Madame Claude
夜の伝説 マダム・クロード
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
The woman who ran Paris's most powerful escort network in the 1960s and the protégée who unsettles her.
At the end of the 1960s Fernande Grudet, known as Madame Claude, runs the most exclusive call-girl network in Paris from the 16th arrondissement. She grew up poor in the provinces and left a baby daughter with her mother; men treat women as whores, she says, so she decided to be queen of the whores. Her women serve politicians, celebrities and gangsters. She keeps thirty per cent, trades what she learns with the police and the intelligence services, and relies on the gangster Jo Attia for protection. Her mother and her teenage daughter, whom she has brought to Paris, reject her way of life and leave.
Sidonie, a young woman from a wealthy family, asks to join, and she is different: educated, quick, and in flight from her father, a diplomat who sexually abused her as a child. Claude hires her and comes to trust her more than anyone. Around them the ground shifts. The Marković affair, a murder scandal that reaches into the government, makes the police and the politicians wary. Serge, an intelligence officer, sends Claude's women on covert assignments against corrupt officials, and he turns out to know Sidonie's father. At Christmas Sidonie confronts her father over dinner and throws water in his face. The next morning someone tries to kill Claude, and Jo tells her she has been abandoned. Her house is shut down, and she hides in the country.
Sidonie comes to tell her she will bring charges against her father. Claude tells her no one will care, and sends her away. Pursued for tax evasion, Claude flees to the United States, leaving behind her daughter, who is pregnant and whom she has pushed away. Deported to France, she starts again on a small scale, and in 1992 she is arrested once more, this time by a woman, and sentenced to three years in prison. Sidonie takes her father to court and wins. In a message she leaves for Claude, she says she left because she was afraid Claude would hurt her as she hurt everyone, herself included, thanks her, and tells her she loves her. The last image is of an older, grey-haired Claude walking by the sea.
Starring
Karole Rocheras Madame Claude (Fernande Grudet)
A self-made brothel-keeper from a poor provincial family, feared and courted by Paris's powerful, who keeps everyone at a distance.
Madame Claude (Fernande Grudet)’s story
Claude left her baby daughter with her mother and made her way in Paris. By the late 1960s she runs its most exclusive call-girl house, takes thirty per cent, trades secrets with the police and relies on the gangster Jo Attia. Her mother and teenage daughter, brought to Paris, reject her life and leave. Sidonie is the first person she has truly cared for. After Sidonie throws water in her father's face, someone tries to kill Claude, Jo tells her she has been abandoned, and her house is shut. When Sidonie says she will take her father to court, Claude tells her no one will care and sends her away. She flees to America, leaving her pregnant daughter behind, is deported, starts again, and in 1992 is sentenced to three years. Grey-haired, she walks by the sea.
Garance Marillieras Sidonie
A diplomat's daughter, sexually abused by her father as a child, who joins Claude's network and becomes her protégée.
Sidonie’s story
Sidonie turns up at Claude's door educated, quick and in flight from her father, and argues her way in: she knows the clients' world and its manners. Claude comes to rely on her. Her father, the diplomat who sexually abused her as a child, comes to threaten Claude, and Serge, the intelligence officer who uses Claude's women, turns out to know him. At Christmas she demands that her father make amends and throws water in his face; the next morning someone tries to kill Claude, who turns on her. Claude tells her no one will care, and a policeman that no one will believe a prostitute, but years later she takes her father to court and wins. In a message she says she left for fear Claude would hurt her too, thanks her, and says she loves her.
Roschdy Zemas Jo Attia
A gangster and old friend who has protected Claude since her early days in Paris.
Pierre Deladonchampsas Serge
An intelligence officer who uses Claude's women on covert assignments and knows Sidonie's father.
Why it matters
Madame Claude is about a woman who took a hard rule, that men treat women as whores, and tried to make it pay: a business run by a woman, for the powerful, on the bodies of other women, protected only for as long as it served the state. The film does not make the trade glamorous. It shows the percentage taken, the violence absorbed, the bargains with the police, and a founder who cannot reach her own daughter. Against her it sets Sidonie, abused by a father whom the system protects, who uses a changing era to take him to court. Between the two women runs the question of that era and this one: whether sex work gave women in a closed society a kind of power, or only a different master.