Clèves is a short film screenplay adapting the ballroom scene from Madame de Lafayette's classic French novel The Princesse de Clèves. For this adaptation, I gender-swapped two central characters: the Princesse de Clèves becomes a Prince, while the Prince de Clèves becomes a Princesse, transforming the original romance between the Princesse and the Duc de Nemours into an LGBTQ+ love story between the Prince and Nemours.
I wrote this for my French Literary Masterpieces in Translation and on Screen course at Wesleyan Unversity. This screenplay explores themes of forbidden love, duty, and personal identity within the setting of the 16th-century French court. Rather than rewriting the original story entirely, I chose a scene that I thought was pivotal to the story: when Nemours and the Princesse are first introduced at the ball. I preserved the emotional conflict of the novel while also reimagining how the characters navigate attraction and societal expectations.
To create a historically grounded adaptation, I researched LGBTQ+ experiences in Renaissance France, as well as fashion and court customs of the period. Through the process, I explored how changing characters' identities could create a new perspective on an old story while maintating the original themes of passion, restraint, and virtue.