Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious:
The Making of 'Mary Poppins
"You cannot capture a man's entire life in two hours.
All you can hope is to leave the impression of one."
Mank (2020)
The Divine Sarah Bernhardt (2024)
It may seem odd for a website dedicated to movies about movies to feature a biopic about a famed stage actress from the 19th Century, however Sarah Bernhardt was one of the first actresses to star in motion pictures. Furthermore The Divine Sarah Bernhardt is framed by Sacha Guitry, the son of one of her many lovers, asking her to appear in his film Ceux de chez nous (Those of our Land). The request initiates Bernhardt confiding the tale of her love for his father, and how what was supposed to be the best day of her life turned into a total nightmare.
Flashback twenty tears earlier when the actress is preparing for Sarah Bernhardt Day, a tribute staged by her theatre friends. A not-so-chance encounter with Lucien Guitry and his latest love, actress Charlotte Lysès, threatens to cast a pall over the event, despite the attendance of such luminaries as Emile Zola, Edmond Rostand and Sigmund Freud. As Bernhardt continues to recount from the hospital bed her affair with Lucien, further flashbacks depict happier, and more sexually charged, times for the lovers.
Despite these frequent shifts in time, The Divine Sarah Bernhardt never feels disjointed, instead presenting a collage of scenes that combine for a compelling portrait of the world’s first celebrity. Anchored in the lead up and staging of her testimonial, the film touches upon Bernhardt’s eccentricities and circle of famed acquaintances, but at its core remains a story of a woman deeply in love with a man who loves another. In the title role, Sandrine Kiberlain excels in the difficult task of portraying an abrasive character and making her engaging.
Sarah Bernhardt was previously portrayed by Glenda Jackson in The Incredible Sarah.
as Sarah Bernhardt
as Sacha Guitry
as Charlotte Lysès
"Sarah Bernhardt, The Divine" is therefore not a biopic but a portrait inspired by the life of Sarah Bernhardt. A Sarah sketched from a free gesture, in his image, assuming the lie in its most beautiful sincerity."
Nathalie Leuthreau (screenwriter)
“Nathalie read everything about her and built an extremely precise and factual sum before we gradually identified two axes among the madness and whirlwind that was her life: the day of her jubilee and the amputation of her leg. To tackle this "sacred monster", we quickly eliminated the obligation of the realistic biopic and the totalizing story. Paradoxically, the two key moments that we chose are poorly documented. The film nestles in the absence of certainty."
Guillaume Nicloux (director)