Marie Antoinette
Director: Sofia Coppola
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Asia Argento, Steve Coogan
With bookshop (and supermarket) shelves being filled with (mostly ghost-written) autobiographies of people in their twenties and thirties, whose main claims to fame are appearing on television or kicking a ball, it is good to see that biographies of people who had some real impact on the history of the world are getting made into movies. OK there is the film about Zidane, but that is as much about the filmmaking process as the subject, and it is just one match.
There have been some excellent bio-pics made over the years, and most of them seem to have had Richard Attenborough's name attached to them. They have been films about truly great people who altered the lives of everyone they came into contact with. There have also been films about equally evil people who had the same effect only not always for the better. Of course, history is very subjective and open to revision. Nelson Mandela has been called both a terrorist and freedom fighter and is now considered one of the world's greatest statesmen. Sadam Hussein was an American ally for many years until it didn't suit the political and economic ambitions of a handful of greedy men. Revisionist history will always continue, much like Orwell's Department of Truth in 1984. Now it is the turn of Marie Antoinette, best known for her misquoted crack about cake.
Based on Antonia Fraser's meticulously researched historical biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, this new film by Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Sofia Coppola, tries to redress the misconceptions about France's last queen. While it does go a long way to achieving its aims, showing her mostly as a slightly naïve teenager who was a victim of circumstances, rather than a manipulative despot, it does not fully explore her greatness. Not having read the book on which the film is based I cannot comment further, but it is not covered in the film.
Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) was sent by her mother, Maria Teresa of Austria (Marianne Faithfull), to marry Louis (Jason Schwartzman) the teenage heir to the French throne when she was a mere 14 years old. She had to leave everything behind and become part of the decadent life at the court of Versailles. The film shows she was initially bewildered by the extravagance of court life, but living in a marriage that went unconsummated for seven years she took solace in clothes shopping, as any teenager would. In fact, the whole conceit of the film is that Marie Antoinette behaves as any perfectly normal teenager would, placed in the same situation. The use of a soundtrack by 80s' New Romantic bands was meant to enhance this, but when it was mixed period music it came over as too much of a mish-mash and certainly didn't work as well as soundtrack to A Knight's Tale.
Unfortunately, like most teenagers, the film is a bit superficial. It focuses too much on the glamour and opulence of court life without giving the characters any real depth or personality, which I am sure Marie Antoinette had, even if none of the others did. Although the film showed that she was not as bad as history had described, it didn't fully show the good that she did and it lacked any real drama, even when mobs were at the palace gates.
The film looks sumptuous, from the costumes to the Versailles locations. The actors did their best with the material, but in the end it comes across as rather soulless, like a video of a Saga guided tour rather than an in-depth documentary.
Marie Antoinette is on general release from October 27 from Columbia Pictures.
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Asia Argento, Steve Coogan
With bookshop (and supermarket) shelves being filled with (mostly ghost-written) autobiographies of people in their twenties and thirties, whose main claims to fame are appearing on television or kicking a ball, it is good to see that biographies of people who had some real impact on the history of the world are getting made into movies. OK there is the film about Zidane, but that is as much about the filmmaking process as the subject, and it is just one match.
There have been some excellent bio-pics made over the years, and most of them seem to have had Richard Attenborough's name attached to them. They have been films about truly great people who altered the lives of everyone they came into contact with. There have also been films about equally evil people who had the same effect only not always for the better. Of course, history is very subjective and open to revision. Nelson Mandela has been called both a terrorist and freedom fighter and is now considered one of the world's greatest statesmen. Sadam Hussein was an American ally for many years until it didn't suit the political and economic ambitions of a handful of greedy men. Revisionist history will always continue, much like Orwell's Department of Truth in 1984. Now it is the turn of Marie Antoinette, best known for her misquoted crack about cake.
Based on Antonia Fraser's meticulously researched historical biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, this new film by Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Sofia Coppola, tries to redress the misconceptions about France's last queen. While it does go a long way to achieving its aims, showing her mostly as a slightly naïve teenager who was a victim of circumstances, rather than a manipulative despot, it does not fully explore her greatness. Not having read the book on which the film is based I cannot comment further, but it is not covered in the film.
Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) was sent by her mother, Maria Teresa of Austria (Marianne Faithfull), to marry Louis (Jason Schwartzman) the teenage heir to the French throne when she was a mere 14 years old. She had to leave everything behind and become part of the decadent life at the court of Versailles. The film shows she was initially bewildered by the extravagance of court life, but living in a marriage that went unconsummated for seven years she took solace in clothes shopping, as any teenager would. In fact, the whole conceit of the film is that Marie Antoinette behaves as any perfectly normal teenager would, placed in the same situation. The use of a soundtrack by 80s' New Romantic bands was meant to enhance this, but when it was mixed period music it came over as too much of a mish-mash and certainly didn't work as well as soundtrack to A Knight's Tale.
Unfortunately, like most teenagers, the film is a bit superficial. It focuses too much on the glamour and opulence of court life without giving the characters any real depth or personality, which I am sure Marie Antoinette had, even if none of the others did. Although the film showed that she was not as bad as history had described, it didn't fully show the good that she did and it lacked any real drama, even when mobs were at the palace gates.
The film looks sumptuous, from the costumes to the Versailles locations. The actors did their best with the material, but in the end it comes across as rather soulless, like a video of a Saga guided tour rather than an in-depth documentary.
Marie Antoinette is on general release from October 27 from Columbia Pictures.
posted by Chris Patmore at 10:33 AM
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