Les enfants du siècle (1999)

Director:

Diane Kurys

Writers:

Murray Head (writer)
Diane Kurys (writer)

Release Date:

22 September 1999 (France)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Love, betrayal, passion and pride.

Plot:

The only thing more outrageous than French novelist George Sand's torrid love affair with the decadent...

Plot Keywords:

Affair | Love | Poet | Novelist | Author

Cast

Juliette Binoche	...	George Sand / Baroness Aurore Dudevant
Benoît Magimel	...	Alfred de Musset
Stefano Dionisi	...	Pietro Pagello
Robin Renucci	...	François Buloz
Karin Viard	...	Marie Dorval
Isabelle Carré	...	Aimée d'Alton
Patrick Chesnais	...	Gustave Planche
Arnaud Giovaninetti	...	Alfred Tattet
Denis Podalydès	...	Sainte-Beuve
Olivier Foubert	...	Paul de Musset
Marie-France Mignal	...	Mme. de Musset
Michel Robin	...	Larive
Ludivine Sagnier	...	Hermine de Musset
Victoire Thivisol	...	Solange (as Victoire)
Julien Léal	...	Maurice

Also Known As:

The Children of the Century (Canada: English title) (Europe: English title) (USA)

Runtime:

135 min | Argentina:107 min | USA:105 min (theatrical version)

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Hungary:18 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Argentina:16 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-11 | France:U | Germany:12 | Spain:13 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Alexandre Films

Trivia:

The film was shot in the actual rooms in the Hotel Danieli which Sand and Musset stayed in.

Quotes:

Alfred de Musset: You imitate passion, but you feel nothing.

Movie Connections:

Version of A Song to Remember (1945)

A Delacroix Painting

If Romanticism, as a movement, can be defined as an "infinite longing" which combines passion and erotic tension with death, despair, and the cycles of nature, then Kurys film portrayal is aptly named and her protagonists--Alfred de Musset and Georges Sand--are indeed children of their century.

The key to understanding the point of this film is to think of it as a painting. It does not give you an insider's view of the relationship between these two literary giants; it does not break down their psychology; and you do not even understand why you, as an audience member, should like either of them. Yet their obsessive love was a monument for the first major artistic movement of the 19th century. Kurys paints them as Delacroix would--in all their lurid color, capturing the details of high emotion without explaining a thing. As painting on film, Les Enfants succeeds as wildly as any Romantic dreamscape and, thus, captures the mood of that era and the sentiment which spawned it more perfectly than 1,000 words on the subject.