OUR LADY BURNT. Jean-Jacques Annaud wanted to reconstruct the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris, which took place on April 15, 2019. Behind the scenes and filming secrets of “Notre-Dame burns”.
[Mis à jour le 16 mars 2022 à 9h31] It is a somewhat crazy bet that Jean-Jacques Annaud has launched: to faithfully and cinematographically reconstruct the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris, April 15, 2019. Notre Dame is burning looks back on an event that we all or almost all followed live on television and which resolutely marked the French. Is the film faithful to the event? In any case, Jean-Jacque Annaud and his teams have put in place a colossal job to meticulously tell the story of the fire in the cathedral. At the microphone of France Blue Auxerre, the filmmaker also explains that “this film looks like a fiction film since almost everything has been reconstructed, but from truthful elements.” The interior of the cathedral was also shot in Bourges and Sens mainly, but also in Amiens or Saint-Denis.
So that Our Lady Burns sticking to the maximum with lived reality, the film crews went through the stories of the fire made in the media and questioned the main protagonists of the affair. Amateur videos taken during the fire also appear on the screen (a call for witnesses had also been launched by the production). Archive footage was also used in several places throughout the film. Le Figaro also tells us that the first version of the film’s script was validated by the commander of the Paris fire brigade, General Gontier. Among the main liberties taken by Jean-Jacques Annaud with reality, let us note the creation of secondary characters, the reduction of the number of firefighters on screen, or the final scene in which the volunteer firefighters are called upon to risk their lives to save Cathedral.
“It All Happened”
At the microphone of 20 minutesJean-Jacques Annaud detailed the reconstitution process at work in Our Lady Burns. And if the film seems impressive or even “exaggerated”, it is not a freedom taken by the filmmaker: “At first, I thought that the witnesses and the journalists embellished things then I had to go to the All this happened and even atheists can admit that it was a miracle that we had such a happy ending!The firefighters were ready to see the cathedral collapse and feared that the Ile de la Cité would go up in smoke. “
Synopsis – The feature film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, reconstructs hour by hour the incredible reality of the events of April 15, 2019 when the cathedral suffered the most important disaster in its history. And how women and men will put their lives at risk in an incredible and heroic rescue.