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2008
Festival Master Class
The VCU French Film Festival presents “From bestseller to box office: adapting a novel for the screen.”
Truth will out
Sam Karmann recalls the start of the project: “Cynthia Liebow, Stephen McCauley’s editor in France for almost 20 years, knew he quite liked the work of French director Agnès Jaoui and had the idea of sending his novel True Enough to Les Films A4, our production company. Agnès liked the book but was on another project, and recommended it to me. At first, I wondered how an American novel, steeped in U.S. culture, could resonate with me. But it turned out McCauley was from Boston and was surely influenced by this city that has maintained a very strong European feel. In my reading, I felt a real affinity for his approach to his theme. Stephen saw my films and liked them. We met. I liked him, too. And, simple as that, I got to work on the adaptation.”
True Enough
The third feature film by French actor and director Sam Karmann, after Kennedy et moi (1999) and A la petite semaine (2003, featured at VCU French Film Festival 12), La Vérité ou presque is the adaptation of True Enough by American novelist Stephen McCauley, nominated for the French literary Prix Fémina Étranger for 2002. This is the second time a work by McCauley has been translated into film; the first was The Object of My Affection, adapted by Nicholas Hytner and starring Jennifer Aniston. It is also the second time Karmann brings a book to the silver screen after Kennedy et moi, which, despite the U.S. connotations of the title, was inspired by the French best-seller by Jean-Paul Dubois.
All that jazz
The key role of Pauline Anderton, the imaginary jazz singer, is played by Catherine Olson. Pauline Anderton isn’t an Ella Fitzgerald or a Billie Holiday; she has a nice voice with, of course, a very personal pizzazz. The film called for an actress who was a talented singer, original and believable when performing these “fake” standards. One actress couldn’t be chosen to play Pauline while another was chosen to sing as her. Here, the director wanted the truth and nothing but. Olson also wrote the song lyrics which relate to all the film’s themes.
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