The Tribulations of d’Artagnan is probably the most adapted work in the history of cinema. Nevertheless, they are still the subject of the biggest budget and the most awaited film of the year in France.
The best soups are made in old pots. And in the genre “old pot” whose quality has been tested, the work of Alexandre Dumas arises there. For the 150th time – or close to it – The three Musketeers tumbles in force on the cinema screens, Wednesday, April 5. Dream cast (Francois Civil, Eva Green, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris…), XXL budget, coveted screenwriters at the helm and teasing started over a year ago… The novel, to which Alexandre Dumas put the final point in 1844, is not far from being the most adapted work – or martyred, will say the purists – since the invention of cinema and television. In his book Everything about Alexandre Dumas (or almost) (Always Cours editions), Bertrand Varin counts 646 audiovisual adaptations of the works of Dumas, including a good quarter on these musketeers alone. With undeniable success, or almost.
Because when we amounts to what constitutes the substantial marrow of the Three Musketeerswe touches on the universal. “Dumas may talk about a story that takes place in 1625 in another country, it is above all a story of friendship, honor and love, very vivid concepts that any audience can embrace”asserts the Spaniard Paco Saez, storyboarder of the recent D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers intended for a young audience.
Andrew Davies, author of the first draft of the script for Three Musketeers by Paul WS Anderson (2011) with Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham, a Milady expert in kung-fu and flying boats, approves. “Dumas is above all action, adventure stories to make boys dream” advances the one who has also adapted in a much more classic form War and peace of Leo Tolstoy or many works by Jane Austen like Pride and Prejudice. ” The proof, it works just as well in cartoons.” What the Russian writer or the popess of fiction in British costume can claim less.
The audience targeted by Martin Bourboulon’s French blockbuster probably grew up devouring his snack in front of Albert the Fifth Musketeer in the 1990s or the canine version of Three Musketeers, a decade earlier. This one knew a 3D remake in 2021, with a reworking of history to stick to the 21st century which in no way weakens the point. “In our version, Juliet [c’est ainsi qu’a été rebaptisée Constance Bonacieux] takes part in a fight against the cardinal’s guard, illustrious Paco Saez. We wanted this character to be more of a protagonist than a spectator of the story.”
Fifty shades of Dumas
Female characters adept at kung-fu, skin-tight leather costumes, anachronisms or temporal transpositions… The work of the French novelist is distinguished by its plasticity: during his lifetime, Alexandre Dumas let others write sequels to his stories, transposed his work to the theater or in short stories, or even used his characters in press cartoons. No wonder therefore that The three Musketeers could be, pell-mell, a German porn version with a VF all in slang from Les Halles from 1950; a feature film where David Hasselhoff, hero of Baywatch, embodies a “John Smith d’Artagnan” biker all dressed in leather; an unlikely Rangers challenge karateka where the Italian filmmaker Bruno Corbucci transposes the universe of Dumas into a spaghetti western; or a version with plasticine characters animated frame by frame, on the model of Wallace and Gromit .
This latest adaptation is the work of a Lithuanian studio, and dates back to 2005. Even there, the characters of d’Artagnan, Richelieu, Rochefort, Buckingham and Madame Bonacieux speak to almost everyone. And out of the question to treat it over the leg: “We even hired a specialist in sword fighting. And we had to learn the movements and the boots to transcribe them into our animation”underlines the director Jannis Cinnermanis, who has become unbeatable on the third or the slot.
The strength of the universe set up by Alexandre Dumas is more about the characters than their adventures, supports the duo Matthieu Delaporte-Alexis de La Patellière, author of the script for the 2023 film. “Ask people to tell you The three Musketeers : they will tell you more about the characters than about the course of the plot. The springs of the episode of queen studs it will immediately be a little more vague.”
Characters stronger than adventures, doesn’t that remind you of a more recent cinematographic scheme? From the saga The lethal Weapon where Mel Gibson or Danny Glover smash fairly simple detective stories, to feature films where the Pierre Richard-Gérard Depardieu duo continue their electrifying confrontation from film to film… Everything seemed already written more than a century earlier. “Dumas is the inventor of buddy movie [film de pote] ” summarizes Matthieu Delaporte. “A wonderful showrunner [personne chargée du suivi de l’intégralité de la production d’une série TV] ” abounds his sidekick Alexandre de la Patellière. “The father of the blockbuster” adds the historian Mathieu Letourneux. “The matrix of all adventure stories” , asserts Jacques Migozzi, expert at Dumas. Proof, “prequel, sequel trilogy, cliffhanger , page turner *… So many English words forged from concepts invented or used by the novelist himself” smiles Jocelyn Fiorina, president of the Friends of Alexandre Dumas society.
