Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette Infuriates the French

Posted on May 25, 2006

Sophia Coppola's new film about Marie Antoinette got a chilly reception at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, which starts Kirsten Dunst, takes a new look at France's favorite historical villain who reportedly replied "let them eat cake" when she was told that the people had no bread (or food) to eat. The French critics at the Cannes Film Festival were so angry at this humanizing of the French queen they booed during the film.

In the revisionist "Marie Antoinette," writer-director Sofia Coppola and actress Kirsten Dunst take a remote and no doubt misunderstood historical figure, the controversial and often despised Queen of France at the time of the French Revolution, and brings her into sharp focus as a living, breathing human being with flaws, foibles, passions, intelligence and warm affections. The movie slices through the cobwebs of history to seek the heart of the young Austrian princess whom 18th century political diplomacy thrust into a maelstrom of court intrigue and poisoned personal relationships without even asking if she minded.
*****
What the history books tell us about Marie Antoinette's lavish lifestyle, with her rising each morning to a retinue of women who dress her, the movie correctly sees as an indignity: Who wants to get dressed in front of virtual strangers?
The marriage at 14 to her husband, Louis (Jason Schwartzman), the Dauphin and heir to the throne, creates the central relationship of the movie. The young man's unwillingness or inability to consummate the marriage for an astonishing and awkward seven years inspired gossip and derision, mostly directed at the undeserving Dauphine. An undercurrent of malicious chitchat becomes a kind of white noise in many palace scenes.

It sounds like an interesting film and the costumes and sets look stunning (it was shot at Versailles).

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