To realize colors of fire, his last film to be shown from November 9, Clovis Cornillac was able to rely on a first-class rope companion, Pierre Lemaitre, author of the adapted book. What’s more, the writer Goncourt Prize for goodbye up there has a solid and brilliant experience as a screenwriter: in 2017, he received a César for the film adaptation of his novel.
“I’m very fond of Pierre Lemaitre’s writing. He said to me: ‘Listen, my book is done. Now, for the screenplay, you ask me what you want.’ I had a huge advantage, because Pierre is able to write a screenplay, which not every novelist is able to do. Every time I asked him for something, he responded favorably. Three days later, I had a new version of what I asked for”told an admiring Clovis Cornillac, on the set of France 3 Grand Est on November 5.
If Pierre Lemaître guided him, Clovis Cornillac then took his freedom to realize colors of fire in his way. “Once the script was ready, he said to me, ‘Now it’s your business'”says the director.
“In the 1920s, women were seen as things in their own right and not as individuals capable of running a business”
In this interwar thriller, the viewer follows the fate of Madeleine, the rich heiress of a financial empire. In February 1927 the funeral of the banker Marcel Péricourt takes place. His daughter Madeleine is the only heiress, after the suicide of his brother Edouard a few years earlier. Madeleine’s uncle, Charles Péricourt, scheming in the shadows to dispossess his niece of her fortune.
“It’s a kind of Monte-Cristo in the feminine between the years 1920 and 1934. There is this woman crushed at a terrible moment in her life, who is obsessed with her child to whom a tragedy happened at the beginning of the film “There is also an absolute despoliation of men. In the 1920s, women were considered as things in their own right and not as individuals capable of being at the head of a company”judge Clovis Cornillac.
There is also something else mixed around the story of Madeleine Péricourt in colors of fire. In the background of the plot, the rise of Nazism spreads a climate of anxiety over Paris. “There are plenty of themes, politics, betrayal, money, the rise of Nazism…”lists Clovis Cornillac, who signs his 4th feature film there after in particular That’s wonderful ! (2021).
Present at the Compiègne Film Festival, which previewed colors of fire Sunday, Clovis Cornillac said he wanted a film that “interrogates” and “nice to meet you”. In any case, he was right in the “Witnesses to history” theme of the 2022 edition of the festival and was able to appreciate the enthusiasm of the public at the end of the screening. “That’s why I’m here, I want to see how the public reacts to what I offer them.”