United Artists Pictures presents the spirited adventure The Man in the
Iron Mask, written and directed by Randall Wallace, inspired by the classic
novel by Alexandre Dumas. Wallace and Russell Smith are the producers, with
Alan Ladd Jr. serving as executive producer. The co-producers are Paul Hitchcock
and René Dupont.
Director Randall Wallace and producer Russell Smith also assembled an impressive
line-up of creative and technical talent for the behind-the-scenes team.
It includes director of photography Peter Suschitzky (Immortal Beloved,
The Empire Strikes Back), Academy Award* nominee Anthony Pratt (Butcher
Boy, Michael Collins) as production designer, three-time Academy Award*-winner
James Acheson (Restoration, The Last Emperor, Dangerous Liaisons) as costume
designer as well as editor William Hoy (Seven, Outbreak). Nick Glennie-Smith
(The Rock) composed the score.
Also part of the team are swordmaster William Hobbs, horsemaster Mario Luraschi
and George Gibbs as special effects supervisor and Philippe Guegan as Stunt
Coordinator.
Principal photography began on April 28, 1997, in the Studios Arpajon, near
Paris. Although the majority of the film was shot on stages, the production
spent nearly five weeks on location in some of France's most beautiful castles.
Over the 14-week shoot and during the preparation, The Man in the Iron Mask
occupied eight out of the nine stages available at the Studios d'Arpajon,
as well as the roughly 100,000 square-foot "Stage 4000" at nearby
FertÈ-Allais.
Production designer Anthony Pratt and his team built approximately 15 different
sets on these stages, including the various waterways seen in the film.
"The water passages set was the most difficult," Pratt remembers.
"Originally the idea was to try and do it by a river somewhere, which
would be close to impossible to do at night since real rivers are impossible
to control."
Building the palace waterways and pump room at FertÈ-Allais took
eight weeks and utilized a large water tank with a high pressure system.
This stage was then converted into the interior of a fortress complex and
the waterline gate, and finally it became the French coast, complete with
a small cove and genuine living seaweed.
The Bastille Corridor and Complex was built on stage nine, which took five
weeks to assemble for a 10-day shoot. That set was struck to be replaced
by the magnificent King's palace -- a set comprised of three interconnected
rooms: the King's Bedroom, the Palace Corridor and the Queen's Apartment.
"Once the Bastille was actually struck from that stage, the construction
crew led by Jean Poinot had four weeks to put everything up. They had pre-fabbed
a few elements before but, even so, the quality of the sets is astonishing,"
Pratt notes.
"I was surprised by how grand the sets actually were," director
Wallace recalls. "Tony did a beautiful job. I had to be careful not
to be tempted to shoot a grand set just to capture its beauty. I wanted
everyone involved in this show to be inspired and excited and to feel that
they were working on something really special, but that what made it special
was not that our sets were bigger or more expensive, or the costumes grander,
but that our story was powerful and worth telling, and the sets were all
in support of that."
The great estate of Vaux-le-Vicomte has a history which involves many real-life
counterparts to the characters who populate the castle in The Man in the
Iron Mask. In 1641, Nicolas Fouquet purchased the estate, some 40 miles
away from the capital. The 26 year-old financial secretary to Cardinal Mazarin
enlisted three great artists, the architect Louis Le Vau, the decorator
Charles Le Brun and the garden designer Andre Le Notre, to improve the property.
Unfortunately, by 1661, Fouquet's fate was sealed by Mazarin's private secretary,
Colbert, who planned to ingratiate himself to the young King Louis XIV by
laying all the blame for the kingdom's financial ills at Fouquet's feet.
In August of that year, Fouquet hosted a magnificent party at which the
guest of honor was the King himself. Three weeks after this lush affair,
he was arrested by d'Artagnan and sent to prison, where he died in 1680.
By then, another palace had overshadowed Vaux-le-Vicomte in the eyes of
the nation: Versailles. Now privately owned but open to the public, Vaux-le-Vicomte
remains the precursor of Versailles, which was built and decorated by the
same trio.
The production spent over two weeks at Ch,teau de Vaux-le-Vicomte, shooting
both interiors and exteriors. Vaux stood in for the King's palace, the royal
gardens and the Musketeers' gate, which, at the time, would have all been
in Paris. The huge garden party sequence requiring some 250 extras, magnificent
fountain works and a piglet chase was shot at Vaux.
