was totally confused WHY the baroness character existed in the story, other than to be fancy and a temptress.
The costumes were designed by Pierre-Yves Gayraud, and they span the class spectrum. According to producer Nicolas Altmayer in a great behind-the-scenes video on the costumes:
“We have the ambition with this film to make a great action and adventure film, a great spectacle film, a heritage film, a film that lasts and is therefore also a very… accurate reconstruction through the costumes and the sets… I told them the production designer and also the costume designer that I want us to be in 1809 in Paris, even the smallest button of a waistcoat, he [the director?] said, as at the time, indeed it was very important for him, all these details there and they also wanted us to be able to film products in close-up, concentrate the details which is the texture, which is the material age — that we are really in the lines of the period, in the volumes of the period, in the materials of the period which is the contrast in terms of materials and in terms of colors” (bad Google translate of L’Empereur de Paris : Les costumes).
Indeed, the men’s costumes are nicely tailored and even more nicely aged:
Have you seen The Emperor of Paris? Got any other “gritty underside” films that are actually worth watching?
Find this frock flick at:
Annette’s hairdos may be a bit off but her indiennes are exactly the right slightly muddy turmeric-going-on-mustard yellow for period Provencal prints. All the Baronne’s clobber is to die for!
Yes, “turmeric-going-on-mustard” is exactly right, and SO provençal! Adored the Baronne’s wardrobe, even if her character confused me.
I remember vaguely liking this movie.
I wasn’t sure I’d cast Fabrice Luchini as Fouché (he always struck me as an ideal Talleyrand), but given what a great actor he is, can he ever really be miscast?
I also loved that this movie had the Mark Schneider in a cameo as Napoléon. About time someone did that.
Between this and MARIE ANTOINETTE Season 2 Ms Freya Major is racking up quite the rap sheet in historic Paris!
On a more serious note, behold la Kurylenko!
CHEF’S KISS –
“C’est jolie ca!”