Sophie Marceau: 3 things to know about A woman of our time, a dark melodrama

A dark melodrama

A woman of our time was born from the desire to Jean Paul Civeyrac to deal with a character who “would have a straight line of behavior, then a tipping point, and at the end, the access to a deeper inner truth, which could lead to a new rise”. He started writing the film without theoretical intention compared to pre-existing films, with the idea of ​​a refined story led by this character.

However, he acknowledges: “I realized that I was bound to come across films or genres from the history of cinema. If it is difficult to confine Une femme de notre temps to a specific genre, we can say all the same that it is neither a whodunnit nor a thriller, and that it seems to borrow from black melodrama certain traits which form the apparent stratum of the story.

A heroine of tragedy

Moby-Dick Movies

By showing a police superintendent heroine who deviates from legality, driven by irrepressible passions, Jean Paul Civeyrac wanted to go beyond the framework of adulterous melodrama and the flouted wife. Juliane becomes a sort of heroine of tragedy: “she feels invested with a mission that goes beyond herself, where there is something that seems to be of the order of a destiny to be accomplished […]”. The fact that she wields archery echoes mythological figures and inscribes her “in the immemorial of tragedy or tale.”

Sophie Marceau

Moby-Dick Movies

Jean Paul Civeyrac is more accustomed to working with young, new or little-known actors. This is the first time he has directed an actress as famous as Sophie Marceau. He didn’t have her in mind during the writing but thought of her when casting.

The actress accepted the project as soon as she read the script: “I can say that she is not only a wonderful actress who knows how to control her acting perfectly, but that she has something more, and more important to me: a sort of abandonment, as if it offered something of itself in the shots it seems to throw itself into without thinking about the effects it must produce. This is why it always remains a little surprising, and of course , very emotional.”