Production designer Pratt, who hadn't worked on this period before, had
to bone up on his Louis XIV-era architecture prior to beginning his work
on Man in the Iron Mask. "Being able to use the Vaux-le-Vicomte helped
enormously since it is of this exact period," Pratt says. "I was
also able to look at Versailles itself. That's all I needed for that side
of the story."
Quite a different setting housed the production for its first two weeks
on location -- the Manoir du Logis in Fontenay s/Vegre, some 30 miles away
from Le Mans, in north-western France. For just over a week the crew shot
in this provincial manor house of the 15th century that has been converted
into a farm during the Revolution. It serves as a country estate where the
Musketeers take Philippe after delivering him from captivity and teach him
how to be a king. Both interiors and exteriors were shot in this rustic
setting, which boasts a small lake and a river with a very romantic stone
bridge.
The company then moved for one night to nearby Le Mans, the capital of the
Sarthe, in north-western France. Le Mans' medieval quarter boasts some of
the best preserved 15th Century streets in France with very few intrusive
modern elements. Le Mans stood in for the streets of Paris. A small courtyard
was used as the entrance to a brothel, the interior of which was built on
a stage at Arpajon.
The production then moved to Pierrefonds, a 14th century fortified castle
situated roughly 50 miles north of Paris. The edifice stood in ruins until
the architect Violet Leduc restored it under Napoleon III, at the beginning
of the 19th century. Exteriors of Paris were shot at Pierrefonds, including
sequences taking place outside a priest's residence and the Bastille prison.
The land below the fortifications became a battlefield in Flanders where
Raoul is on the front lines.
For the last week of shooting, the company moved to the imperial city of
Fontainebleau, home to a royal palace built in the 16th century, which was
an official residence of the Royal Family until Louis XIV. Napoleon Bonaparte
later brought it back into fashion. The vast courtyard of the palace stood
in for a Paris market square where d'Artagnan calms a starving populace
on the verge of rioting. Some 170 extras were required, along with 20 horses
provided by the horsemaster Mario Luraschi.
Together with Director Randall Wallace, three other men were responsible
for the final look of the iron mask: Makeup Supervisor Giannetto de Rossi,
Leonardo DiCaprio and Luigi Sebastiani del Grande, the artist who actually
made it.
de Rossi recalls the sometimes-turbulent process which took him to the final
product: "I saw only one mask from a previous movie in 1934-35, and
it was terrible because it had the influence of Metropolis. We all wanted
something unique. Randall tried to explain what he saw in his mind, but
sometimes it is difficult to express these images in words. We did two or
three sculptures, two or three molds and it kept changing and evolving.
Then we tried to fit it on Leonardo and thank God, he was so professional
that he wanted to really feel the tightness of the mask. So for me, it was
magnificent, because I could make it smaller and smaller and in the end,
I think we achieved something very interesting because this mask has a particular
look."
de Rossi adds that "the final product is a creature of different fathers.
Of course, I was responsible to sculpt it, so the mask is my daughter, but
Randall is the godfather. For the proportions, Leonardo is another godfather.
Without him suffering inside the mask, I could never make it this tight
and when, you see it on the screen, in the final scene, when he's walking
behind the Musketeers, you see this tiny head compressed inside this mask.
It's quite impressive and it's thanks to him. Then of course, I added some
rust to it and then the lock at the back."
The ultimate goal was to give the mask a personality of its own, something,
which de Rossi is confident was achieved: "The mask in this movie is
one character. I'm very happy because this mask with Leonardo's eyes in
it can compete at the same level than any other member of the cast."
Leonardo DiCaprio gave the mask life and describes what it feels like to
inhabit and how it defined the character of Philippe: "It definitely
gets claustrophobic, and, within ten minutes of being in there, I can almost
bash my head against the wall with frustration. It must become like part
of your own body after a while. I wore it around for a while and got used
to it; it becomes a part of you and you have to fight all the urges you
have to scratch your face off.
"I came to this project thinking that this guy would be mentally disabled
from being in this mask for so long. The thing I found that was interesting
when I talked to Randy about it is that he saw Philippe as a Nelson Mandela
figure, who was trapped in a place for so long and did only good while he
was enclosed by himself. Mandela came out and ended up ruling his country.
The mind must take over the body and he's able to control himself and not
completely lose it, which I found very interesting and which I didn't expect."
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