Marie Antoinette
DO YOU WANT CANDY?
The well-informed movie-goer might well be forgiven for approaching Sophia Coppola’s recent film about the life of the frivolous teenaged queen of pre-revolutionary France with a degree of skepticism. Coppola’s previous sleepy work, Lost in Translation, was absurdly over-praised, and perhaps the mindless adulation of that largely mindless film had hoodwinked Coppola, the scion of a famous movie-making family, into thinking she could craft a truly ambitious work about an eminent but mindless individual during a tumultuous period in history. Rumors of a rock-n-roll soundtrack were troubling, and the New Yorker struck a sour note with the remark that the film is “less a character study than a pre-revolutionary style catalogue, unembarrassed in its rage for the superficial.”
Surprise, surprise. Marie Antoinette turns out to be a stylistically adventurous but largely successful portrait of an intellectually light-weight but rather sweet individual who happened to be married off to the king of France at the age of fourteen. Whether it is an entirely accurate portrait I sincerely doubt. It remains a thoroughly entertaining spectacle and a convincing story that holds true to its tone from beginning to end. It belongs in the vicinity of Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones, and it stands head-and-shoulders above such turgid works as Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, for example. Revolutions always begin at the top and work their way down. In Marie Antoinette Sophia Coppola gives us a touching and merciless portrait of the sentimental romantic and heedless consumer that, several revolutions later, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, far too many of us resemble.
Yet in this film both social commentary and historical analysis take a back seat to personal narrative. This is the story of a very young woman—a girl, really—who must leave her home forever, alone, and adjust to the etiquette of the stuffiest and most elaborate court in Europe. She must conceive a child, though her husband takes no interest in sex. She must ingratiate herself with a boisterous king and his declasse mistress and find friends among the envious and backbiting courtiers who surround her. It’s a bit of a bumpy ride.
What make all of this interesting is that we like Marie. Though there is nothing noble about her, nor is there anything really malevolent. Unlike Queen Elizabeth I of England, or Catherine the Great of Russia, she has no real power. In any case, she takes little interest in politics. She may be a bit self-centered, a bit superficial in her tastes, but she seems to be rather genuine and sincere.
It’s here that the rock sound track really shows its worth. It helps us understand and feel the great pleasure to be had in being rich, spending money, hunting wild boor, and financing innumerable parties in the midst of a vast collection of useless but perhaps well-educated parasites. Not that the entire film is undergirded with wailing guitars. There is plenty of Rameau and Couperin for the statelier segments. But every time a rock song came on I found myself saying, “You know. This works. I like it. I’m happy to be listening to something with a little energy.”
It may be said that Marie Antoinette tells us precious little about the events leading up to the Revolution that transformed Europe. I suppose this is why Coppola didn’t call her film Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution. Maybe it was a bit self-serving that the only two royal budget meetings she offers us are the ones during which the King decides to keep funding the revolution in America, even though the crown can ill-afford it. Well, we revolutionaries must stick together. But anyone who thinks the French crown went bankrupt because of Marie Antoinette’s expense account doesn’t know much about the French Revolution. Historians tell us that Marie went to considerable efforts to cut the Royal expenditures—but this meant firing the myriads of sycophantic nobles who were receiving pensions and hanging around Versailles even though they weren’t doing anything productive. This did not make Marie very popular at court...and she was never popular with the common folk.
France’s big problem at the time, (to make a long story short), was that the nobles didn’t pay taxes. This certainly wasn’t Marie Antoinette’s fault. If Mirabeau, Necker, King Louis XVI himself, and all the rest, couldn’t get things in order, there is little likelihood that sweet little Marie was going to have much of an impact.
To her credit, Coppola keeps our attention focused on Marie and her circle from beginning to end. This explains why there is less in the film about the Estates General than there is about the torments of infertility. Why discussions about the merits of the Partition of Poland give way to montages devoted to fancy food and fashion. There is reason for us to suspect that the real Marie was more sophisticated, and also more interesting, than the one Sophia Coppola has given us. But considered on its own term, Marie Antoinette is very effectively realized, and is actually quite a delight to watch.
It isn’t easy to make a good film about the French Revolution. So many events, so little time. The results tend to be both stagy and preachy. Here are a few of the better efforts:
• Napoleon (1927) A silent film done in three-screen cinerama. It isn’t that good, but it’s still worth watching.
• A Tale of Two Cities (1935, 1967, 1980, 1991) Evidently the story never gets old. Take your pick.
• La Marseillaise, directed by Jean Renoir (1938) Filmed on the eve of WWII, this patriotic French production has many stirring sequences and ominous parallels to current events.
• Start the Revolution Without Me (1970) A comedy starring Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland. Need I say more?
• Danton (1983) Polish director Andrzej Wajda reviews the French Revolution through the lens of Poland’s Solidarity movement.
• La Nuit de Varenne, (1983) in which Louis XVI, Casanova, Thomas Paine, and the Marquis de Sade engage in fairly deep conversation.
• The Lady and the Duke (2001) Eric Rohmer’s thoughtful closet drama of the Revolution.
