Audrey Tautou: The New Coco Chanel

Again a new film about the legendary French fashion designer Coco Chanel’s biography will be on screen! Financed and produced by Warner Bros, in collaboration with Haut and Cine @, the upcoming movie‘s production will start no later than September, in Paris. It seems that cinematic world’s interest towards the famous lady’s biography has been increasing recently. I wrote already about a recent TV film produced by Lifetime, two mini-series telling Chanel’s lifestory with Shirley MacLaine, which provoked a lot of controversy with critics (see it in Controversy Around New “Coco Chanel” TV Film).

According to Variety, this upcoming movie will be entitled “Coco Avant Chanel” (“Coco Before Chanel”). According to its title, we can guess that it will be mainly about the younger years of the designer, years where she was only known as Coco, the girl and not yet the famous brand. As Cinematical reports, producer Caroline Benjo describes the film as “not really a biopic”. It tells the story of her life period where Chanel sang in a cabaret and than met two wealthy men, who led her to a fashion career.

The new movie is scripted and directed by Anna Fontaine. The script is partially based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s book “L’Irreguliere” (“The Non-Conformist”).

Therefore, I guess the enthusiasm around this film is in some way tied in with Audrey Tautou‘s participation. It was officially announced during last year’s Cannes Film Festival that Tautou will star as Chanel’s character. Famous for her marvelous character in “The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulin“, more widely know to the American audience as just “Amelie”, Audrey Tautou for me will always stay as just that, Amelie- a girl with her own original perception of the world, a bit simple-minded, but at the same time creative and charming. Sincerely, it’s hard for me to imagine her in Coco’s character, but the filmmaker doesn’t seem to share my opinion. “Audrey Tautou embodies all the qualities that made Coco such a fascinating individual, and the support we’ve received from The House of Chanel is incredibly gratifying”, reports Digital Spy, the director is speaking about House of Chanel’s art director Karl Lagerfield, who will supervise the re-creation of costumes and accessories.

It’s quite possible that it’s because of the upcoming movie that Audrey Tautou will be replacing Nicole Kidman in Chanel advertising, as I learned from Audrey’s official website. Audrey will become the new face of Chanel No.5, and a new TV commercial will be shot featuring her.

“Coco Avant Chanel” will be on screen next year. I hope that it will not share the destiny of the first one. Besides, I’m sure it will be quite amazing to see Audrey Tautou in such a difficult character as Coco was. Let’s wait and see!