Madame Butterfly
by Frédéric Mitterrand
France
Script: Luigi Illica, Giacomo Puccini, Guiseppe Giacosa
Cinematographer: Philippe Welt
Sound: Didier Gervais
Editing: Luc Barnier
Art Director: M. Abbe-Vannier, Christian Gasc
Music: Orchestre de Paris conducted by James Colon
Cast: Ying Huang, Ning Liang, Richard Troxelle, Richard Cowan
Production: Erato Films, Ideale Audience
Distribution:
Les films du Losange
22 avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie
75116 Paris
France
Tel: 0033 1.44.43.87.10
Fax: 0033 1.49.52.06.40
Mail: [email protected]
www.filmsdulosange.fr
Year: 1995
35 mm, Colour, 135 min
OV with French Subtitles.
Young geisha Cio Cio San marries Pinkerton, an enthusiastic American captain. Out of love for him, she renounces her religion and converts to Christianity. While the ceremony takes place, one of her relatives, a bonze, curses her : her mistake is to have married a westerner and broken her ancestral traditions. Pinkerton leaves for the United States. Cio Cio San is deeply sad and anxiously awaits the return of the man she loves, who is the father of the child she is carrying. Pinkerton comes back to Japan, but she will never see him again. He got married in the United States and is such a coward that he even refuses to meet his Japanese wife.
David Belesco’s original play was inspired by Pierre Loti’s novel Madame Chrysanthème. Giacomo Puccini composed the opera Madame Butterfly. Frédéric Mitterand shot the opera film with the same title, faithful to Puccini, and yet with an original mise en scene. This very beautiful tragic love story is seen through the eyes of four westerners.
