Gérard Depardieu is tipped to portray a character based on Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the upcoming Abel Ferrara film

Yesterday’s news that Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Adjani are going to take the lead roles in an Abel Ferrara film inspired by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sex scandal quickly became adjusted, in many reports, to news that the French stars are going to play the Strauss-Kahns in name.

But that seems unlikely. The title “The Strauss-Kahn Story” appears on Ferrara’s website. Curiously, however, in the choppily edited video introduction to the project by its screenwriter, Christ Zois, he doesn’t name Strauss-Kahn or his wife, Anne Sinclair.

Zois says that the film will dramatize an imaginary interaction between its protagonist and his partner as it unfolded during a crisis. He obviously refers to the Strauss-Kahns when he mentions it will unfold in a Tribeca townhouse in lower Manhattan, a nod to their Franklin Street digs, where they were staying at the time of the scandal. Since French actors are to play the couple — and Zois indicates that he and Ferrara met with Depardieu and Adjani — there can be no doubt as to their identity.

Zois mostly talks about the need to establish a voice for the two characters, individually and collectively. In the vague comments added by Ferrara, stepping into the frame at the end of the video, he, too, fails to mention the Strauss-Kahns. This evasiveness suggests Ferrara and Zois are leaving themselves open to tackling a spectrum of issues, ranging from infidelity in high places to the universality of sexual arrogance, as a manifestation of power, among national leaders and politicians. The loss of power is another plausible theme.

To state unequivocally that Depardieu and Adjani are playing the former manager of the International Monetary Fund, once considered a potential candidate for the French presidency, and his wife, a famous former French broadcast journalist, would inevitably constrict Ferrara.

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