- Title: USA: JESSICA LANGE PLAYS HONORE DE BALZAC IN "COUSIN BETTE"
- Date: 28th May 1998
- Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (MAY 28) (RTV) ELISABETH SHUE SAYING OF HER CHARACTER, "I LOVED THAT SHE WAS DRIVEN BY A SENSE OF INSECURITY INSIDE AND A VULNERABILITY THAT KIND OF FORCED HER INTO THIS WORLD OF TRYING TO BE LIKED BY EVERYBODY, ESPECIALLY MEN, AND I JUST FELT THAT THAT KIND OF COMBINATION OF DESPERATION AND A SENSE OF SELF-ABSORBTION AND KIND OF A BRATTINESS WAS REALLY AN INTERESTING JUXTAPOSITION." (ENGLISH)
- Embargoed: 12th June 1998 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES AND FILM LOCATIONS
- Country: USA
- Reuters ID: LVA8QFZX6UT3GQOM8UW7QLLJ0MU7
- Story Text: Oscar winning actor Jessica Lange has taken on a literary giant in her latest movie - Honore de Balzac and his timeless novel "Cousin Bette,".The novel is about a woman who ingeniously traps a bawdy group of lovers, suitors and seducers in the web of her own black heart.
Oscar nominee Elisabeth Shue co-stars as the heartless but intoxicating courtesan Jenny Cadine.The film is the motion picture directing debut of two-time Tony Award winning director Des McAnuff, who was responsible for bringing the musicals "Tommy" and "Big River" to Broadway.
Set on the eve of the French Revolution in a Paris in turmoil, the story centres on the Hulot family's Cousin Bette, played by Lange, a mysterious and bitter woman.Never married and always ridiculed, she has long lived in the shadow of her beautiful and beloved cousin, Adeline, played by Geraldine Chaplin.
When Adeline dies, Bette hopes to take her cousin's place as the lady of the Hulot house.But Bette is still ignored.
Instead of proposing marriage, Hector Hulot offers Bette a housekeeping job attending to his daughter Hortense.
Bette refuses his insulting offer and returns to Paris, where she lives in the squalor of a city on the cusp of revolution.There, she leads a double life as a costumier for a Parisian burlesque show starring the incomparable Jenny Cadine, played by Shue.
It is there that she also comes upon a starving artist -- the charming Wenceslas, played by Aden Young, whom she saves from hunger and encourages to pursue his ambitions as a sculptor.In return, Bette hopes to possess this young man or at least to possess the tender affections that have so long been denied her.
Meanwhile, Hortense runs into Wenceslas in a Paris art gallery and determines that she will marry him.Accustomed to getting her way, that's exactly what she does.
Stricken and betrayed, Cousin Bette turns her devilish desire for revenge into a witty and bewitching escapade.She convinces the alluring Jenny Cadine to seduce Wenceslas -- inadvertantly setting off a chain of mistaken signals and misbegotten affections that traps almost everyone in its web.
Everyone, that is, except Cousin Bette.
Honore de Balzac wrote Cousin Bette in 1846 as part of his tour de force Le Comedie Humaine, where he attempts to capture the great comedy of human life, its melodrama, its passions and its ordinary moments of loveliness.In the "Cousin Bette" portion of Le Comedie Humaine, he takes on the treachery, jealousy, foolery and mischief-making lure of romantic love.
Also in the cast is Bob Hoskins, an old friend of director Des McAnuff, who joined the cast as Paris Mayor Crevel.
"Cousin Bette" has been playing in select theaters around the United States for the past three weeks and has earned just over half-a-million dollars at the box office. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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