Les Liaisons on film

Many people know Les Liaisons Dangereuses from the Oscar winning film released in 1988. Called Dangerous Liaisons and directed by Stephen Frears, the film featured Glenn Close as the Marquise de Mertuil and John Malkovich as the Vicomte de Valmont. The film script was also written by playwright Christopher Hampton, who basically adapted the stage version to the screen, but did make some changes to the story. 

Some fun trivia about that film: 

- Sarah Jessica Parker was originally offered the role of Cécile but turned it down. 

- Michelle Pfeiffer was offered the role of the Marquise de Mertueil in Valmont but she chose to play Mme de Tourvel in this film instead. 

- Alan Rickman, who played Vicomte de Valmont in the Broadway version, was offered to reprise the role for the film, but turned it down to make Die Hard, which was released a year later. 

- Annette Bening was considered for the role of the Marquise de Merteuil and ended up playing that role in the film Valmont. 

- This was Keanu Reeves' first major film role as Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was released a year later. 

- Madonna wore one of Michelle Pfeiffer's costumes from the film at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards during her 18th century themed performance of 'Vogue'. 



Dangerous Liaisons won 3 Oscars for Best Art Direction - Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, and Best Screenplay (adapted). It garnered 4 other nominations for Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer, as well as Best Music - Original Score and Best Picture. It won 2 BAFTA awards - Best Supporting Actress (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Best Screenplay - Adapted.

A year later, a film version entitled Valmont, was released, and featured Colin Firth as Valmont and Annette Bening as Mertuil. This was Ms. Bening's first major film appearance. Valmont was directed by Milos Foreman and was only nominated for 1 Oscar, and that was for costume design.

Ten years later, a version centered around rich American high school children appeared on film under the title Cruel Intentions. The film featured a number of rising teen stars, including, Ryan Phillipe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Reese Witherspoon among others. The movie made enough money to spawn not one but TWO additional films - one a prequel, the other following a college age cousin of Mertuil.

More recently, in 2012 there was actually a Chinese version of Dangerous Liaisons. It featured Ziyi Zhang (from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as essentially Madame Tourvel. You can see a trailer for it here, as it's pretty interesting to watch:


There was also a contemporary version filmed in 1959 called Les liaisons dangereuses that involved seduction at a ski resort. Because I guess in the '50s that's where the ultra rich would play.

Which version/s have you seen? Did you prefer it to the stage version? If you've seen the Glenn Close version, were you surprised by how the ending differed?

It's All About Rank and Precedence

Reading Les Liaisons Dangereuses made me curious about something: who outranks whom in terms of titles? And what exactly is a chevalier? And what is the correspondence to the British nobility, a system I'm a little more familiar with. So I did some research and it's pretty interesting. 

The French nobility (la noblesse) was the privileged social class in France during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period until the French Revolution in 1789. The nobility was revived in 1805 with limited rights as a titled elite class from the First Empire to the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848, when all privileges were abolished, and survived in hereditary titles until the Second Empire fell in 1870.

In the political system of pre-Revolutionary France, the nobility made up the Second Estate of the Estates General (with the Catholic clergy comprising the First Estate and the bourgeoisie and peasants in the Third Estate). Although membership in the noble class was mainly passed down though hereditary rights, it was not a closed order. New individuals were appointed to the nobility by the monarchy, or they could purchase rights and titles or join by marriage.

During the ancien régime, there was no distinction of rank by title (except for the title of duke, which was often associated with the strictly regulated privileges of the peerage, including precedence above other titled nobles). The hierarchy within the French nobility below peers was initially based on seniority; a count whose family had been noble since the 14th century was higher-ranked than a marquis whose title only dated to the 15th century. Precedence at the royal court was based on the family's ancienneté (seniority by age), its alliances (marriages), its hommages (dignities and offices held) and, lastly, its illustrations (record of deeds and achievements).

