Paul Verhoeven stated that he felt the movie was an opportunity for him to do " something very different to anything I 've done before . But this stepping into the unknown , I think it ’s very important in the life of an artist . It puts you in an existential mode . As an artist you have to , as much as possible , step into the unknown and see what happens to you . " The project was unveiled at the Marché du Film during the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it was described as " pure Verhoeven , extremely erotic and perverted . " Verhoeven was looking for an actress who would be " prepared to take that on " and believed Nicole Kidman " could handle this role . " He also considered Charlize Theron , Julianne Moore , Sharon Stone , Marion Cotillard , Diane Lane , and Carice van Houten for the role of Michèle , a businesswoman who is raped in her home by an unknown assailant and refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life . Verhoeven told '' The Guardian '' that he reckons that the only American actress who would have been willing is Jennifer Jason Leigh . " She would have had absolutely no problem , she 's extremely audacious . But she 's an artistic presence and we were looking for names " , he said . Verhoeven 's inability to convince a major American actress to play the part left him frustrated , as he later explained , " I agree that there are not many female parts – certainly not in American cinema . It 's weird that when there is one , they lacked the audacity to be controversial . I hope all these actresses see the movie . " The film was originally supposed to take place in Boston or Chicago but , according to Verhoeven , it proved to be " too difficult " to shoot the film in the United States due to its violent and immoral content as " that would have meant getting more into the direction of '' Basic Instinct '' , but a lot of the things that are important in the movie would probably have been diminished . By bringing it more into a thriller direction , I think it would have lost everything . It would probably have been banal and transparent . The mystery would have gone . " Verhoeven then decided to do it in French and used a significant time before production to learn the language , in order to effectively communicate with the predominantly French cast and crew . In September 2014 , French actress Isabelle Huppert signed on to star in the film as Michèle . Huppert had expressed interest in a screen adaptation of the book before Verhoeven , whom she described as " one of the best directors in the world for me , " joined the production and accepted the part immediately , " I had no doubt about the integrity to the role . Of course if you just circle the story to the rape and a woman being attracted by the man who raped her , I mean , that really makes the whole purpose very , very narrow and limited . I think it 's a lot more than this . And she 's really interesting character because she 's always go against predictable definitions of what it means to be a woman , what it means to be a man . Obviously , the movie 's about a woman . But it 's also about men , you know , and the men are sort of fading figures , very weak , quite fragile . So it 's really also about the empowerment of a woman . " Principal photography began on 10 January 2015 for a ten-week shoot . Filming took place in and around Paris . A planned sequence in Paris ' main police station was cancelled following the Charlie Hebdo shooting on 7 January . The film was also shot in a house for Huppert 's character in Saint-Germain-en-Laye for five weeks . Verhoeven 's '' mise-en-scène '' for the film was influenced by three films : Federico Fellini 's '' 8 ½ '' , Jean Renoir 's '' The Rules of the Game '' and Orson Welles ' '' Touch of Evil '' . Every scene was choreographed , and Verhoeven storyboarded the whole film himself . He chose to shoot the film with two Red Dragon cameras , as " These days the amount of time a director is given to make a movie has diminished by 40 to 50 percent . Working with two cameras solves part of that problem while giving you the opportunity to do things that you would n’t do before . " When the film wrapped , Verhoeven described the shoot as " difficult " but later admitted that " in retrospect , it was very pleasant and easy . " He dismissed rumors that '' Elle '' was an " erotic thriller " in the tradition of some his previous films , including '' Basic Instinct '' , " Those people who think that this is an erotic film will be disillusioned . They are in for a strange confrontation with a movie that is ... not ordinary . I do n’t think the story is erotic ; it ’s about rape . An erotic thriller would be a bit weird , right ? I mean , it might be erotic for the person doing it , but I do n’t think that rape in general is something you would call erotic . " On 13 May 2015 , he told '' Variety '' he had " a strong feeling with this one that I was doing something that I ’d never done before , which applied when I made '' RoboCop '' . " He also praised Huppert ’s performance , saying that " She is an extremely gifted actress that gives you more than what ’s on paper … even what ’s in the book . She does experiments in her mind to get to places that she would probably avoid in reality . And she does that in an absolutely unique way . " He also said in an interview with '' Film Comment '' : She ’s one of the most brilliant actors I ’ve ever met in my life . She ’s so extremely special and is able to avoid any cliché in any situation , always finding a different way of doing things . She comes up with all kinds of extra details that you would n’t even dream of , that I would never come up with on my own . She ’s not only a great actress but she is also especially imaginative and creative in her approach to the character . I did n’t have to tell her anything about Michèle because it was clear from the first shot that she knew exactly what her character would do and how she would behave in whatever circumstance . She is extremely audacious and she really had no problem with anything that was in the script , so I have an enormous respect for her . The score of '' Elle '' was composed by English composer Anne Dudley and was released on 23 September 2016
2014 Cannes Film Festival
2014 Cannes Film Festival
Elle (film)