Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)

[Barmy]

Anyone who thinks slapping Go4 onto a period flick has even the slightest trace of intelligence or artistry should be guillotined. Pathetic.

[TedW]

I actually think it's kind of a cool idea -- depending on the context. In and of itself, I have no objection. But I'll have to see the movie.

[marty]

I will reserve my judgement until I see the film. You have to understand that in Cannes there are many inept so-called film critics. If you have seen the embarassingly awful questions they pose at the press conferences in Cannes, then you will know many of the press there are illiterate fools and certainly no film enthusiasts with any basic knowledge of cinema. The French critics were obviously expecting a nostalgic look at a great time in French history. Instead, Sofia Coppola hit them between the eyes and kicked them in the balls and said "Take this, you dumbass frogs!". I love it! Can't wait to see the film.

[Oedipax]

Anyone who thinks slapping Go4 onto a period flick has even the slightest trace of intelligence or artistry should be guillotined. Pathetic.

Any other cinematic absolutes you'd like to lay down for us while you're at it? If there's one thing cinema needs more of, it's rigid rules and a priori rejections of unconventional techniques and practices! Do you have a newsletter I can sign up for?

[John Cope]

Uh oh. That review by Dargis causes me some concern. Her Hilton reference suggests that my worst fears have been realized with this project and if so that's too bad. However, Dargis does go on to characterize M.A. as a "spolied, rotten woman" and indulges the typical line about her supposed indifference to suffering and so on. That, in turn, gives me some hope as, clearly, Dargis was not going into this even pretending to be tabula rasa--she has her own agenda and it ain't mine so this may turn out well yet (at least for me).

However, what would have been truly daring is a film that defiantly offered up the alternative scenario completely. An unapologetically pro-royalist, anti-populist piece that dared to imply that the French Revolution and its ascendancy of "the people" was actually a turn for the worst and that, God forbid, the existing aristocracy was more concerned about the tenor of society and culture than we are currently led to believe. But it looks like Sofia's fashionably intellectual class self-hatred has turned gold into dross. Once again, too bad.

[Lino]

One of the reasons why the critics and the press are being so hard on Sofia might be down to the fact that apparently she has said that she doesn't want the internet based journalists to attend the screenings or something like that (I've read this on a french site, DVDrama I think). So, the backlash might be down to that. And you know how the press can get with this sort of thing.

[ellipsis7]

Time Out (Dave Calhoun) Review...

Then, early this morning, Sofia Coppola offered us 'Marie Antoinette', her much-anticipated, pretty but quite empty take on the last, bloated days of the French monarchy with Kirsten Dunst in the title role as Louis XVI's Viennese wife.

Coppola's film may give fashion fans and music video heads cause to celebrate, but it will leave anyone looking for a strong perspective on the life of Marie Antoinette severely disappointed. What Coppola does is throw snippets of the well-known facts - her husband's sexual immaturity, her infidelity, her acting, her love of clothes - into a celebration of costume, production design and music that's played by a cast of unlikelies, some more successfully than others.

Jason Schwartzman is fittingly fey as the sexually ineffective king; Marianne Faithfull is an oddity as Marie Antoinette's mother; Rip Torn is nicely brash as Louis XIV. Dunst puts in a breezy and sometimes seductive, if a little unchallenging, performance as Marie Antoinette herself. Coppola's decision not to worry too much about certain aspects of historical detail - accents, some behaviour - is a bold one and thankfully not awkward as she doesn't attempt to push the anachronisms too far. A modern soundtrack is Coppola's bravest move.

The film is a hermetic affair that, like its heroine, barely strays beyond the gates of Versailles or acknowledges the coming French Revolution until its final minutes. Coppola's interest in the visual side of Versailles rules the day; her camera never stops surveying the fabric of Marie Antoinette's world. She delivers a startling line-up of shoes, frocks and hipster tunes from the '70s and '80s. As a study in surface, it's quite impeccable. Soon, though, this flippancy begins to grate and it becomes more and more apparent that Coppola has failed really to grapple on any meaningful level with her subject. Dialogue trickles sparingly and unilluminatingly beneath the overwhelming spectacle. Conversation is sparse. The script is bare.

Rather than indulge the grotesquery of Versailles with an engaged eye, Coppola celebrates it without showing any care for characters, relationships or the wider context of French history. Her Versailles is an array of caricatures; her Marie Antoinette is a sweet, well-meaning aristocrat, a breath of fresh air for Coppola among some of the stuffier palace shirts.

The real problem is that Coppola clearly loves Marie Antoinette and her world of parties and beautiful people. She's not interested in looking beyond the walls of the palace, in considering this queen in any critical depth. Ultimately, considering Coppola's attempt to shoe-horn the French revolution into the film's last ten minutes, her disengagement is more than lazy; it's a little offensive. It may be hip, but it ain't history.

[Noir of the Night]

I will reserve my judgement until I see the film. You have to understand that in Cannes there are many inept so-called film critics. If you have seen the embarassingly awful questions they pose at the press conferences in Cannes, then you will know many of the press there are illiterate fools and certainly no film enthusiasts with any basic knowledge of cinema. The French critics were obviously expecting a nostalgic look at a great time in French history. Instead, Sofia Coppola hit them between the eyes and kicked them in the balls and said "Take this, you dumbass frogs!". I love it! Can't wait to see the film.

As far as I know the French critics gave it fairly positive notices.

[ellipsis7]

And this from Screen Daily...

Her version of Marie Antoinette is more Paris Hilton than Paris, France as we meet a shallow young woman whose world revolves around footwear, fashion and fabulous parties.

