Rarely faithful but always inventive, the cinematographic and television adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’ novel testify to a desire to abuse the myth.
D’Artagnan as the hero of an erotic film, Milady as the queen of kung fu or even Athos as a disco dancer… Writer best suited to the screen with Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas inspired with his Three Musketeers a hundred more or less faithful adaptations. “As soon as you turn over a stone, you have three films derived from Three Musketeers who come out”, summarizes Julien Gautier, figure of the site of Nanarland.
While the next adaptation by Martin Bourboulon (Eiffel), with its host of stars (François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Louis Garrel, Eva Green) and its colossal budget (more than 70 million euros), is about to land in cinemas on April 5, the English have just drawn une version low-cost of the Three Musketeers with a black actor, Malachi Pullar-Latchman, in the role of D’Artagnan.
And Houda Benyamina, the multi-award winning director of Divines, will shoot in April and June in the Occitan region a female version of the novel by Alexandre Dumas. baptized All for onethis blockbuster with Oulaya Amamra, Lou De Laâge, Déborah Lukumuena and Sabrina Ouazani will be “a dramatic comedy, an initiatory film, a political film, an action film” according to the filmmaker.
But these days, on social media, it’s an unofficial anime adaptation of twenty years later, signed by the storyboarder Morchlav, who caused a sensation. “The idea was to pay a small tribute to the second book of the trilogy, which is also our favorite”, she specifies. His 30-second teaser, still in draft form, has been viewed nearly 62,000 times and has garnered him plenty of praise.
This work is part of a very active “fandom” of Three Musketeersor a community of fans who revisit this work in a new way: “The female characters are revalued, we naturally add inclusiveness and for all that we remain a minimum in respect of the text and the historical and social context of the ‘history’, lists Morchlav.
Each era has its own adaptation
Transpose The three Musketeers in animation as in a film in live action is obvious for many creators. With its spectacular fights, its beautiful declarations of love and its stories of flouted honor, Dumas’ novel was cut out for the big screen – especially since it offers the advantage of being easily adaptable. “The narration is super theatrical, the dialogues lively, rhythmic. His staging has something timeless”, enthuses Morchlav.
“There is suspense, a romantic breath, it’s an initiatory quest: it speaks to everyone”, adds Stéphanie Salmon, curator of the exhibition Dumas on screen, from adventure to excess (from March 22 to July 15 at the Pathé Foundation in Paris). According to her, Dumas was adapted from the beginnings of cinema “to create the sensation of a great spectacle”: “In each generation, there has been a new film inspired by Three Musketeers. We often discover the story when we go to the cinema.
By entrusting three times to Douglas Fairbanks, the great star of silent cinema, the role of D’Artagnan, Hollywood very quickly imposed in the collective unconscious a unique model for the character. “D’Artagnan is no longer the hillbilly who leaves his Gascony and goes to Paris. He is from the outset a handsome, sporty and agile man”, comments Stéphanie Salmon. “All the D’Artagnans who followed were inspired by him.”
All but one. Children of the 1980s inevitably remember the famous Japanese animated series The three Musketeers where the heroes are dogs. D’Artagnan is thus a beagle. Athos, Porthos and Aramis are respectively a German shepherd, a Saint-Bernard and an English springer while Richelieu is a doberman, Constance a poodle and Milady a white cat.
“In Another Universe”
The cinema has never hesitated to manhandle the novel by Alexandre Dumas. “The cinema allows you to have fun with the work through pastiches”, specifies Chloé Cavillier, responsible for a retrospective of adaptations of Alexandre Dumas at the Pathé Foundation (from March 22 to April 25). “This is the case with a version of Max Linder, The Narrow Musketeer (1922), which is projected. Richelieu is renamed Pauvrelieu there.
The famous diptych THE Three Musketeers/We called him Milady (1973-1974) by Richard Lester has also remained memorable thanks to the liberties taken with the text by Alexandre Dumas. “These two films work, while they are completely offbeat, with jobs for actresses like Raquel Welch against the grain”, enthuses Stéphanie Salmon. Ditto with The Daughter of d’Artagnan (1994), with Sophie Marceau.
