Upon the premiere of the film at Cannes in 2013, acclaim and controversy quickly followed. At the same time, Blue Is the Warmest Color draws upon its influences and inspirations to develop a naturalistic, subjective, and sympathetic portrait of its protagonist as she navigates a challenging transition to adulthood. What results is far more than a simple transcription of a source but a complex work embedded in several overlapping discourses, especially those of LGBTQ people concerned about their representation onscreen but also of those in the popular press who focused their comments nearly exclusively on the film’s sex scenes and the stars’ fallout with the director.
![blue is the warmest colour love scene blue is the warmest colour love scene](https://media.comicbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/blue-warmest-colour.jpg)
![blue is the warmest colour love scene blue is the warmest colour love scene](https://alchetron.com/cdn/Blue-Is-the-Warmest-Colour-images-0e3f7f38-f7ea-4887-b052-bda84a8f273.jpg)
These include not just Maroh’s evocative sequential art but also the director’s own stated intentions and influences, including the 18th-century novel La Vie de Marianne and his cast members’, especially Exarchopoulos’s, personae. Far more than just the sum of its sex scenes or a case study in critical controversy, Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color reflects the intertextual locus of a number of sources and influences. Yet Kechiche’s film also takes considerable liberties in adapting Maroh’s narrative-not the least of which is changing the protagonist’s name, Clémentine, to that of her character’s portrayer, Adèle. The two versions of Blue share rough outlines of plot and character, with Kechiche preserving a number of characters, events, settings, and even occasionally some more subtle aesthetic choices such as mise-en-scène and design. Largely overlooked in the contentious debate over the film’s sex, stars, and shooting was much attention to the film as an adaptation, generally, or that of a graphic novel, specifically. Starring Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, Abdellatif Kechiche’s controversial 2013 adaptation of Julie Maroh’s 2010 coming-of-age graphic novel Blue Is the Warmest Color may be better known for its graphic lesbian sex scenes and the post-Cannes fallout between its director and its stars than for its approach to adaptation (see Figure 1).
![blue is the warmest colour love scene blue is the warmest colour love scene](https://www.pride.com/sites/default/files/2017/03/29/below-her-mouth.jpg)
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR LOVE SCENE ARCHIVE
× Current About Archive Submit Editorial Board Salisbury UniversityĪdaptation and Intertextuality in Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color (La Vie d'Adèle-Chapitres 1 et 2) J Paul Johnsonįigure 1: Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux in Abdellatif Kechiche’s adaptation of Julie Maroh’s Blue Is the Warmest Color.