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Heritage at the movies
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by Jade Caillot
- February 14, 2024
- Events, History and Heritage, Portrait & Interview
- 0
Heritage estates often impress us: grandiose, they recount a sumptuous past. And yet, whether prestigious museums or mythical châteaux with shady alleys, they were home to the tender stories of our legends. La Malmaison, Le Trianon, Nohant... three names evocative of fascinating and profoundly modern female figures. These venues of French heritage and culturewe share with the world. Their enchanting sites witnessed the dark beauty of passionate love. And if they often end badly, they offer the greatest filmmakers the sumptuous setting for films that haunt us for a long time. Loc' Hall takes you on a romantic stroll through venues .
Contents
La Malmaison: a time for happiness
What would Napoleon be without Josephine? These two very different people are forever linked in our memories. For a time, the beautiful Creole and the impetuous Corsican enjoyed a most-perfect love. And even when fate forced the couple to separate, Emperor Bonaparte donated this jewel to his lady love.
The château of Malmaison has inspired filmmakers as varied as they are brilliant: from Abel Gance's immense Napoleon to Ridley Scott's epic peplum, the myth lives on, and it's not unusual to come across film crews in the enchanting setting of its gardens. And how could we fail to fall under the absolute charm of the grand inlaid salons, where you can still breathe in the perfume of the spurned empress? La Malmaison is a bittersweet story of contrasting, intensely cinematic passions.
From the Trianon to Bagatelle: the wild years of a queen of hearts and tears
Marie-Antoinette remains inseparable from the gilded life of the castles we love to adorn. And the legends are immortal. The tragic presence of the young queen marks for eternity the most beautiful heritage sites, the highest venues cultural heritage sites.
Between the grandeur and prestige of her rank and the playfulness of an almost child, you might think you've caught her at a bend in an alley at the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud.
Is it his pearl-like laughter heard over the hubbub of a cocktail party in the spectacular corridors of the Château de Rambouillet or was it that, more than anything else, she cherished her lambs? Perhaps she did. But if her delicate blond hair has left its mark on the history of the venues she haunts, if filmmakers the world over have seized on her entire life, it's because of the alchemy of opposites she represents: tender and light-hearted lover (but was she really?) at the Petit Trianon, home to her mysterious affair with Fersen, the handsome Swedish count? Or an inconsistent seductress in the aptly named Bagatelle gardens, under Sofia Coppola's sumptuous, baroque gaze... And then, finally, the tragedy of her long wait for the torment to come within the uncompromisingly magnificent walls of the Conciergerie Palace. Fersen will support her, a far cry from the marivaudage of their dazzling debut.
And if the Austrian still captures our hearts today, it's perhaps because, better than any other, she embodies a sublime French paradox: laughter on the verge of tears.
Nohant: a haven for unrequited love
In her home, the birthplace of so many masterpieces, Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin de Francueil, Baroness Dudevant, had a gentler fate than her illustrious companions in the history books. The George Sand estateThe Domaine George Sand, between rustic chateau and medieval manor house, welcomed to its wooded park the finest minds of the time: Balzac, Flaubert, Delacroix... She was free to choose, and her gaze lingered on Franz Liszt and Alfred de Musset. She loved them with all the tenderness of a woman of quiet fervor, and lived many other loves.
If George still fascinates our contemporary souls, if cinema regularly revisits his stories, if his novels still touch our hearts, from La Mare au Diable à La Petite Fadetteit's because of their strange modernity. A lover of love, her greatest passion will forever be that "house" nestled in the trees in the Berry region. And more than one photographer has fallen under its spell.
There, photo shoots have a flavor that can be found nowhere else: that of childhood paradises, between light and shadow.
As you can see, Loc' Hall is putting on a show on this special day. If we love venues heritage and cultureif we passionately defend a heritage steeped in historyand yet so vibrantly alive, it's because behind every stone in the museums that enchant our culture, in all the rolling parks of the prestigious residences we so love to show you, people have lived and hearts have beaten.
For a long time to come, filmmakers will seize these jewels for the duration of a shoot, and we'll always see vaporous models parading under the crackling flashes. For it's the heart that rustles, to the rhythm of the gentle ghosts of a French history in love.
