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Houdini movie johnny depp10/3/2023 ![]() ![]() Intense outbursts of verbal, and sometimes physical, violence have been a key part of Maïwenn’s cinema, but once Jeanne makes it to Versailles, where the Comte brings her in the hopes of raising his own status vis-à-vis Louis XV, it’s all about tame rituals that are occasionally broken. It’s one of the only times in the film where Jeanne’s predicament as a lowly woman in a world of petty, privileged men feels visceral. Perhaps the most powerful scene in the whole movie is one that takes place in the first act, when Jeanne, a voracious reader and highly capable tutor, is trying to get some peace and quiet with a book in the bathtub - until the Comte comes in and dunks her under the water out of toxic spite. Jeanne’s beauty and sex appeal make her a legendary mistress around Paris, but in reality it’s her intelligence that charms all those rich and royal men, who fawn over her like a fresh piece of meat. To boost her ascension to the top, Bécu was smart enough to choose the latter, and soon enough she falls into the hands of the Comte du Barry (Melvil Poupaud), a witty playboy who begins to pimp her out to other noblemen. Maïwenn directs these early sequences with a detached and cool authority recalling Kubrick doing Barry Lyndon - clearly another major inspiration, right up to this film’s dry voiceover narrating all the major events - and she paints a brief but convincing portrait of a young woman left with only two choices: the Bible or the bedroom. In fact, the film’s most intriguing section happens before we even get to the palace, when we follow a young commoner named Jeanne Bécu, the illegitimate daughter of a seamstress mother, as she goes from aristocratic benefactor to benefactor, and then from lover to lover, in what remains one of the most impressive social climbs in history. Working with writers Teddy Lussi-Modeste and Nicolas Livecchi, she’s basically put together a classic Cinderella story decked out in outrageously expensive outfits - one that focuses almost exclusively on du Barry’s desire to make it rich and stay that way, and rarely on the social and political issues of the Versailles bubble where she thrived. More recently, Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette featured Asia Argento as the king’s infamous mistress, in a role Maïwenn claims inspired her to one day direct her own project about the courtesan. There have been several other attempts to bring du Barry’s story to the screen, including the Ernst Lubitsch silent film Passion, starring Pola Negri, and the William Dieterle-directed Madame du Barry, starring Dolores del Rio. With all the recent controversy surrounding Depp, not to mention Maïwenn herself, the result of their collaboration is a handsome period piece that feels both flat and shallow, and certainly far from any scandale. But the two of them, like the movie, rarely get our pulse racing. His performance isn’t bad, and neither is Maïwenn’s in the lead role. But once all of that’s in place, Maïwenn doesn’t really do much with it.Įven the casting - some would say stunt casting - of Johnny Depp as the king offers a few early thrills and then mostly yawns, with Depp dishing out what feels like a total of a dozen lines in respectable French, while otherwise remaining mute. It has a great setting, with many scenes shot in and around the real Palace of Versailles, and a great setup, with du Barry’s rags-to-riches-to-Roi Louis XV biography providing the main plot. Initiating the reader along the way into the arcane world of professional magic, Kalush and Sloman decode a life based on deception, providing an intimate and riveting portrayal of Houdini, the man and the legend.Will Kevin Spacey Resurrect His Hollywood Career or Is the Low-Budget Film World More Likely? “The Secret Life of Houdini” traces the arc of the master magicians life from desperate poverty to worldwide famehis legacy later threatened by a group of fanatical Spiritualists led by esteemed British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Drawing from millions of pages of research, they describe in vivid detail the passions that drove Houdini to perform ever-more-dangerous feats, his secret life as a spy, and a pernicious plot to subvert his legacy. Now, in this groundbreaking biography, renowned magic expert William Kalush and bestselling writer Larry Sloman team up to find the man behind the myth. Since his death eighty-eight years ago, Harry Houdinis life has been chronicled in books, in film, and on television. Published in 2006, it is officially described as follows: The Hollywood Reporter today brings word that Depp will take on the role of Harry Houdini in Lionsgate’s upcoming The Secret Life of Houdini, to be directed by Dean Parisot ( Galaxy Quest, RED 2).įirst announced in 2009, the big screen project is to be based on the 2006 book of the same name by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. Johnny Depp has plans to play one of history’s most famous magicians.
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