Jefferson in Paris

Directed by James Ivory from a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, this 1995 French-American historical drama was known during production as Head and Heart. It presents a semi-fictional portrait of the five years Thomas Jefferson spent in Paris as the United States ambassador to France, well before he became president.

Newly widowed, Jefferson grows close to Maria Cosway, an Italian-English artist, while revolutionary unrest brews around him in the French capital. At the same time he is drawn to Sally Hemings, the young enslaved woman taken into his household to care for his daughters, an attraction that leads him into a forbidden affair. Nick Nolte plays Jefferson, with Greta Scacchi, Thandiwe Newton and Gwyneth Paltrow among the supporting cast. Although chosen for the competition lineup at the Cannes Film Festival, the film earned roughly $5.9 million against a $14 million budget and was judged a critical and commercial failure.