The Children of the Century (1999)
Literary Lioness
A printer selects letters and adds them to a print block, as the credits for The Children of the Century begin. He spreads rich black ink onto a plate. The presses begin to print “Les Enfants du Siècle.” We see the book’s text and hear its author Alfred de Musset’s voice, “We were born into a world in ruins. The wars were over, leaving no glory or ideals to die for. Despair was our religion and scorn our only passion. Women dressed in white like brides and we, the young men, wore black like orphans and stared empty-hearted at them, blasphemy on our lips. I was living in this wilderness, wrapped up in my selfishness, when suddenly, one day, I met her.” A woman pulls the book over the lower half of her face—she is crying. She is George Sand, and the book is de Musset’s account of their affair, which was the talk of Paris in the early 1830s.
On horseback, George discusses the book with Buloz, its publisher. She is flushed and angry. “It’s only a novel,” says Buloz. “No, a confession,”she replies, “which means telling the truth.” Buloz tells her she should write her own version of the affair.
The film flashes back to June 1832, when Sand was still Baroness Aurore Dudevant. Her husband, the Baron, is a drinker. She leaves him, taking their two young children with her. On arriving in Paris, she meets the editor of “Le Figaro.” He suggests she should write under the name Aurore Sand. “I want a man’s name. No one listen to women,” she replies. “I’m a writer, not a woman who writes.” So, she becomes George Sand.
She causes a stir in Paris’s literary circle—because of her close friendship with actress Marie Dorval, because she wears men’s trousers, because she smokes in public, and most of all because of her views on the position of women. She scandalizes the critics.
Then, she encounters the youthful, unstable poet Alfred de Musset. Soon they are embroiled in a passionate affair, which takes then across Europe to Venice.
With The Children of the Century, French director Diane Kurys turns from contemporary subjects to costume drama. Perpermint Soda (1978) is about two schoolgirl sisters, and Entre Nous (1983) explores the growing friendship of two women going through divorces. The Children of the Century also focuses on a developing relationship—only this time, it is between two of the moist flamboyant personalities of the early 1800s.
Benoît Magimel plays Musset, revealing beneath the poet’s cynical façade, his struggle to express his talent and fulfill his love for George, while threatening both with his insatiable search for sensation in debauchery and opium. Musset dresses like a dandy. His pink frock coat and sky-blue trousers stand out against the autumnal palate used by Kurys and director of photography Vilko Filac. The rich dark reds, browns, yellows and golds that swathe the exteriors and interiors in which the drama unfolds match the colors of Sand’s clothes. And, George Sand is played by the regal Juliette Binoche. She gives a beautiful performance as a woman who has left her husband, who is forceful in the face of hostile critics, who worries about her children, who is swept off her feet by her lover, and who survives.
—John Bloomfield (23 September, 2002)
A printer selects letters and adds them to a print block, as the credits for The Children of the Century begin. He spreads rich black ink onto a plate. The presses begin to print “Les Enfants du Siècle.” We see the book’s text and hear its author Alfred de Musset’s voice, “We were born into a world in ruins. The wars were over, leaving no glory or ideals to die for. Despair was our religion and scorn our only passion. Women dressed in white like brides and we, the young men, wore black like orphans and stared empty-hearted at them, blasphemy on our lips. I was living in this wilderness, wrapped up in my selfishness, when suddenly, one day, I met her.” A woman pulls the book over the lower half of her face—she is crying. She is George Sand, and the book is de Musset’s account of their affair, which was the talk of Paris in the early 1830s.
On horseback, George discusses the book with Buloz, its publisher. She is flushed and angry. “It’s only a novel,” says Buloz. “No, a confession,”she replies, “which means telling the truth.” Buloz tells her she should write her own version of the affair.
The film flashes back to June 1832, when Sand was still Baroness Aurore Dudevant. Her husband, the Baron, is a drinker. She leaves him, taking their two young children with her. On arriving in Paris, she meets the editor of “Le Figaro.” He suggests she should write under the name Aurore Sand. “I want a man’s name. No one listen to women,” she replies. “I’m a writer, not a woman who writes.” So, she becomes George Sand.
She causes a stir in Paris’s literary circle—because of her close friendship with actress Marie Dorval, because she wears men’s trousers, because she smokes in public, and most of all because of her views on the position of women. She scandalizes the critics.
Then, she encounters the youthful, unstable poet Alfred de Musset. Soon they are embroiled in a passionate affair, which takes then across Europe to Venice.
With The Children of the Century, French director Diane Kurys turns from contemporary subjects to costume drama. Perpermint Soda (1978) is about two schoolgirl sisters, and Entre Nous (1983) explores the growing friendship of two women going through divorces. The Children of the Century also focuses on a developing relationship—only this time, it is between two of the moist flamboyant personalities of the early 1800s.
Benoît Magimel plays Musset, revealing beneath the poet’s cynical façade, his struggle to express his talent and fulfill his love for George, while threatening both with his insatiable search for sensation in debauchery and opium. Musset dresses like a dandy. His pink frock coat and sky-blue trousers stand out against the autumnal palate used by Kurys and director of photography Vilko Filac. The rich dark reds, browns, yellows and golds that swathe the exteriors and interiors in which the drama unfolds match the colors of Sand’s clothes. And, George Sand is played by the regal Juliette Binoche. She gives a beautiful performance as a woman who has left her husband, who is forceful in the face of hostile critics, who worries about her children, who is swept off her feet by her lover, and who survives.
—John Bloomfield (23 September, 2002)
posted by John Bloomfield at 9:04 PM
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