Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette

[marknyc]

This will either be amazing or very, very bad. I wonder if she is giving it an eighties New Wave soundtrack? Is it going to be the first New Romantic film? I can imagine the interviews now: "These people were like the original new wavers!" or "They were rich, had nothing to do, partied. Just like me and my California friends!"

Less Than Zero with costumes?

Cast includes Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn, Marianne Faithful (ooh), Molly Shannon, and Steve Coogan.


The trailer is here: www.sonypictures.com/movies/marieantoinette/index.html

[Ugly Netty]

According to IMDb this isn't coming out in the UK till next February now.
I really want to see it, but didn't it get panned at Cannes?

[[james]]

It got booed by French critics but as the film isn't very pro-French I can see why they might have got a bit riled.

I'm looking forward toward to mainly because it has Kiki Dunst in it and is directed by Sofia Coppola, one of my favourite directors. I doubt it will win me over but could be a bodice-ripping bit of fun.

[pauliepoos]

This film is delicious.

I implore everyone to go and see it.

Kirsten is simply beauty personified and simply radiates. And Shirley Henderson pops up too!

All the way through though it reminded me of something I couldn't quite put my finger on, and then Rose Byrne popped up and, Bingo!, it was Casanova with the lovely David Tennant.

[somethingbiblical]

This isn't on anywhere! It's on once a day at my cinema and it isn't really - it says it is on the website but it's not on when you go. I'm having to go to the Cameo to see it, smallest cinema in history.

It only came out the other week - surely it hasn't tanked that much? It's a huge movie! I've been hearing about this for years.

[[james]]

It's still showing at my local Odeon. Have you tried going to a real cinema, Sarah?

[QuincyMD]

It's died on it's arse both here and in the US.

[thelovelykate]

I'm not surprised. Straight men won't want to see it. Straight women would rather see The Devil Wears Prada. Teenage girls would rather get thrills over Ashton Kutcher in that lifeguard film. People who like proper history and/or BBC style posh costume drama will be appalled by reviews mentioning modern language and music. That doesn't really leave many people who might want to go and see it, especially when many cinemas charge an extortionate £6.40 (!!!!!!!) to get in.

[coxy1979]

6.40 sounds cheap to me.

But I don't fancy this.

[somethingbiblical]

I saw it today, it wasn't as postmodern as I was expecting, but it was quite good. I wanted a being-dragged-to-the-guilotine scene but you can't always get what you want. Kirsten Dunst was way too skinny to be believably eating that many chocolates. The reason all the Queens of the past look so ugly in their paintings is because they WERE ugly, and fat, and spotty, from all the crap they ate because they could afford it. They should really cast Sonia from Eastenders if they want it to be realistic.

And shut up James, it's showing in three cinemas in Edinburgh, my local Vue which SAYS on the website it's showing once a day but in reality it's all LIEEEES, the Cineworld yonks away, and the Cameo. And I had to go to the Cameo, the specialist independent film cinema. So shust yer big rent boy trap.

[xenomaniac]

thelovelykate said:

I'm not surprised. Straight men won't want to see it. Straight women would rather see The Devil Wears Prada. Teenage girls would rather get thrills over Ashton Kutcher in that lifeguard film. People who like proper history and/or BBC style posh costume drama will be appalled by reviews mentioning modern language and music. That doesn't really leave many people who might want to go and see it, especially when many cinemas charge an extortionate £6.40 (!!!!!!!) to get in.

Factor in Kirsten Dunst being the least appealing leading lady ever and you're onto a loser.

[Adrian]

somethingbiblical said:

They should really cast Sonia from Eastenders if they want it to be realistic.

Or, like, an Austrian.

I saw it yesterday. I enjoyed it, but it made me want to shout and debate SO much.

* Kirsten Dunst is very radiant.

* At one point, she looked the image of Nicole Kidman

* The 80s soundtrack was willfully anachronistic. Why bother? What did it do?

* The "I Want Candy" sequence was somewhat ham fisted. I didn't like the Blue Monday video styling. I thought it was a little too obvious.

* The faux-naivete of Marie Antonia was overplayed. She was an archduchess to the throne of the Austrian empire, which was flipping huge. She wasn't a Cali girl brought up surfing on the beach. She would have been used to this.

* The way that money, wealth etc. was played was of wide-eyed fascination and new discovery. All this wealth was nothing new to her.

* It felt like a load of American rich kids playing royalty. There was none of the grace or gravitas of royalty.

* It reminded me of Cruel Intentions, but backwards. Cruel Intentions was a clever modern reworking of a tale from 18th Century France. This seemed like an 18th century France version of a modern preppy American tale.

* Could they have at least tried to neutralise the ridiculously wavering accents?

* The pace was very slow at some points. Also we noted that there was very little drama, or points around which the film was hooked.

* Austrian boyfriend pointed out that they used the wrong bloody castle for Maria Teresa.

Lots more, but I can't remember it all.

A

[marknyc]

adrian said:

somethingbiblical said:

They should really cast Sonia from Eastenders if they want it to be realistic.