• Titles:
• Duc: (Latin dux, literally "leader") possessor of a duchy, was originally the governor of a province, usually a military leader. 
• Prince: possessor of a lordship styled a principality (principauté); most such titles were held by family tradition and were treated by the court as titres de courtoisie -- often borne by the eldest sons of the more important duke-peers. This title of prince is not to be confused with the rank of prince, borne by the princes du sang, the princes légitimés or the princes étrangers whose high precedence derived from their kinship to actual rulers.
• Marquis: possessor of a marquessate (marquisat), but often assumed by a noble family as a titre de courtoisie. In older times it was a count who was also the governor of a "march", a region at the boundaries of the kingdom that needed particular protection against foreign incursions (margrave in German, marchioness (female) in Britain).
• Comte: (Latin comes, literally "companion") possessor of a county (comté)  and was originally an appointee of the king governing a city and its immediate surroundings, or else a high-ranking official in the king's immediate entourage. In Britain the equivalent would be a count. 
• Vicomte: possessor of a viscounty (vicomté) or self-assumed. Originally he was the lieutenant of a count, either when the count was too busy to stay at home, or when the county was held by the king himself. Equivalent to the British title of viscount or viscountess.
• Baron:  (a later title) was originally a direct vassal of the king and owned a barony, or of a major feudal lord like a duke or a count. 
• Chevalier: an otherwise untitled nobleman who belonged to an order of chivalry, such as the Legion of Honor or the Order of Malta. In earlier days it was a rank for untitled members of very old noble families. 

Many of these titles eventually became hereditary and formalities and didn't require any particular skill. 

If you want to get a pretty exhaustive look at the history of French nobility, I refer you to this website, which has all kinds of fascinating detail. 

Comportment and Corsets and Cards, Oh My!

Les Liaisons Dangereuses presented a particular challenge to us because it's actually our first ever big costume drama. Since we don't have a vault full of clothes from the 1780s, our costume designer, Scarlett Kellum, had to reach out to other companies to beg, borrow, and steal some costumes. Ok, well she didn't actually steal anything but you get the idea. We also had to acquire swords and the like for the big fight scene. because again, it's not something we have on hand for our normal productions. And because Scarlett is a stickler for details, all of the ladies' corsets were handmade and custom fitted for them. No faked up velcro rigs here - these are the real laced up deal.

Director Jeffrey Bracco brought in Kristin Kusanovich in to talk to the cast. Kristin has a background in dance and movement and spoke to the whole cast about how people in the 1780s moved - we're incredibly casual these days in the way we walk, talk, and hold our bodies. We slouch, cross our legs at the knees, and move quickly. So Kristin discussed comportment with the cast - there were rules of etiquette that governed behavior and posture and movement. Some of this movement was, of course, tied to the fact that ladies were corsetted, as corsets really restrict the movement of the upper body. Much of the movement of the time was tied to dance training, so their movements were much more graceful and deliberate than modern day movement. With Kristin the actors learned how to how to correctly walk and sit, the correct body language to use to address one another.

And finally, a few of the ladies got together to learn about piquet, the card game that you see the ladies playing at the beginning of the show. It's a challenging game for two players with fairly complex rules. Card games were incredibly popular among the aristocracy at the time of Liaisons because, let's face it, they didn't have much else to do to kill time. Researching all of these little details makes it easier for the actors to slip into the time period of the show, and creates an authentic world for us, as audience members, to believe in.

Who is Choderlos de Laclos?

The story of Les Liaisons Dangereuses was actually written by a French novelist, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, in 1782. de Laclos started his career in the French military, but became disenchanted and left the military to become a writer. 

His first novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (in 1782 - 7 years before the French Revolution), caused an immediate sensation. It was also immensely popular - it sold 1000 copies in a month which was unheard of at the time. 

Liaisons was written as a series of letters (called epistolary form) and is considered one of the very first psychological novels ever written. A psychological novel shows the characters interior motives as well as the external action of the story - you know the WHYs of what's happening,  rather than just watching a story play out. The book was an immediate hit and generated lots of buzz as it showed the amorous vices and machinations of the upper-class. It was also banned for some time in France because it was just too racy and scandalous. 

The book was viewed as scandalous at the time of its initial publication, though the real intentions of the author remain unknown. It has been suggested that Laclos's intention was the same as that of his fictional author in the novel; to write a morality tale about the corrupt, squalid nobility of the Ancien Régime. However, this theory has been questioned on several grounds. In the first place, Laclos enjoyed the patronage of France's most senior aristocrat – the duc d'Orléans. Secondly, all the characters in the story are aristocrats, including the virtuous heroines – Madame de Tourvel and Madame de Rosemonde. Finally, many ultra-royalist and conservative figures enjoyed the book, including Queen Marie-Antoinette, which suggests that – despite its scandalous reputation – it was not viewed as a political work until the events of the French Revolution years later made it appear as such, with the benefit of hindsight. He served

in the Rhine and Italian campaigns and was made commander in chief of the Reserve Artillery in Italy in 1803 and died shortly afterward, likely of dysentery and malaria.