Behind the myth of a tower that was to become emblematic of the city of Paris, a renowned engineer: Gustave Eiffel. After having collaborated in creating the Statue of Liberty, he will have seen his name immortalized by the “Iron Lady” which overlooks the French capital. The Frenchman Martin Bourboulon has made this fictionalized story into a film, which will be released in theaters on Friday, after a long period in limbo.
Caroline Bongrand had been trying to have her screenplay adapted since 1997, first in the United States. She even published a book, Eiffel and me, in 2021, chronicling his Hollywood misadventures. Liam Neeson had been approached to play the main role and Ridley Scott had been approached for his realization. The project was transported to France, its natural terrain. Luc Besson, Christophe Barratier and Olivier Dahan thought of getting down to it. It always fell apart. Bourboulon finally made it happen with Romain Duris in the skin of Eiffel, Emma Mackey in Adrienne, his childhood sweetheart, and Pierre Deladonchamps as a rival friend who marries the beauty.
Tavernier transmitted to me the love of actors. [Romain Duris] can do it all, blend in with the times with a three-piece suit and a top hat. I find him excellent as a leader.
The filmmaker liked the very ambition of the project and several co-writers reworked the initial frame. After having done a lot of research on Gustave Eiffel, Martin Bourboulon realized that it was above all a question of his architectural works and his capacities as a leader of men. Romance humanized him. “Caroline Bongrand made it a great love story during the construction of the Eiffel Tower”, explains the filmmaker by videoconference from Paris. “This love existed. Their marriage was upset. The subsequent idyll is speculative. »
This romance here will change the course of history. In the film, it is to please this woman that the engineer, who instead wanted to focus on the metro project, was persuaded by the French government to get down to erecting this tower. It was to become the highlight of the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889 and a tourist hotspot ever since.
For the director, eiffel constituted above all a technical challenge: “In the suburbs of Paris, it was necessary to rebuild one foot of the tower, 30 meters high on four floors, and to make its site credible. It took so much work. Using only special effects would not have been believable. The actors had to be filmed on hard ground through a metal structure so that the background and its special effects did not give the impression of betting on technical prowess. »
Son of producer Frédéric Bourboulon and long-time assistant director, for Bertrand Tavernier among others, this filmmaker has directed several short films, commercials, and has had a long stint in Info horns. After a leap to comedy with Dad and mom, eiffel was his first big-budget film (23.4 million euros) before his plunge into the megadiptych The three Musketeersexpected in 2023.
“I like to do a period film,” he says. It’s a world that allows you to escape from the daily life of an industry in upheaval, to keep in touch with cinema. Eiffel had its detractors at the time of construction. The characters who go to the end of a project – even if this tower was not Gustave Eiffel’s idea at the start – always encounter obstacles. »
Bourboulon has also experienced some on the go, including filming interrupted by COVID-19, then 36 weeks of editing before finding the balance of tones in his eyes and bringing out the emotion. Throughout, he will nevertheless have been delighted by the images of Matias Boucard and the distribution.
“Tavernier passed on to me the love of actors,” he says. Romain Duris (who had previously played Molière) was the only performer the filmmaker had in mind for the title role. “He can do anything, blend in with the times with a three-piece suit and a top hat. I find him excellent as a leader. By his side: Franco-British Emma Mackey (seen in the Netflix series Sex Education and in Death on the Nile by Kenneth Branagh). He loved her presence, her instinct.
“I’ve always had a taste for cinema and film sets thanks to my father’s job,” he says. But during the pandemic, works on digital platforms have transformed consumption habits. Today, in front of box office receipts, we see that certain types of films find less of a place on the big screen. But we got lucky eiffel, which worked well because the public wanted to rediscover its heritage. »
The Eiffel feature film will take
the poster in theaters on April 29.