Epic and captivating, the event film “Notre-Dame is burning”, by Jean-Jacques Annaud, will be released in cinemas on March 16, almost three years after the terrible fire in the cathedral. On this occasion, CNEWS was able to speak with the Oscar-winning director.
One day, Jérôme Seydoux, president of Pathé, calls you and asks you to make this film. Why did you accept?
At first, I wasn’t sure I was interested. Then one evening, I swallowed pages and pages of documents and articles that I had been given, I watched a few documentaries, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. All of this is implausible. I told myself that this story was written by talented journalists who took scriptwriting lessons.
It is too unheard of, but nevertheless true. After which I took my phone, I called Jérôme Seydoux, and I said to him: “It’s okay!”. I realized that the media had done a very good job, but that they didn’t know everything, and I realized that it was much more unimaginable.
Notre-Dame is still standing thanks to the heroic fight of all the firefighters dispatched to the scene. But just as the worst is about to happen, a man comes up with a very risky rescue plan that pays off…
You can’t put out a fire if the water doesn’t directly attack the core of the fire, and that one was in the belfry. If this belfry burned down completely, all the beams holding huge bells would have had the effect of 9/11, and the cathedral would have collapsed.
The French spirit is resourcefulness. Everyone did their best and it worked.
Then the risk was that the whole Ile de la Cité would catch fire. But a staff sergeant dared to enter the officers’ quarters to present his idea and saved Notre-Dame de Paris. He was also rewarded.
At first, we can not believe that the cathedral is burning, which is why for more than twenty minutes no one alerted the firefighters. We think it’s unlikely, and we weren’t prepared. But the French spirit is resourcefulness. Everyone did their best and it worked.
What surprising things did you learn during the preparation of the film and the shooting?
I was very surprised to learn that the first Crown of Thorns saved from the flames was not the right one. The one displayed in the monument was a fake. The real crown of thorns was in a chest that only one person could open. However, at the time of the facts, this man was in Versailles…
Why is this relic so precious?
This is the crown worn by Christ at the crucifixion. It was kept in Jerusalem for three centuries before becoming the property of Baudouin II de Courtenay, Emperor of Constantinople, in the 12th century, then being bought at a very high price by Saint Louis.
I was allowed to shoot in certain places in the cathedral.
What was the biggest challenge?
The strongest and most complicated moment was the fall of the vault under the effect of the fall of the spire, but seen from the inside. I had 11 cameras, 75 cubic meters of flaming material hanging from the ceiling with a shooting window of one minute and ten seconds. You shouldn’t miss this scene, otherwise it was an extra week of filming.
You had the privilege of filming the interior of the cathedral. What are you showing to viewers?
I was indeed authorized to film in certain places of the cathedral. But the presence of lead obliges, my team was dressed in white, and portrait of the masks. More specifically, I was able to film the entrance to the sacristy, the corridor leading to it, a staircase, the roof of the sacristy, the axes on the south nave and the gallery of chimeras. The rest was reconstructed in studios or borrowed from other cathedrals.