This is quite the artifact: it’s the pilot episode of a TV show, starring Diego Luna and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, that was never picked up. It’s been kind of haunting me from Luna’s IMDb page for years, as the very idea of it was fascinating to me. And I finally found it online! I went into it not knowing what to expect but came away really liking it.
In 1757, the notorious Giacomo Casanova escapes prison in Venice and flees to Paris, where he hopes to start a new life for himself. Wanting to put his scandalous reputation behind him, he’s seeking honest work but gets more than he bargained for when his friend, the French foreign minister, brings him a proposition: become the confidante of the king’s influential mistress.
Yep, it’s Casanova and Madame du Pompadour! I wonder if Russell T. Davies ever saw this, and if he kicked himself for not doing this story in his Casanova miniseries starring David Tennant. A bit of light googling tells me that Casanova and Madame du Pompadour did meet in real life, including after his escape from prison. And the foreign minister, Francois-Joachim de Bernis, was a real person who had real beef with Madame du Pompadour. From what I can tell, though, the specific plot of this show is fictional. A bit like Our Flag Means Death, but in a much less obviously fictional way, it takes tidbits of real-life fact and uses them to create historical fanfiction.
The Diego Luna of it all is going to loom large in this one, so I’ll quickly talk about the other elements of the pilot first. Bojana Novakovic is a strong Madame du Pompadour: loving, cultured, shrewd, and not about to suffer fools lightly. De Bernis points out that she’s “a commoner like you [Casanova], though she fights like hell to hide it,” but she knows the power she wields as Louis XV’s mistress, and she won’t brook any disrespect. The pilot also features Miranda Richardson as the Marquise d’Urfé, an aristocrat with a fascination for alchemy who could serve as a possible patroness for Casanova.
The direction is good, by turns dramatic, breezy, and scintillating. It doesn’t really scream Jean-Pierre Jeunet to me, which I suppose makes sense. He didn’t write the pilot, and so the story doesn’t have his usual sensibilities. However, he handles the parlor intrigue scenes and the seduction scenes with equal skill, throwing in a pretty horrific execution scene for good measure.
I still haven’t seen the Heath Ledger Casanova movie, but I’m on record as being impressed with the David Tennant miniseries and intrigued by how differently that story depicts Casanova compared to the stereotypical idea of him. This pilot, and Luna performance, maintains those more intriguing elements of Casanova while also incorporating more of the typical image. At the very least, Luna’s appearance is more aligned with what you’d imagine as the world’s most legendary lover of women—he’s got charisma for days, he plays the hell out of the love scenes, and he eats up those 18th-century costumes.
Luna’s Casanova has all the charm, wit, and sex appeal that you’d expect, but he reminds us that he’s more than just a pretty face and an infamous penis. As he tries to get out from under his outrageous reputation, Casanova points out his extensive study, including fluency in four languages, and he’s used whatever resources he has at hand to rise above his humble beginnings, a fact that he’s quite proud of. He’s not above pulling a con, but he also cares about people and doesn’t want to see someone hurt if he doesn’t think they deserve it.
And like in the David Tennant miniseries, Luna’s Casanova shows that his appeal to women can be attributed to more than his good looks and cheeky claim to “have an abnormally long tongue.” No, he’s a seducer, but it isn’t really mercenary. He sums up his success with women quite simply in this exchange:
CASANOVA: “The truth is, I make them feel like I’m falling in love with them.”
ANOTHER MAN: “How?”
CASANOVA: “Because I fall in love with them.”
He doesn’t assume he’s smarter or better than the women he beds. He listens to them and takes an interest in what they care about, and he doesn’t push beyond what a woman wants to do. When he realizes he doesn’t have the cash for intercourse with a young prostitute, he assures her that it’s all right and cheerfully offers to go down on her instead. When his first meeting with Madame du Pompadour goes badly, he has a “game recognize game” moment and recalibrates for the second time they cross paths—on his own terms, not de Bernis’. For me, the most defining scene for him comes near the end of the pilot, when he’s at a fancy party surrounded by lavish food and beautiful people. “Sometimes I just can’t stand it,” he tells his date. And when she asks what, he explains, “How much I want everything!”
I really like Luna’s portrayal here, and I’m now bummed that the show didn’t get picked up. I’d have loved to see more of Casanova and Madame du Pompadour sizing each other up, and by the end of the pilot, it looked like the story was going to go in a pretty neat direction. On the other hand, within a few years of this pilot being made, Luna did Rogue One, 3Below, and Narcos: Mexico. Who’s to say which performances of his we might not have had if this show had taken off?
Recommend?
In General – I think so, as long as you’re okay with the content. This looked like it would’ve shaped up to be a cool Casanova show, and I’m really glad I finally got a chance to see it!
Diego Luna – Sure! Even if this pilot had only required Luna to be witty, sultry, and handsome, he would’ve had it in the bag, but the story offers a more interesting character for him to work with beyond that, and he nails it. I thought this was a great performance.
Warnings
Sexual content, violence (including rape and an intense execution scene,) language, drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.
No comments:
Post a Comment