Bel-Ami, Maupassant et le cinéma
Bel-Ami by Maupassant: from the Novel to Its Cinematographic Adaptations

Bel-Ami by Maupassant: from the Novel to Its Cinematographic Adaptations

Summary/Abstract: In the various “translations” envisaged, Georges Duroy appears as a man of women, opportunistic, vain and manipulative, in a political context that enables his escape. With its timeless dimension and its trans-historical plasticity, Bel-Ami as a character is a fertile ground for filmmakers who, by capturing a complex figure of unscrupulous ambition and unbridled seducer of women, try to have a number of features that meet aesthetic, moral or ideological aspirations. In this sense, starting from a common literary substance, each filmmaker creates “his own” Bel-Ami, thus redefined, even instrumentalised, that is inserted in a universe of operetta (Willi Forst), that becomes an edifying tale (Albert Lewin), that is turned into a scandal object (Louis Daquin) or into a hero of the desire and youth odyssey (Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod).

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