Daniel Auteuil was originally considered for the part of Van Gogh, but he declined. The role was then proposed to Jean-Hugues Anglade, before Jacques Dutronc was finally cast.
France's official submission to the 1992's Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
In a 1994 interview, Leslie Azzoulai, who plays Adeline Ravoux, said she had problems with the director Maurice Pialat during filming.
"Eight months on set, including six months of actual filming, Pialat was never happy with the take. I didn't know him and I didn't even know how to pronounce Van Gogh. He impressed me a little, but he wasn't the right God. I saw him mistreat everyone, and one day he wanted to do the same thing to me. It didn't work. At thirteen or fourteen, I only respected my father and didn't let anyone call me a little bitch without reason. I insulted him, too, and he kicked me out. The next day, when I was determined to take my train, he apologized. My audacity had surprised him. I stayed, and we became friends. He constantly added new scenes with text, and every week the production wrote to the school to apologize for my lateness, announcing my imminent return. I obviously repeated my fourth year. All that to discover on screen that he had kept only twenty minutes of what I had filmed in the role of Adeline Ravoux, the young innkeeper. What a waste! In Cannes, after the screening, I cried on the red carpet," she recalled.