Balzac1999

Director
Josée Dayan

Actors

Gérard Depardieu (Honoré de Balzac)
Jeanne Moreau (Charlotte-Laure)
Fanny Ardant (Eve Hanska)
Virna Lisi (Madame de Berny)
Katja Riemann (Laure d'Abrantès)
Claude Rich (Maitre Plissoud)

He burned with ambition. He lived for passion.
Sprawling saga of Honoré de Balzac, a man who created a monumental literary oeuvre from the dramas and adventures of his own life – a life that he shaped into one spectacular and unforgettable blaze of passion.
At the heart of the story are the women in Balzac’s life. Although gruff, unsophisticated, and far from handsome, Balzac exerts an irresistible fascination on women. But the two women who leave the most profound traces on Balzac’s life are his mother Charlotte-Laure and Eve Hanska, the love of his life. Cold, manipulating and imperious, Charlotte-Laure was never able to give her son the love he wanted. Yet it is she who watches over him and is with him at the hour of his death, when she finds the courage to ask him for forgiveness.
Balzac’s one great love, however, is Eve Hanska, a ravishing beauty whom he follows to Switzerland, Prague and St. Petersburg in a tireless crusade to win her heart. Eve, a married woman, admires above all the writer in Balzac but also succumbs to his magnetic appeal. Their tormented relationship marks the final years of Balzac’s life, for by the time they can finally marry, his excessive, dissolute lifestyle is about to claim its due…
“Convincing reproduction of the period ambiance… Marvelous cast” – Epinions.com