Or, like, an Austrian.

You could go further and say that the film should have used a French cast, been spoken mostly in French, used aristocratic actors, utilized natural lighting, been filmed in the 18th century, etc. But it wasn't. It is a film.

* The 80s soundtrack was willfully anachronistic. Why bother? What did it do?

* The 'I Want Candy'; sequence was somewhat ham fisted. I didn't like the Blue Monday video styling. I thought it was a little too obvious.

The music inspired the film. It is what separates this from a Merchant/Ivory flick about boring people doing boring things and makes it a wonderful, expressionistic movie about interesting people doing boring things. From the first lyrics of Gang Of Four in the opening credits ("The problem of leisure What to do for pleasure ") through the FUCKING AMAZING orchestral introduction to the 'Hong Kong Garden' party sequence to the 'Kings Of The Wild Frontier' fuck sequence, I was hooked on the use of music. The 'I Want Candy' part seemed a bit whimsical simply because the song is better known and the use of it was the most literal.

It is not that different from the way Sophia used music in The Virgin Suicides. In fact, the two are very similar. Which made this effort even more interesting.

The language of music video speaks directly to Sophia's directing style. It is actually much more complex than is given credit.

* The faux-naivete of Marie Antonia was overplayed. She was an archduchess to the throne of the Austrian empire, which was flipping huge. She wasn't a Cali girl brought up surfing on the beach. She would have been used to this.

* The way that money, wealth etc. was played was of wide-eyed fascination and new discovery. All this wealth was nothing new to her.

I think they made several attempts to mention, especially at the start, that the style and excess of the French royalty was very different than that of Austria. It was very obvious visually, also. And it is also the entire point of how the French monarchy failed compared to other European monarchies.

* It felt like a load of American rich kids playing royalty. There was none of the grace or gravitas of royalty.

* It reminded me of Cruel Intentions, but backwards. Cruel Intentions was a clever modern reworking of a tale from 18th Century France. This seemed like an 18th century France version of a modern preppy American tale.

I think there was great effort to portray the characters as very young and naive as to what their position was. They were meant to be seen as young kids unprepared for the responsibility they were given when the king died. They were decadent! They had nothing to do but dress up, eat sweets, play games and gossip. Again, this is why they failed. I thought it was amazing how this was developed and not "ham fisted". The final opera scene actually made you sympathetic to an awful woman who had no concept that she was awful, and really could not be held responsible since her only responsibility in life was to have male babies.

The sequence where she imagines the Swedish guy on the battlefield like some heroic rock star was both hilariously cute and rather sad.

* The pace was very slow at some points. Also we noted that there was very little drama, or points around which the film was hooked.

Their lives were boring. That is the point. This is why they dress up, eat sweets, play games and gossip. Again, I thought that the way this unfolded visually and through the structure of the film with little dialogue was intentional and rather impressive. I suppose 'drama' is in the eye of the beholder.

* Austrian boyfriend pointed out that they used the wrong bloody castle for Maria Teresa.

They showed the exterior of the castle for 3 seconds. I can't say that I really care if it was the wrong castle. They probably used the wrong type of puppy, also. It was still very cute.

Some other notes:
Marianne Faithful was amazing! She has the perfect voice for those nagging 'letters from mother' sequences. And she was very bold to look ugly and old.

Asia Argento was impressive as the whore mistress. I especially liked the touch of giving her a monkey.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the film. I really like Sophia, probably because I have many of the same popular culture frames of reference as she does. She also has very good taste in clothes for a lady.

I doubt I will seek out the film to watch again but, like The Virgin Suicides, it will probably pull me in every time I flip past it on television.

[Adrian]

marknyc said:

Their lives were boring. That is the point. This is why they dress up, eat sweets, play games and gossip. Again, I thought that the way this unfolded visually and through the structure of the film with little dialogue was intentional and rather impressive. I suppose 'drama' is in the eye of the beholder.

I get this. So what I don't understand is why, if their lives were so boring, are we watching a film about boring lives? Why has this woman with a "boring life" been famous / infamous for over 200 years? It's not solely due to her royalty, as countless other monarchs have been forgotten.

I'm not sure their lives were so boring. Of course, we're never going to know, but I think Sofia Coppola capitalises on a historical story to tell her own story / themes. There's nothing wrong in this, that is her perogative, but I think it needs to be acknowledged as so and not as a biopic of Marie Antoinette.

In fact, I think Coppola does acknowledge this in her direction, so I'm not criticising per se.

Asia Argento was impressive as the whore mistress. I especially liked the touch of giving her a monkey.

Yes, she was. I loved her, and I loved the snub, "There are a lot of people in Versailles today". I also loved the purple cloak she wore when she was banished from Versailles.

A

[marknyc]

adrian said:

marknyc said:

Their lives were boring. That is the point. This is why they dress up, eat sweets, play games and gossip. Again, I thought that the way this unfolded visually and through the structure of the film with little dialogue was intentional and rather impressive. I suppose 'drama' is in the eye of the beholder.

