updated: 21/11/2007
Featuring various actresses portraying French characters from the seventeenth century. The characters are mainly noblewomen; some are based on historical personages while others are entirely fictional.
Molière: in 1658, Molière writes a comedy, Tartuffe, for his patron based on his own adventures some thirteen years earlier: a bankrupt Molière has his debt covered by a rich man who wants his help in seducing the beautiful bright young widow, Célimène (Ludivine Sagnier). Michèle Constantinides & Frédérique Ney were key makeup artists.
Vatel: in 1671 a penniless prince invites Louis XIV to three days of festivities at his chateau, seeking to win a commission as a general in return. Vatel, his steward, who is a man of honour and talent but low birth, is given charge of the extravaganza. Caught between the craven prince and the casual cruelities of the court, Vatel and the king’s latest mistress, Anne de Montausier (Uma Thurman), are drawn to each other. Giannetto De Rossi was hair and makeup designer.
La Putain du roi / The King’s Whore: is set in the last decade of the seventeenth century and tells the story of Jeanne de Luynes (Valeria Golino) and king Vittorio Amadeo. It is based – vaguely via a novelisation – upon the life of Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, comtesse de Verrue (1670—1736). At the age of thirteen she was married to the earl of Verua, by whom she had four children. Her husband took her to the court of Savoy in Turin where Victor Amadeus. the duke of Savoy of Sardinia fell madly in love with her to 1688. She initially resisted but, encouraged both by her family and by king Louis XIV, she became the duke’s mistress; they had two children, who were legitimized in 1701. Rino Carboni was makeup artist.