Author of the script and the dialogue of this "Balzac", writer Didier Decoin explains to "VSD" how he worked." I started with his correspondence. All the big diagrams of his life are there. While reading the 400 letters that he sent to Mrs. Hanska (published in the collection "Bouquins" by Robert Laffont, NDLR), one has the sensation of a diary indeed. It is passionate, full of details, a real treat! I also leaned on "Lé Roman de Balzac", a thematic biography by Stephan Zweig (in paperback). In the gigantic body of work by Balzac himself, Didier Decoin recommends "Pere Goriot" - "his most beautiful novel" - and attracts our attention to an unrecognized play, "Vautrin" - a bastard's portrait - as well as to "Caesar Birotteau". "Balzac draws the portrait of a perfumer that prospers, then is entombed in the most total decay! One learns there that the problems of corruption have been around a lot longer than this century.  We didn't invent anything!" 

~ FRANÇOIS VEY