‘ Hugo the hero’ enjoys TV revival
Cannes: He is worshipped as a saint in thousands of Vietnamese temples, held up as a prophet of European unity and a human rights hero for his campaigning against the death penalty.
Now the great French novelist Victor Hugo is about to become a television icon with a big- budget BBC adaptation of his masterpiece Les Miserables and an equally lavish series retelling his hugely eventful private and political life.
A literary sensation by the time he was 30 with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo quickly became the conscience of his generation.
Appalled by the misery he saw on the streets, the young royalist became a republican hero and was forced into exile for two decades after he declared Napoleon III a dictator and a “traitor to France”.
This Damascene conversion is at the centre of Victor Hugo — Enemy of the State, a four- hour portrait of the writer now being shot in France by the maker of the hit spy series The Bureau.
Director Jean- Marc Moutout said Hugo’s remarkable political journey and his equally energetic love life are at the centre of the story, which was unveiled at MIPTV, the world’s biggest entertainment market in Cannes, France, on Saturday.
The series also features his lover of 50 years Juliette Drouet, played by Isabelle Carre, who followed him into exile in Guernsey a Channel island between France and Britain.
Drouet became his official mistress, but conjugal loyalty was not one of Hugo’s strong points.
The great French novelist Victor Hugo is about to become a TV icon with a big- budget BBC adaptation of his masterpiece Les Miserables Director Jean- Marc Moutout says Hugo’s remarkable political journey and his equally energetic love life are the centre of the story