Notre Dame Burns by Jean Jacques Annaud

All Fired Up, Meeting with Jean Rabasse, the Production Designer of Notre Dame on Fire

With the event film Notre Dame on Fire by Jean-Jacques Annaud, Jean Rabasse, film decorator, scenographer, and creator once again designs the sets of one of the most spectacular films in French cinema hitting theaters on March 16.

A Passionate All-Rounder

The flame is perhaps what best characterizes this artist, with precision and sensitivity, who has been crafting the greatest sets of French cinema and live art shows internationally for over 30 years.

The craziest projects do not scare him, and the most famous directors scramble for his expertise and talent.

The sets of Notre Dame on Fire, that's him. But also those of Vatel (César for Best Set Design, Oscar nomination), Jackie, City of Lost Children (César for Best Set Design), Delicatessen (César for Best Set Design), J’accuse, Asterix and Obelix (César for Best Set Design) and many others.

The opening ceremony of the Albertville Olympics with Philippe Decouflé is also his, as well as the scenography for three Cirque du Soleil shows, including "Love Beatles" in Las Vegas.

A Parisian Drama...

We head to the neighboring cathedral with (as a guiding thread) the film's production designer, Jean Rabasse.

The fire of Notre Dame on April 15, 2019, marks a moment of collective memory where all witnessed the destruction of the cathedral live, all except a few firefighters who, at the risk of their lives, managed to save the essential part of this jewel.

The film recreates their adventure identically. Telling this story, bringing it to life between reality and fiction was the challenge. A monument.

Challenges Thrill Jean Rabasse.

“Each film is a new story that we construct with the director, I always start from scratch.” For Notre Dame, he discovers that there are no plans of the cathedral. Yet he must reconstruct its architecture, its soul, its drama.

The preparation of the film resembles a pilgrimage where, for over 8 months, with Jean-Jacques Annaud, they explore and scrutinize all the cathedrals from Saint-Denis to Chartres, from Sens to Amiens from Blois to Notre Dame de Paris to uncover their mysteries.

"A cathedral is a forest of symbols, fascinating to study, with an infinity of hands that contributed to it: companions, artisans, apprentices...”

A Titanic Project

To create the sets, Jean and his teams embark on a long research and documentation work that leads to unprecedented collaborations with the Heritage Library, giving them access to the only existing plans of Viollet le Duc's 19th-century contest project, the CNRS supplying them with all the 3D points of the cathedral, representing millions of data for the architects and firms in charge of Notre Dame's reconstruction.

“There were synergies between those rebuilding Notre-Dame and constructing the film set.”

This virtual Notre Dame, imbued with the soul and patina of the cathedral's time, was the starting point for the construction of the gigantic sets where the drama of the fire is reenacted.

“We somehow created ‘our’ Notre-Dame as close as possible to the real one but designed to be the terrain for action. Our work was both reconstruction and imagination to give a spectacular dimension to the image.”

For Notre Dame on Fire by Jean-Jacques Annaud, Jean redesigned everything from the gargoyles to the framework, the belfry also inspired by several belfries, including that of Saint-Denis, changed the size of the bells, and conceived everything so that the flames, sometimes rising over 20 meters high in the studio, fit within the sets.

A Set More Real Than Life

Gargoyles, frameworks, belfry, steeples were all revisited with precision in detail, grandeur, and the unfolding action.

Between reality and fiction, Jean's work is to make this transition by immersing himself in a subject to bring it to set, to life in the service of a narrative.

"I try to feel the strength and emotion of the script."

Boldness, imagination, research, and precision are the keys.

What drives this tireless creator, whose life could be a film, is the journey where projects take him. A journey through time, to the heart of different eras and situations he dives into with passion until he even feels like he lives there.

From the film “J’accuse” where he held the real false papers of Louis Dreyfus, to Vatel with the construction of the theater in the park of Saint-Cloud, to his descent into the mine over 1000m deep for the preparation of the film “Le Brasier” to his incredible reconstruction of the White House for the movie Jackie, the production designer takes us on a journey.

His journey always passes through the Hôtel de Lille, a familiar hotel, and a story of friendship, where he often comes to relax and see his friend, the director Philippe Daucet.

He is already back to preparing the film by François Ozon and Louis Garrel, immersed in new set research “that gives signs people do not see but feel.”

Colombe de La Taille