Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary has been around for centuries, and Hollywood has taken several cracks at adapting the story for big-screen consumption. The latest effort began principal photography on September 30th on location in Normandy, France, and the production has put a few more actors in play as shooting has gotten underway.
A press release has confirmed that Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus), Olivier Gourmet (The Son) and Laura Carmichael (Downton Abbey) have joined the all-star cast, which already includes the outstanding Mia Wasikowska (who crushed it in Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre) and Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, We Need to Talk About Kevin). They’ll be joined by a pair of Spider-Man villains in Paul Giamatti and Rhys Ifans. The cast rounds out with Henry Lloyd-Hughes, whose credits include Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Joe Wright’s recent, brilliant Anna Karenina.
Good God, what if this new Bovary looks something like the dazzling Karenina?
Not that Wright’s at the helm. This new Madame Bovary will be helmed by writer-director Sophie Barthes, who last directed Cold Souls with Giamatti back in 2009. You can watch the trailer for the film below:
Bathes will have plenty of material from which to draw from as she works on this new take on the classic story. Similar to Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary is about the beautiful wife of a powerful citizen (in this case, a doctor) who engages in extra-marital affairs to advance her social status. As mentioned, the story has been adapted multiple times by Hollywood studios over the years. The earliest dates back to 1932. The highest-profile cut has to be the 1949 version produced at MGM, which had Jennifer Jones in the title role and Vincente Minelli serving as director. Amazingly, you can watch that version in it’s entirety right here!
The finest adaptations of literary classics have always found ways to think outside the box, bringing a little modern flair to vintage text. We’ll see in 2014 what Barthes brings to Flaubert’s timeless novel, but she’s starting off on the right foot with an amazing cast.
