A few months after the release of the second part of “The Three Musketeers”, time for a new adaptation of a classic by Alexandre Dumas: “The Count of Monte Cristo”, in theaters this Friday, June 28 and carried by Pierre Niney.
What does it talk about ?
Victim of a conspiracy, young Edmond Dantès is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit. After fourteen years of detention at the Château d’If, he managed to escape. Having become immensely rich, he returns under the identity of the Count of Monte Cristo to take revenge on the three men who betrayed him.
3 good reasons to see The Count of Monte Cristo
For many viewers, the mere presence of Pierre Niney on screen is enough to make them rush to the theaters. And there is no doubt that this will happen again with The Count of Monte Cristo, the most physical and ambitious project of his career, in which he proves himself impeccable.
A feature film which is released this Friday, June 28, right for the Fête du Cinéma, and lasts until July 3 inclusive. If that’s not enough for you, here are some other arguments.
1 – If you liked The Three Musketeers…
It is not necessary to have seen one to see the other, even if we like to talk about DCU (Dumas Cinematic Universe). But it is very difficult not to compare The Three Musketeers with The Count of Monte Cristo: because they share the same author, the same screenwriters (Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière, here promoted to directors), the same producer ( Dimitri Rassam) and the same ambition of great French popular cinema, around our French superheroes.
And it is clear that the feature film with Pierre Niney is even stronger than the one with François Civil, Eva Green, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris and Pio Marmaï. Because this revenge story (told in a single block) is more engaging, romantic and sunny (despite the darkness of certain aspects of the story), and less complex.
More personal also for one of its directors: father of Alexandre, Denys de la Patellière had directed a series adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo with Jacques Weber in the main role, at the end of the 70s. “I grew up with it”his son told us at the Cannes Film Festival, where the feature film was presented out of competition last May.
The Count of Monte Cristo is, for us, the best story ever told.
“I remember, when I was 8 years old, that I was on my father’s set, with my little boy’s eyes, seeing Jacques Weber in Monte-Cristo. It had a profound effect on me and it is one of my strong childhood memories. I then discovered the novel, around 16 or 17 years old, and it had another effect on me. So I grew up with it and, when you are a screenwriter, you talk a lot about Alexandre Dumas, who is a bit like the father of screenwriters. The inventor of cinema when it did not yet exist.”
“So we talked a lot with Mathieu about Monte-Cristo as a form of reference. Because it’s one of the best stories I’ve read in my life. But did this experience with my father play a role in my destiny? Surely!”
“When we worked on The Three Musketeers, we knew from the start that it would be for Martin Bourboulon“continues Matthieu Delaporte. “And it was when we came out of this experience that we were asked if we had dreams, desires. We obviously answered The Count of Monte Cristo which is, for us, the best story ever told. It’s completely incredible. When we were told yes, we rushed to do it.”
2 – Great entertainment!
Considering that Alexandre Dumas’ characters are part of our French superheroes, The Three Musketeers would therefore be the Avengers. Or the Fantastic Four. And Monte-Cristo Batman. Without a shadow of a doubt, and for good reason: “Monte Cristo is the original source of many superheroes”Pierre Niney explains to us.
“There are codes that we can find in Batman. This kind of Bat Cave, which was for us the Dantès Cave, where he works on his masks, his identities, his costumes. He rehearses with the young people he has taken on board in his vengeance. There is the idea of something heroic, but what is interesting and goes beyond the prototypes of American heroes is that he is a vigilante but he substitutes himself for the justice of men and God. He replaces all these landmarks, shakes them up.”
“We are in the enjoyment of revenge, until the moment we realize that he is perhaps no longer a vigilante, but in the process of becoming a monster. Which, philosophically and symbolically, is great interesting: how far can you take revenge and still have it be fair?”
There are codes in The Count of Monte Cristo that can be found in Batman.
Questions that recall those at the heart of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight saga, which we think of more than once in front of this Count of Monte Cristo, even in the music. Or a nighttime fight scene, brutal as hell, as well as these shots of Pierre Niney with a large coat that looks like a cape.
If the directors do not hide their admiration for the cinema of the author of Oppenheimer, and recognize that his images were able to infuse them in their minds, they affirm not to have been directly influenced by his adaptations of Batman, referring more to opus such as Death on the Trails (“a very dark, very black film, but under a bright sun”). But there is no doubt that there is, in the feature film, a way of coming full circle, echoing one of the best opuses on the Bat Man, in a story to which the latter owes a lot.
3 – A maximum of masks
Among the common points between The Count of Monte Cristo and Batman are: masks. A single model in the case of Bruce Wayne, many more in Edmond Dantès. And this is, without doubt, one of the great successes of this feature film, where we recognize certain features of Pierre Niney while others are different, without seeing the marks of makeup, which are the fault (and a bit of the charm too) of a good number of films which make use of it.
Even more than the sets and costumes, all impeccable, or even this absolutely brilliant scene of a dinner under tension, which only relies on the writing and the acting, it is the masks that impress. Which required a big investment: “It’s a lot of preparation, months in advance”Pierre Niney, also in Cannes, tells us.
Pathé Films
“That’s what helped me the most in building the characters. I had to see them. As the makeup tests went on, we came back to the same characters several times, knowing that there were four to six hours of makeup for the test of just one of them. Whether it was aging, enlargement. And the Count of Monte Cristo alone represented about four hours of makeup. We did five to six tests in the months leading up to filming.”
Given the on-screen rendering, the game was definitely worth the effort. And we owe this work to Pierre-Olivier Persin, who had notably done the makeup of the Night King in Game of Thrones. A big name then, and the opportunity for Pierre Niney to highlight the injustice of seeing makeup artists absent from the categories at the Césars, while they are rewarded at the Oscars and BAFTA Awards.
Will The Count of Monte Cristo bring about change in 2025? And also interfere in some categories where this successful blockbuster film would have its place? The answer will be next year and, in the meantime, there are nearly three hours of adventures waiting for you at the cinema.
Comments collected by Maximilien Pierrette in Cannes on May 22, 2024