I get this. So what I don't understand is why, if their lives were so boring, are we watching a film about boring lives? Why has this woman with a "boring life" been famous / infamous for over 200 years? It's not solely due to her royalty, as countless other monarchs have been forgotten.

I'm not sure their lives were so boring. Of course, we're never going to know, but I think Sofia Coppola capitalizes on a historical story to tell her own story / themes. There's nothing wrong in this, that is her perogative, but I think it needs to be acknowledged as so and not as a biopic of Marie Antoinette.

In fact, I think Coppola does acknowledge this in her direction, so I'm not criticising per se.

Asia Argento was impressive as the whore mistress. I especially liked the touch of giving her a monkey.

Yes, she was. I loved her, and I loved the snub, "There are a lot of people in Versailles today". I also loved the purple cloak she wore when she was banished from Versailles.

A

Marie Antionette's notoriety stems from her sensational death as well as her astonishing lack of compassion for a country that suffered while she indulged in excess (hence the endurance of the mis-quote: 'Let them eat cake'). I think the movie attempts to reason all of this. We only get very brief glimpses of the public image of her as a monarch, instead focusing on her own (limited) view. The story is very sympathetic to her, yet also very critical of her life.

I did not find the film boring at all. I found the story very dramatic and the characters quite interesting. By saying that their lives were 'boring', I simply meant that they had little to do.

The scene with the snub of the mistress is tragic, since that is the point that the curious and fascinated Marie succumbs to the gossip and cruelty of her peers. I loved the dark colors and gaudiness of the mistress, along with her dark hair and loud voice. She was the polar opposite of everyone else and was filled with life. And was genuinely loved. No wonder everyone else hated her.

[Adrian]

I agree with you, as I didn't find the film boring. I just thought the pace was a little slow at some points - mainly during certain scenes.

Interestingly - the real Madame du Barry was blonde (according this this painting of her).

When you say the 'story' is critical of her life - do you mean the film? I didn't feel it was very critical of her life... maybe her circumstances, certainly not her as a person. I suppose that brings up a philosophical question about seperating a person from their life...

A

[marknyc]

adrian said:

I agree with you, as I didn't find the film boring. I just thought the pace was a little slow at some points - mainly during certain scenes.

Interestingly - the real Madame du Barry was blonde (according this this painting of her).

When you say the 'story' is critical of her life - do you mean the film? I didn't feel it was very critical of her life... maybe her circumstances, certainly not her as a person. I suppose that brings up a philosophical question about seperating a person from their life...

A

I guess what I mean is that the film portrays her as an innocent in a corrupt world and that she probably has little concept of the corruption.

J. Hoberman writes in the Village Voice review: "Like The Queen, Marie Antoinette seems haunted by the specter of Diana Spencer, another royally persecuted broodmare who, as noted by Camille Paglia, also met a violent end, pursued by the mob—in France, no less."

It is only in the latter part of the film that she seperates herself from the palace and tries to persue her own happiness. He continues that this is where the film slips politically:

"Carefree proprietress of a miniature play farm, Marie A. takes the notion of a people's princess literally. She masquerades as a milkmaid and reads Rousseau to her ladies-in-waiting—as if. What could be more decadent than such fashionista rusticity? Coppola, however, is temperamentally unable to distinguish history from personality and personality from dress-up; the filmmaker's attempt to redeem her heroine's shallowness reveals her own. The more problematic aspects of Marie's reign—the embarrassing "affair of the necklace," her mega-Imelda clothes budget, and likely treason against the revolution—are airbrushed away. "

Great stuff!

www.villagevoice.com/film/0641,hoberman,74687,20.html

[Ugly Netty]

Bugger shit! I was so looking forward to seeing this, but only our local independent has been showing it, with today being the last day, but I've been too ill to go. Bring on the DVD!

[zaffra]

I only just got round to seeing this, I've haven't really liked any of Sophia Coppolas films so far, I found Virgin Suicides was lightweight and I thought Lost In Translation was just awful.

Despite my antipathy for Sophias films and the bad reviews this one generally got I loved it. I thought the performances were really good and told a subtle tragic tale. Possibly my enjoyment was such because the film came in so much higher than my expectations.

I also saw Pan's Labyrinth which despite good/gushing reviews I found rather tedious.

[Robbing the Dead]

They showed it on the plane when I went to Russia. It was aweful.

[Nurse Dunkley]

We saw this last year, and quite enjoyed it. It wasn't as dynamic and exciting as it could have been, but I realised why Coppola Jr had chosen this, and it made me want to find out more about Marie because it didn't teach me much (but again I realise that it wasn't meant to). I too was upset about the lack of Guillotine action, but I'm like that after most films to be honest.

I really loved the cast. Especially the guy playing King Louis, Rose Byrne and Shirley Henderson. Steve Coogan really grates on me for some reason. Perhaps it's because he's always the same, and I find myself wondering why the didn't get the similar but better jack Davenport.

There also wasn't enough Jamie Dornan: