{"id":7585,"date":"2022-05-26T10:18:14","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T14:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/?p=7585"},"modified":"2026-04-14T19:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:43:07","slug":"romance-art-and-mystery-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/romance-art-and-mystery-in-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"Romance, Art, and Mystery in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

L’ART DU CRIME – created by Ang\u00e8le Herry-Leclerc<\/a> & Pierre-Yves Mora<\/a><\/h4>\n
\"Nicolas<\/a>

Verlay<\/strong> and Chassagne<\/strong> examine a clue in “The Curse of Osiris”<\/p><\/div>\n

Season Five of the adventures of Parisian art crime investigators Florence Chassange<\/strong> (El\u00e9onore Bernheim<\/a>) and Police Captain Verlay<\/strong> (Nicolas Gob<\/a>) has been released, and its first story, Un coeur de Pierre<\/em>, is an Agatha-Christie-like puzzle mystery that hearkens back to the show’s first episode, which was not Christie-like in any way but did focus on the same character (Pierre Chassange) and the same subject (betrayal). <\/p>\n

Pierre<\/strong> (played by Philippe Duclos<\/em>) is the father of Florence, who is an art historian (like her dad). Florence is also an intellectual reminiscent of Dorothy Sayers’ amateur detective Harriet Vane<\/em><\/a>. In fact, the entire series evokes thoughts of Sayers, though Florence’s co-protagonist Antoine Verlay is a complicated policeman with learning disabilities and anger issues and is nothing at all like Peter Wimsey<\/em><\/a>. Verlay would be better described as a somewhat subdued version of MOONLIGHTING<\/a>‘s David Addison<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Florence and Antoine are in love with one another, but insist upon not being aware of that. One would think that after five years, that premise would become tiresome, but the mysteries that confront them are sufficiently fascinating that their not being together continues to seem frustratingly natural.<\/p>\n

\"Philippe<\/a>

Florence’s father Pierre<\/strong> (Philippe Duclos)<\/p><\/div>\n

The recently divorced Captain Verlay, a former homicide detective, works for the OCBC (Central Office for the Fight Against Trafficking in Cultural Property) but knows little about art. His friend and new boss Alexandre Pardo<\/strong> (Benjamin Egner<\/a>) got him the job after Verlay was suspended for calling his previous boss an asshole. In his first assignment with the OCBC, Varlay guards the wrong painting (mistaking the red circle on the white background for the reverse of that), and, after finally tackling the would-be vandal, he remarks with genuine bewilderment: “I didn’t know art made people crazy.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Miou-Miou<\/a>

Herry-Leclerc’s mother, ten-time Cesar nominee Miou-Miou<\/a> (also nominated for a Genie Award in 1989 for her role in Les portes tournantes<\/a><\/em>) as art collector Catherine Dutilleul<\/strong> (Episode 1.1)<\/p><\/div>\n

The writings of Herry-Leclerc and Mora are filled with not-terribly-complicated-but-nonetheless-useful information about French art history (like the bell ringing in Sayers’ “The Nine Tailors<\/a>“). In Une beaut\u00e9 faite au naturel<\/em>, the show’s first episode, we learn about 15th century painter Jean Bourdichon<\/i><\/a> and specifically about his portrait of Anne de Bretagne<\/em>. In Un coeur de Pierre<\/em> (Episode 5.1) the artists discussed are sculptors Camille Claudel<\/i><\/a> and Rodin<\/i><\/a>. Florence has a tendency toward being phobic in one way or another, and often has visions of the artists she is researching. Sometimes she even converses with them. At the start of the series, Florence’s psychiatrist (whose name has not been mentioned on the show) is played by Farida Rahouadj. For the last two years, Florence has been, for unknown reasons, seeing a different doctor.<\/p>\n

\n
Miscellaneous Info<\/h5>\n
\"Garance<\/a>

At the start of the fifth season, Florence gains insights into the case from a conversation with her hallucination of sculptor Camille Claudel.<\/p><\/div>\n

Actors who portray historical figures on the show are sometimes not credited. For instance, we know that Garance Th\u00e9nault<\/a> was Camille Claudel<\/strong>, and that Venantino Venantini<\/em> appeared as Leonardo da Vinci<\/strong>, but the actor who portrayed Rodin<\/strong> is unidentified. <\/p>\n

El\u00e9onore Bernheim and Nicolas Gob have also appeared as detectives in the excellent long-running anthology series Murder In…<\/a><\/strong>. Gob is Inspector Thomas Keller<\/strong> in Meurtres \u00e0 Belle-\u00cele<\/em> (Episode 6.6), and Bernheim is Captain Cl\u00e9mentine Segonzac<\/strong> in Meurtres \u00e0 Cognac<\/em> (Episode 7.5). <\/p>\n

\n

All episodes of L’ART DU CRIME can be streamed in the US and Canada on MHz Choice<\/a>. (in French with English subtitles)<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L’ART DU CRIME – created by Ang\u00e8le Herry-Leclerc & Pierre-Yves Mora Season Five of the adventures of Parisian art crime investigators Florence Chassange (El\u00e9onore Bernheim) and Police Captain Verlay (Nicolas Gob) has been released, and its first story, Un coeur …<\/span> <\/p>\n

+<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1427],"tags":[594,596,602,611,601,598,608,610,605,609,597,600,595,599,604],"class_list":["post-7585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mystery-tv","tag-angele-herry-leclerc","tag-eleonore-bernheim","tag-farida-rahouadj","tag-florence-pernel","tag-garance-thenault","tag-lart-du-crime","tag-meurtres-a","tag-mhz-choice","tag-miou-miou","tag-murder-in","tag-nicolas-gob","tag-philippe-duclos","tag-pierre-yves-mora","tag-the-art-of-crime","tag-venantino-venantini"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7585"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23317,"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7585\/revisions\/23317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/areathirtythree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}