In theaters since Wednesday, “Bernadette” is a comedy dedicated to former First Lady Bernadette Chirac. How did the latter’s entourage receive Léa Domenach’s film?
What is it about ? When she arrives at the Elysée, Bernadette Chirac expects to finally obtain the place she deserves, she who has always worked in the shadow of her husband so that he becomes president. Sidelined because she was considered too old-fashioned, Bernadette then decided to take her revenge by becoming an essential media figure.
The opinion of the Chirac family
The production did not need the authorization of the Chirac family for this film which remains a fiction, even if it draws on real and public facts. In addition, director Léa Domenach wanted to be completely free during the writing: “I hope that the Chirac family will go see the film and that they will like this tribute to Bernadette Chirac.”
In the pages of the magazine Paris Match, Claude Chirac expressed his annoyance with this project in June 2022. She felt that she or her mother should have been consulted.
Genesis
Léa Domenach knows Jacques Chirac well since her father, the political journalist Nicolas Domenach, is a specialist on the former President. But his wife was much less familiar to him and she had a fairly negative image of her, until she discovered the documentary Bernadette Chirac, memory of a free womanby Anne Barrère, who had been his communications advisor.
The director remembers: “I was surprised by her freedom of speech, she who was then 80 years old… I discovered her funny and liberated, very far from the idea that I could have had and above all with a career that deserved to be told.”
Warner Bros. France
Catherine Deneuve
Léa Domenach immediately had Catherine Deneuve in mind to play Bernadette Chirac, but she detached herself from this idea during the writing to concentrate on the characters. A few years later, once the script was finished, she had the opportunity to have it read to the actress, who was initially surprised by this proposal: “My first reaction was ‘What? Bernadette Chirac?…’ Biopics don’t interest me.” But she was seduced by the scenario which made her laugh.
The director remembers: “We met and we talked a lot about the script, my vision for the film… and to my greatest happiness, she decided to trust me. Then, we did a lot of reading before filming, and I I discovered that Catherine Deneuve has a “whole” conception of cinema. For example, she watched all the rushes, and she talked to me about them, not only to see her work but to have an idea of the film as a whole !”
Listen to our interview with Léa Domenach, the director of Bernadette*:
A history of women
Although she does not come from the same generation or the same background and does not share the same political side as Bernadette Chirac, the director saw a certain universality in her story. According to her, her life “resembles that of many women, who are just as educated as their husbands and who end up stepping back to make room for them.”
This is why she decided to adopt the angle of revenge to recount her journey: “I then said to myself that his story could really speak to everyone and if I chose to make it a fiction, moreover a comedy, it was to be able to reach a wide audience. I was also happy to write a leading role intended for a woman over 50 because they still only represent 7% of the faces we see in the cinema.”
She adds : “Bernadette Chirac ended up affirming a certain feminism, which is not the same as mine, but I wanted my film to speak to several generations and for it to reach as wide an audience as possible. Bernadette, that’s the point a woman’s view of a story that everyone knows, it’s a way of looking at the big story through the small one.”
Warner Bros. France
A kind satire
The director chose to tell the story of Bernadette Chirac through a comedy because the former First Lady “is a funny person and we couldn’t miss that.”
Humor allowed us to distance ourselves while conveying messages: “Bernadette is a kind of benevolent satire, the aim of which is not to make fun of its characters. The tone is that of the fable, reinforced by this idea of the choir which accompanies Bernadette Chirac and pays homage to her religious side. I believe that the bet is also successful thanks to the choice of actors, who are all comfortable with comedy, without necessarily being associated with this genre. They all embody their characters with humor while showing a certain tenderness to their regard.”
*Comments collected by Vincent Formica, recording and editing by Chanelle Morvan