One for all, all for the legend
The seventh art will superimpose images that Dumas did not even write. Currency “one for all! All for one” ? “She does not appear in this form in the novel, but in an inverted form”, emphasizes Jacques Migozzi. The iconic plan of the musketeers brandishing their swords in a bundle towards the sky? “It does not exist under the pen of Dumas.” The weight of the words bows before the shock of the photos: almost no adaptation has been able to do without it since. When the BBC launched the series in 2014 Musketeers , his black Porthos character earned him an outcry. Unjustified, grumbles Adrian Hodges, its creator.
“Where did you read that Porthos was white and fat?”
Adrian Hodges, creator of the BBC series “Musketeers”at franceinfo
“In the first book, Dumas insists above all on his coquettish side, which likes to dress well, but absolutely does not speak of his weightcontinues the British screenwriter. We thought it was time to introduce a black musketeer, moreover, it already existed at the time in the French army. In addition, it made it possible to offer Porthos an interesting personal story.”
A hundred actors slipped into d’Artagnan’s boots. From the leaping Gene Kelly of the golden age of Technicolor (1948) to Douglas Fairbanks, silent star, other more unexpected figures lent their features to the young Gascon, from Barbie (the doll, yes, yes) to John Wayne passing by Mickey… or the current Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, at the time when he was still an actor. Paul McCartney or John Lennon almost joined this list in the 1960s, when the cloak and dagger film was already in decline.
“D’Artagnan is probably the most difficult character to cast”, insists the historian Jacqueline Razgonnikoff, specialist in the costumes of the adaptations of Dumas. “He is only 18 at the start of the novel, but some actors who were more than twice have already played him.
Many observers cite as the best d’Artagnan to date the performance of the young Jean-Paul Belmondo in an ORTF TV movie whose tapes have disappeared. But being young is not enough to embody a successful d’Artagnan: “The actor we had chosen for the film, Logan Lerman [qui avait 19 ans lors de la sortie du film]played it a little too seriously for my taste, judges screenwriter Alex Litvak. In my mind, d’Artagnan is a bit like the young captain Kirk at the beginning of the saga star trekwhich rolls mechanics without having quite the build.”
Desperately looking for “Cyrano”
No d’Artagnan has made everyone agree, nor any film for that matter. “The novel continues to be adapted because, unlike what happened with the Cyrano by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, there was no film that crushed the competition’, point out Alexandre de la Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte. Each scriptwriter rubbing shoulders with the text seeks, in his own way, to put stars in the eyes of the spectators. “I wanted to rediscover the feelings that I had as a child while reading the novel”assures Alex Litvak, who totally assumes the popcorn side of his 2011 version, released hastily to pull the rug out from under Baz Luhrmann’s feet (Moulin Rouge, Elvis…) which, according to him, was simmering a feature film with Marion Cotillard in the dress of Milady.
“I wanted today’s young people to be amazed. To finally have the ‘Three Musketeers’ of their generation.”
Alex Litvak, screenwriter of “Three Musketeers” (2011) and “Predators” (2010)at franceinfo
A sequel sending d’Artagnan and others to China by submarine was even planned… but did not see the light of day because of the failure of the film in the United States, confides the screenwriter.
The slowdown in big-screen adaptations had been palpable since the late 1970s. “When Bouygues gives us a good budget for The Daughter of d’Artagnan (1994), and a casting with Sophie Marceau and Philippe Noiret, I heard rustling in the middle: ‘It won’t work, it doesn’t interest anyone anymore'”says Eric Poindron, co-screenwriter of the feature film by Bertrand Tavernier. “Movies in costume, it hasn’t been done for two good decades. But against all odds, we held the dragee high at Speedwith Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock!”
The authors of the 2023 version have chosen to place the musketeers in a realistic context, like the original novel, with an almost grimy imagery far from the immaculate blue capes of the post-war operetta musketeers. And know how to make the viewer salivate: “The Paris of the 17th century is a bit like our western to Weadvance Matthieu Delaporte and Alexis de La Patellière. Two worlds coexist: the splendor of the court, and certain neighborhoods where things haven’t changed much since the Middle Ages. In the middle of that, the musketeers are our last knights.”
Knights who continue to make people dream all over the world. Because audiovisual adaptations do not sum up the passion that Alexandre Dumas generates among creators of all stripes. The recent Musketeers series from the BBC has generated a revival of fan fiction, underlines Patrice de Jacquelot, who lists all the literary adaptations on his site pastichedumas.com. “A quarter of them, novels and comics combined, date from after the year 2000”he remarks. We are definitely not done with Alexandre Dumas.
* The English term for sequel designates the continuation of a work. A cliffhanger is an element of suspense inserted at the end of an episode or chapter to create a sense of expectation in the viewer or reader. Finally, a page turner refers to a book or novel whose story is so captivating that the reader is compelled to turn the pages without being able to stop.