Vive la Decadence!
November 12, 2006 | 12:00am
More than one person has wandered out of the theater after watching Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and remarked: "She’s just like Imelda!"
Well, not exactly. As far as I know, the former First Lady is still wandering around, her head safely intact, or at least still attached to her neck and shoulders.
Not so for the Austrian wife of Louis XVI, played here with Malibu girl flightiness by Kirsten Dunst. True, hers was an unlikely whirlwind marriage, like Imelda’s; yes, she did have an impressive collection of shoes (which Coppola displays in a pop’80s montage set to Bow Wow Wow’s I Want Candy) and enjoyed her many luxuries. Both turned to diversions and distractions to negate the political turmoil brewing around them. But arguably, Imelda – having been a provincial girl herself – gave back a bit more to her "people" in the form of buildings, roads, cultural centers and such. But then again, this is not history we’re dealing with: it’s an indie Hollywood pastiche, filled with pop references and jabs at modern celebrity. No wonder the French at Cannes hated it.
Marie Antoinette, in this liberal portrayal by Dunst, arrives in France only to have her precious dog, Mops, removed from her arms: "You can have as many Austrian dogs as you like," she is cruelly told. While we’re left crying in our seats at this monstrous act of deprivation, it only takes a few scenes to establish that Marie is much warmer than her Versailles courtiers, and certainly much more fun than her dour, locks-obsessed hubby (played with customary eyebrow raising and shrugging by Jason Schwartzman).
We soon realize we’re watching a spoof, of sorts. Change the period sets from flowered rococo wallpaper to palm trees, and Marie and Louis could be, well, just about any Young Hollywood couple, cast into starring roles without the benefit of wisdom or good PR. They could be Jessica and Nick. Or Britney and Kevin. Or Reese and Ryan. Or Brangelina. At least that seems to be Coppola’s take on the Sun Lite Royals who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the bloodshed of the French Revolution.
There are moments here where Sofia, director of The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, conjures up her father’s visual touchstones (the wedding plays like The Godfather’s baptism scene, the fireworks display reminds us of Apocalypse Now) and some bits are candlelit just like Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. She is an interesting filmmaker to watch, having absorbed in a short life some of her elders’ directorial mastery while shedding many young directors’ precious indulgences and "insights."(One of the nice things about Lost in Translation was that it wasn’t trying to be particularly deep or insightful. It just relied on its internal charm.)
Coppola has more in mind than just reimagining the Queen of France as Versailles Barbie, though. Specifically, she wants to play us some ’80s new wave music. The pairing of Gang of Four and Adam & the Ants with the Hall of Mirrors and Palace Gardens seems distracting at first, but is actually a masterstroke, or at least something that differentiates Coppola’s film from other period pieces. Many shots and sequences are breathtaking (daddy’s money was clearly well-spent); even the opening titles are meant to show this is a young person’s view of history, or how history relates to modern (specifically, West Coast American) life.
We can’t fault Sofia for giving us her personal vision; she’s not David Lean, after all. Yet sometimes, visual sweep and poetic moments are not enough. The script, largely written by Sofia, has one central insight, and it is that living in Versailles must have been a lot like living under the constant gaze of a celebrity-obsessed media. This is made clear by all the tongue-clucking that attends Marie’s arrival at Versailles, the scenes of Marie eating lots and lots of French pastries while voices whisper intrigues on the soundtrack, and of course the many shots of frilly French shoes. Marie acquired an "image," unjustly or not, of spending France into the poorhouse with her extravagances (again, shades of Imelda). But a sub-theme is that of Louis stubbornly funding the American Revolution, if only to teach England a lesson (shades of Bush’s Iraq war, perhaps?).
Worse, Marie and Louis are under constant pressure to produce a male heir, through an unrelenting court gaze that reminds us, not so subtly, of the fishbowl existence lived by celebrities who concede to peddle their private lives for reality television.
Because of the pressure (the pressure! the pressure!) we see Marie slowly descend into decadence, smoking opium and having affairs with French officers, the kind of thing Young Hollywood would do in a heartbeat, if only they had the style.
