Director Claude Lelouch goes behind the scenes of one of the most memorable scenes of his film “Les Misérables”, centered on the character of Annie Girardot.
In 1995, Claude Lelouch filmed his version of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, transposed to the time of the Second World War, notably with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Annie Girardot.
The filming took place in the Jura, and that day, Girardot had to shoot a scene opposite Michel Boujenah in which her character, Françoise Thénardier, asked André Ziman, a Jewish refugee, to sleep with her. He refuses, and she expresses her reasons. At the microphone ofARTELelouch went behind the scenes of filming this scene:
A touching Thénardier
In the morning she comes to see me, she says to me: ‘Listen, Claude, today I want to do everything except film. My mother is sick, my boyfriend is cheating on me, my daughter is doing stupid things, I have an overdraft at the bank, I’m not in the mood, can you get me a car in Paris, so I can go back and shoot this scene in two days, be kind, do me this favor, I’m obliged’.
Sensing his tension, the director responds: “‘Listen, I’ll find you a car, but in the meantime, let’s take a shot.’ And it’s because that day she had all the troubles in the world, that she has never been so well. She was in such a hurry to leave that she said to herself: ‘He has to send me back to Paris from the first take.’
“I understood that day to what extent good or bad moods were photogenic. (…) And there, the great director of actors is not me, it is life. At this At that moment, I immediately felt that she was going to be extraordinary because she was in a hurry to leave and that it served the scene (…).”
Here is the scene in question
“At the end of the take, everyone applauded”remembers Claude Lelouch. “People were crying. She was happy, she had forgotten her troubles, she said to me: ‘Do you want me to make you another one?’ I said ‘yes, of course’, and the second one was obviously less good, because after that we started playing.”
The actress won the César for Best Supporting Actor largely thanks to this scene, in a heartbreaking speech that remains in everyone’s memory, and the reaction – often forgotten – of her friend Michel Serrault that evening:
With Les Misérables, Lelouch reunited with Annie Girardot, with whom he has already filmed A Man Who Pleases Me, Vivre pour vivre, Il ago des jours… et des lunes, Partir, retour and even a cameo in La Vie, l’ love, death.