...lovely.

[Matt]

It may be hip, but it ain't history.

Of course it isn't! 110 years of cinema and people still expect historical biopics to be the cinematic equivalent of a David McCullough book?

[Fletch F. Fletch]

The Hollywood Reporter interviews Sofia

[Kirkinson]

Listen carefully to first criticisms of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like, and then cultivate it. That's the part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.

After reading the negative reviews I've come to admire Sofia Coppola for taking what was possibly the most prominent criticism of Lost in Translation -- the questionable sympathetic treatment of those "poor, misunderstood spoiled rich people" -- and taking it to an almost exhaustive extreme with what appears to be a sympathetic and unhistorical portrait of someone like Marie Antoinette. None of this implies the film will be good, of course, but so far nothing has doused the spark of interest for me.

[Antoine Doinel]

Ebert offers a bit more of a balanced perspective on the "booing":

[quote]As you're reading this, do you have the impression that Sofia Coppola's “Marie Antoinetteâ€

[Matt]

Tied for fifth place. What high praise.

[tavernier]

Tied for fifth place. What high praise.

Hey, it's better than being tied for sixth.

[ellipsis7]

Those poll of polls in Cannes are pretty uneven and consequently not terribly accurate as an aggregate score, although it's far more interesting to see what the individual critics rate on the same scale of reckoning...

The fact that Michel Ciment rates the film and Gilles Jacob had Coppola down as guest of honour at his dinner, before her no show, means the French may have quite taken to it... I'm certainly interested having just seen Renoir's LA MARSEILLAISE on the big screen, and a somewhat different portrayal of M-A...

Cannes is an hoot, the leveller of the greatest and lowliest, and booing, applauding, shouting acclaim, walking out, and generally showing your opinions and feelings, are all part of the culture and experience and thrill of the thing...

It's a festival that really loves cinema, but it is also an event that can maul a movie as well as make it!

The greatest fun or frustration is their badging system with its multiple sections, layers and colours, a bureaucratic hierarchy, understood only by the festival staff, and which determines whether you are admitted to a screening at the top of the queue, or are fighting for a place at the bottom...

[kieslowski_67]

She is an interesting director, not the kind of auteur some followers trying to make her. LIT is a very good movie, but has become one of the most overrated films in the past decade. It was a surprise (for her), but a great film, a masterpiece? Give me a break.

I fully expect her M-A to falter. When the expectation goes through the roof for a not great director, bad things do happen.

[hearthesilence]

Everyone's entitled to one flop. She'll bounce back with the next one. If not, well...two good films is two more than most have made.

[thomega]

I... how about we wait to see the movie before determining if her soundtrack choices work or not?

I saw it last week and I think the soundtrack choices work. In particular, the exuberance of the dancing at the masked ball could not be as intense with period music (there is actually quite a lot of the latter, in particular in the first half).

On the whole, I liked the movie as good entertainment, but somehow it didn't leave a lasting impression (maybe I shouldn't have gone to a screening of Laura at the new Cinematheque the next evening). I don't know if Sofia Coppola tried to make a point, but if she did, it eluded me. What the movie did, was to spoil our visit to Versailles the next morning: the interiors are much more impressive in the movie than in real life (insert the famous Lubitsch quip about "Paramout Paris").

[toiletduck!]

What the movie did, was to spoil our visit to Versailles the next morning: the interiors are much more impressive in the movie than in real life.

I'm assuming I should chalk this up to a difference in tastes, but Jesus Christ, Sofia must have the most eye-gouging, testicle-exploding drop-dead gorgeous fucking interiors ever laid to film if they manage put Versailles to shame.

I simply don't believe it, Sir, and I'm on the side that's excited about M-A.

-Toilet Dcuk

[Matt]

What the movie did, was to spoil our visit to Versailles the next morning: the interiors are much more impressive in the movie than in real life.

I'm assuming I should chalk this up to a difference in tastes, but Jesus Christ, Sofia must have the most eye-gouging, testicle-exploding drop-dead gorgeous fucking interiors ever laid to film if they manage put Versailles to shame.

But aren't the "interiors" actually Versailles? She shot the film there:

In the wake of a recent culture ministry decision to make historical sites more accessible, France has scored some major international shoots. Sofia Coppola became the first filmmaker to gain widespread access to the Palace of Versailles -- where Sony's planned 2006 release "Marie-Antoinette" was shot this year by a predominantly local crew....

[redbill]

I haven't seen the movie, or been to Versailles in 10+ years. But from what I remember, there wasn't a lot of "stuff" in there. The walls were covered with paintings. But there weren't alot of stuff in the rooms, it felt empty. I assume that's what the poster was talking about, it the movie its probably more "full".

[toiletduck!]

Ah yes, Versailles in full swing would be much more impressive than Versailles lined with tourists, wouldn't it?

My mistake... ain't context a bitch?

-Toilet Dcuk

[thomega]

I haven't been to Versailles in 10+ years. But from what I remember, there wasn't a lot of "stuff" in there.

Exactly (the only exception is the Dauphin's study). In addition, most of the walls beneath the paintings are wood panels covered in dirty grey paint. In the movie, the color palette is anything but muted. I was surprised when I heard that the movie was shot in the castle, because the rooms aren't that big and one really wonders where they hid all the lighting equipment.

Versailles in full swing would be much more impressive than Versailles lined with tourists, wouldn't it?

Indeed!

[tryavna]

Ah yes, Versailles in full swing would be much more impressive than Versailles lined with tourists, wouldn't it?

How about full of politicians signing peace treaties? How many times has that happened at Versailles? Politicians seem to love that place!