Bernadette is based on real events but still has fun with reality…. To what extent? We sort out the truth from the fiction with director Léa Domenach.
In Bernadette, worn by Catherine Deneuve, most of the events are based on proven facts. However, director Léa Domenach took the liberty of romanticizing Madame Chirac’s journey a little for the purposes of her comedy. So how much of the film is true? We decipher this through some striking sequences.
“With my co-writer Clemence Dargentwe read and watched everything possible about the Chirac couple, and we extracted a large number of short sentences and anecdotes which were used to write the film, strictly respecting the chronology, from 1995, the year when Jacques Chirac became President of the Republic in 2007, the date of the end of his second term. Once the story was established, we took liberties because we were writing fiction.”explains Léa Domenach.
CHIRAC IN THE ARMS OF CLAUDIA CARDINAL IN 1997?
On the night of Lady Diana’s death on August 31, 1997, Jacques Chirac was very difficult to contact. According to the rumor launched by his driver at the time, Jean-Claude Laumond, the head of state would have spent the night with the Italian actress Claudia Cardinale.
This moment of hesitation is earthily transposed in the film, with Bernadette shaking the Elysée to get her hands on her husband. “It’s a rumor, we’ll never know if it’s true unless Claudia Cardinale confirms one day. What is proven is that he was nowhere to be found for many hours. Then, rumors circulated in the corridors saying he was with Claudia Cardinale”indicates Léa Domenach.
“For our part, legally, we did not have the right to use the name of the actress. It is said in the film that he was with an Italian actress. We based ourselves on facts, it is up to to say that he was nowhere to be found. Afterwards, we embroidered around the rumor by imagining the crisis unit in this sort of somewhat surreal panic room. For example, in the background, there is a card with Chirac’s head all over the world. We were in a kind of crazy state.”underlines the director.
Warner Bros. France
BERNADETTE HAD JACQUES CHIRAC’S DRIVER FIRED?
Jean-Claude Laumond, who we have just mentioned, was Jacques Chirac’s official driver for 25 years. The latter notably wrote a book to tell the behind-the-scenes stories of his job alongside the president: Twenty-five years with himpublished in 2001. In Léa Domenach’s feature film, the driver appears in the guise of Lionel Abelanski and his name was changed to Molinier.
In the film, Bernadette has a tense relationship with the latter. This was also the case in real life, notably due to the driver’s revelations about the private life of Jacques Chirac. She would then have sworn to get rid of him. In the film, she uses a cavalier method by making him drink so that he gets arrested by the police while drunk. In reality, it didn’t really happen like that.
“We were inspired by Jacques Chirac’s real driver, Laumond, who wrote a book to talk about the Chirac family and Bernadette. Besides, he really appeared on Thierry Ardisson’s show as we show in the film. We just replaced Laumond with Lionel Abelanski thanks to the special effects”explains Léa Domenach.
“The real story is that Bernadette hated Laumond because it was the alibi for her husband’s infidelities. She tried to get rid of him for years but Jacques Chirac didn’t want to let go. She finally had her skin but not at all as we say in the film, she acted in a much more political way in the long term.”
DID BERNADETTE CHIRAC AND NICOLAS SARKOZY REALLY MEET IN SECRET IN A CONFESSIONAL?
According to director Léa Domenach, we know that Nicolas Sarkozy and Bernadette Chirac met in secret in 2007.
“We don’t know where. So we invented that they met in a confessional because it made us howl with laughter. Bernadette tells him that it’s in this place that she can finally forgive him. That part of a joke. Everything is a bit like that, we are always on a wire using archives with a field which is true and a counter-field which is false”indicates the filmmaker.
BERNADETTE WANTED THE 2BE3 AS SPONSORS OF OPERATION YELLOW COINS
In 1997, Bernadette Chirac looked for a sponsor to launch Operation Yellow Pieces. This is a solidarity campaign carried out every year since 1989 by the Hospital Foundation in order to collect funds intended to improve the hospitalization conditions of children and adolescents.
In the film, Bernadette wants to dust off her image as a nerdy woman and looks for names of fashionable stars to induct them as godfathers of the operation. She then asks her advisor to convince 2BE3 (famous boy band of the time) to appear alongside her but it doesn’t work. The politician will then turn to David Douillet, played by Arthus.
“That’s completely invented. The part, ‘the 2BE3 are left-wing and everything’. All that is completely invented. Bernadette Chirac and the 2BE3 have nothing to do! How could she have had this idea? That makes me seemed completely improbable.”affirms Léa Domenach.
“We thought about it and said to ourselves: what would be funny is that she went there step by step. At the start, she absolutely wanted 2BE3 and we offered her Les Muscles, which is also completely false. She said no and then we see several stages to arrive at the choice of David Douillet.”
Warner Bros. France
BERNADETTE MET HILLARY CLINTON IN CORRÈZE?
To find out more about this significant event, we refer you to our article published on October 5, which explains how Léa Domenach was inspired by Forrest Gump to recreate this sequence.
BERNADETTE RELOOKED BY KARL LAGERFELD?
In Bernadette, a scene shows the first lady in the middle of a makeover session with the great fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in order to modernize her way of dressing. This sequence is a pure invention of Léa Domenach and her team.
“We knew that Karl Lagerfeld was very close to Bernadette Chirac and that his wardrobe gradually evolved: we imagined his makeover by Karl in a scene that, again, we found amusing”, reveals the filmmaker. Furthermore, Léa Domenach and her co-writer, Clément Dargent, deliberately softened Bernadette’s character.
“She’s certainly tougher than what we show in the film. We didn’t try to hide this reality or create a hagiographic portrait, but we wanted a real fictional, comedic character. A character who could resemble her but who is not completely her, she remains the heroine of a fable above all.”
Bernadette was released in theaters on October 4.