Becoming Colette

A Feature film of

Production year1992

French release01/07/1992

Runtime1 h 37 min

Synopsis

In 1893, Gabrielle Colette discovers Paris. She has just married Henry Gauthier-Villars, known as RWillyS, a publisher, journalist, novelist ,and... life of the party. For the young twenty-year-old country girl, the capital offers the captivating spectacle of a city permanently on show. Colette meets the most renowned musicians, artists, and novelists of the century, discovers the highlights and depths of Paris, its night-life, Montmartre, the Bohemians, the pimps, whores, and aristocrats. Making up for her innocence and lack of experience with resistant unaffectedness and stamina, she greedily takes in everything that Paris has to offer. Willy, older and more sophisticated, turns out to be an accomplished lover, but Colette suffers from his mean, jealous, and tyrannical temperament. She discovers him to be a pleasure-seeker who loves women too much, an opportunist without any scruples, riddled with debts, who will stop at nothing to uphold his reputation as a worldly seducer, writer, and discoverer of talent. As the days go by and under the influence of her beautiful rival, Polaire Sorel, Colette casts off her modesty and shyness to reveal her true personality and sexuality. And Gabrielle becomes Colette...