Very popular in Russia, the novel was also adapted there in 1978 as a disco musical. “Apart from this detail, it’s a rather well done adventure film, quite faithful to Dumas. You’re having a good time,” says Julien Gautier. In 2011, Paul WS Anderson delivered an amazing steampunk version of the Three Musketeers. An adventure film on the border of nanar, which remains appreciated by many.
We no longer count the nanars inspired by Musketeers. One of the most famous remains The Amorous Exploits of the Three Musketeersa German erotic film from 1971 whose VF is anthological, details Julien Gautier: “For reasons that we don’t know except that the guys wanted to mess around, the film is dubbed in slang. You need a dictionary to understand what the characters say.”
“I’m going to spread you a lasagna that you will spin to the great manitou of the Musketeers, the Count of Tréville. Thanks to this babbling of introduction and your pedigree, it will give you breath and you will return to the king’s gorillas”, launches thus D’Artagnan’s father to the latter. “I find the inventiveness of the language really beautiful”, enthuses Julien Gautier. “I really like this movie. You’re in another universe.”
“Have fun with the work”
These transformations would probably not have bothered Alexandre Dumas, who did not hesitate to betray his own text when he adapted it for the theatre. But perhaps he would have been surprised by the treatment given by the 2000s to his work. “As very classic adaptations had already been made, each director wanted to bring his twist to distinguish himself from the others”, warns Julien Gautier.
Thus was born the improbable D’Artagnan (2001), a kung fu film starring Jean-Pierre Castaldi as a ninja master. “If you disregard that it’s supposed to be an adaptation of Dumas, it’s a good kung fu movie!”, Assures Julien Gautier. “The action scenes are really great. They took Tsui Hark’s choreographer. They even redid a scene fromOnce upon a time in China. We also feel the influence of Matrix.”
Milady (2004) by Josée Dayan is just as improbable. This film co-written by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt and produced by Jean-Luc Azoulay imagines the past of Milady (Arielle Dombasle) and her impossible love with her servant, Sally La Chèvre (Asia Argento). “They are in love with each other, but Milady only wants to sleep with men who must never see her face”, summarizes Julien Gautier.
“Milady is a witch and a ninja”
The cast also brings together Florent Pagny (D’Artagnan), Guillaume Depardieu (Athos), Julie Depardieu (Constance) and Martin Lamotte (Richelieu). Edouard Baer and Massimo Gargia spend time with a cameo. “You spend two hours with your eyes like saucers wondering what you are looking at,” says Julien Gautier. “Arielle Dombasle’s game is special. It’s not for everyone.”
Released in February 2005, D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers with Vincent Elbaz and Emmanuelle Béart is part of the line of sticky supernatural thrillers in a Crimson Rivers 2 (2004). “Milady is a witch and a ninja. She signed a pact with Satan”, says Julien Gautier. “There is a scene where she is dressed in a slinky SM fetish leather jumpsuit and she throws fireballs at D’Artagnan.”
“This supernatural dimension was fashionable in 2005 after the success of Pact of Wolves“, he analyzes again. “There are also other strange things: Louis XIII and Richelieu are oddly filthy. Louis XIII tells Anne of Austria that Buckingham’s letter ‘smells like cum’. Richelieu says that if Louis XIII and Anne of Austria do not manage to have children, he will take care of them.” And the king’s constipation problems are exposed. “It was the historical reality, but it is too much for The three Musketeers.”
The disappointing chicks
All the crazy adaptations of Three Musketeers are not dwarfs. And many even turn out to be quite disappointing, like Les Copains mousquetaires: A doggie and all for onea 2014 American TV movie. “There is a poster where the dogs wear capes and swords. You think it’s going to be great and in fact it’s yet another movie with dogs saving Christmas”, regrets Julien Gautier .
Even The New Musketeers (1992), a modern reinterpretation where David Hasselhoff embodies a biker descendant of D’Artagnan does not hold up. same for me Zorro and the 3 musketeers, a forgotten Italian film from 1963. Rightly so, according to Julien Gautier: “If you take away the Musketeers and Zorro, you end up with a fairly forgettable historical boat movie.”
Quite the opposite of Martin Bourboulon’s diptych, which is inspired by the codes of the soap opera to deliver a blockbuster without downtime, with twirling fights shot in sequence shots. What guarantee him a great success, while preparing the ground for spin-offs. Among the derivative projects already considered, a series will focus on a black musketeer, inspired by a real figure, Louis Anniaba.
