Marquise is a drama about the rise and fall of a beauteous actress. As cheerfully portrayed by Sophie Marceau, the eponymous heroine is an engagingly ribald, but perhaps rather too modern, character. She rises from an impoverished background to become a favourite of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and the mistress of the celebrated Racine, who wrote roles especially for her; but her fate, in the end, is a tragic one.
Marquise is a 1997 French dramatic film directed by Véra Belmont, and starring Sophie Marceau, Bernard Giraudeau, and Lambert Wilson. Written by Jean-François Josselin, Véra Belmont, Marcel Beaulieu and Gérard Mordillat, the film is about a dancer and actress, based on the historical actress Marquise-Thérèse de Gorla, who rises from obscurity to win the hearts of some of France's most prominent citizens, including Moliere, Racine, and King Louis XIV. She is helped in her career by a rotund comic, who falls in love with her, marries her, and brings her to Paris to launch her career. Despite her intimate involvement with other men, she keeps a special place in her heart reserved only for her unlikely spouse. Set in seventeenth century France, the film was shot on location in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, Italy, from September through December 1996.
