On the occasion of the release of “Mascarade” by Nicolas Bedos, here are five things to know about this film with Pierre Niney, Marine Vacth, Isabelle Adjani and François Cluzet.
Masquerade by Nicolas Bedos
With Pierre Niney, Isabelle Adjani, François Cluzet…
What is it about ? When a young gigolo falls under the spell of a sublime hustler, it’s the start of a Machiavellian plan under the scorching sun of the Côte d’Azur. Are the two lovers ready to do anything to afford a dream life, even if it means sacrificing that of a former glory of cinema and a real estate agent?
Passions, crimes, betrayals… After “Mr. and Mrs. Adelman” and “La Belle Époque”, Nicolas Bedos makes fun of the cruel world of money king and gives us a new sentimental fresco.
Adapted from a book… Which has not been published!
2022 – KIOSK FILMS – PATHÉ FILMS – SOFINERGIE CAPAC – TF1 FILMS PRODUCTIONS – FILS PROD – HUGAR PROD – UMEDIA
Masquerade is adapted from a book that Nicolas Bedos tried to write for a year and which recounted in a very romantic way a period of his life, around the age of 23, when he “drowned in idleness and other people’s money” (in his own words). The director explains:
“Let’s say it’s the story of a loser maintained by older women who will fall head over heels for a loser maintained by older guys, their adventure leading to a vast amorous manipulation. It’s also the story of a silent war between the sexes and the generations.”
“I say it without coquetry: I am a failed novelist. Because I get lost in digressions, I get stuck for weeks on stylistic retouching and I lose the main plot. Doria [Tillier]my girlfriend at the time, who one evening said to me: “stop, make a film of it”.
“I have a relative confidence in screenwriting. I write quickly and I think I have more or less mastered the different narrative plots. Which is no longer the case when I tackle prose.”
The choice of format
2022 – KIOSK FILMS – PATHÉ FILMS – SOFINERGIE CAPAC – TF1 FILMS PRODUCTIONS – FILS PROD – HUGAR PROD – UMEDIA
Nicolas Bedos chose to shoot on film to give shape to a more or less timeless aesthetic of the characters, the genre and the region. The director says:
“I wanted to film a story of today with the tools of yesteryear. Despite technological progress, film gives a pictorial aspect that digital does not allow, especially outdoors. You can feel it on the skin, the shine looks. The counterpart is that the installation is much more laborious, because the film is less sensitive to light.”
During OSS 117!
2022 – KIOSK FILMS – PATHÉ FILMS – SOFINERGIE CAPAC – TF1 FILMS PRODUCTIONS – FILS PROD – HUGAR PROD – UMEDIA
After OSS 117 Red Alert in Black Africa, released in August 2021, Nicolas Bedos finds Pierre Niney, who camped OSS 1001 alongside Jean Dujardin in this third parody part. The actor recalls:
“The first time I hear about the project is quite unlikely… It’s at 3:30 am in the depths of Kenya in a wild reserve during the filming of OSS 117. I hear dance steps during a hour in the room above mine.”
“I think then that Nicolas organized a little after party in his room. I discovered the next morning with amazement that he was all alone and that it was not a party. But indeed a session of writing of Masquerade and more precisely of one of the dances of the character of Adrien.”
Nice as a character
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Nicolas Bedos referred to Somerset Maugham’s quote about the Riviera: “A sunny place for shady people”. He therefore chose to open the film with shots of a very urban Nice, not very exotic and asked that the drone used fly over areas under construction:
“I am thereby announcing that the program will not essentially consist in exploiting the glamorous aspect of the region. For having worked there as an author associated with the National Theater of Nice, and for now living there a large part of the year, I think I can say that I know this region well.”
“I know its brilliant history, that of the major artists (Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Nicolas de Staël), but also that of corruption, racism, withdrawal into oneself. Today, a new generation is working to restore this region to the jewel it was.”
Inspiration for Margot
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The character of Margot (Marine Vacth) was inspired by Nicolas Bedos by a Czech escort whom he met in a large hotel where he was a pianist. One evening, when the bar was closing and she hadn’t found a client, the future filmmaker courted her:
“She was funny, very brilliant, we chained drinks and I felt that we were enjoying each other when she suddenly pulled herself together and told me that basically, all that was useless, love was useless, it was out of the question that she had come all the way to Paris to fall in love with a little guy like me. She had a few years left to marry a rich man who would allow her to own an apartment and bring her mother over from there. Czechoslovakia.”