But midway, Sofia’s script seems to run out of insights. There’s no second act, except to show Marie coming to terms with her marital estrangement by living in a "retreat house" nearby. Here, she reads Rousseau and gets in touch with nature – and it all kind of turns into an episode of The Simple Life, until the French peasants start grumbling in earnest and we know the jig will soon be up.
Part of the design, and the problem, of Marie Antoinette is that we never leave the insulated walls of Versailles. We never get a glimpse of Paris, or see the suffering there (this surely could have been handled with another music montage, say scenes of starving masses cut with Gang of Four’s What We All Want or Tears for Fears’ The Hurting). But this would require too much dramatic development, and would have turned into another movie. Les Miserables, perhaps. Thus, Marie doesn’t convincingly develop as a character (there’s nothing outside the vacuum to contrast her to), so we don’t feel that much, really, when she lays her neck on the balcony of Versailles before the assembled peasants, as if to say, "Here’s my head, you may take it."
The casting of Dunst and Schwartzman may seem a bit cute, if not nepotistic (Jason’s the cousin of Sofia). Their Hollywood pedigree prevents us from viewing Marie Antoinette as much more than a stunt, a gimmick, a trifle as delectably constructed as those petits-fours that keep showing up onscreen, only to be placed back on the plate unfinished a few moments later, too light to satisfy even a whim.
Well, not exactly. As far as I know, the former First Lady is still wandering around, her head safely intact, or at least still attached to her neck and shoulders.
Not so for the Austrian wife of Louis XVI, played here with Malibu girl flightiness by Kirsten Dunst. True, hers was an unlikely whirlwind marriage, like Imelda’s; yes, she did have an impressive collection of shoes (which Coppola displays in a pop’80s montage set to Bow Wow Wow’s I Want Candy) and enjoyed her many luxuries. Both turned to diversions and distractions to negate the political turmoil brewing around them. But arguably, Imelda – having been a provincial girl herself – gave back a bit more to her "people" in the form of buildings, roads, cultural centers and such. But then again, this is not history we’re dealing with: it’s an indie Hollywood pastiche, filled with pop references and jabs at modern celebrity. No wonder the French at Cannes hated it.
Marie Antoinette, in this liberal portrayal by Dunst, arrives in France only to have her precious dog, Mops, removed from her arms: "You can have as many Austrian dogs as you like," she is cruelly told. While we’re left crying in our seats at this monstrous act of deprivation, it only takes a few scenes to establish that Marie is much warmer than her Versailles courtiers, and certainly much more fun than her dour, locks-obsessed hubby (played with customary eyebrow raising and shrugging by Jason Schwartzman).
We soon realize we’re watching a spoof, of sorts. Change the period sets from flowered rococo wallpaper to palm trees, and Marie and Louis could be, well, just about any Young Hollywood couple, cast into starring roles without the benefit of wisdom or good PR. They could be Jessica and Nick. Or Britney and Kevin. Or Reese and Ryan. Or Brangelina. At least that seems to be Coppola’s take on the Sun Lite Royals who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the bloodshed of the French Revolution.
There are moments here where Sofia, director of The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, conjures up her father’s visual touchstones (the wedding plays like The Godfather’s baptism scene, the fireworks display reminds us of Apocalypse Now) and some bits are candlelit just like Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. She is an interesting filmmaker to watch, having absorbed in a short life some of her elders’ directorial mastery while shedding many young directors’ precious indulgences and "insights."(One of the nice things about Lost in Translation was that it wasn’t trying to be particularly deep or insightful. It just relied on its internal charm.)
Coppola has more in mind than just reimagining the Queen of France as Versailles Barbie, though. Specifically, she wants to play us some ’80s new wave music. The pairing of Gang of Four and Adam & the Ants with the Hall of Mirrors and Palace Gardens seems distracting at first, but is actually a masterstroke, or at least something that differentiates Coppola’s film from other period pieces. Many shots and sequences are breathtaking (daddy’s money was clearly well-spent); even the opening titles are meant to show this is a young person’s view of history, or how history relates to modern (specifically, West Coast American) life.
We can’t fault Sofia for giving us her personal vision; she’s not David Lean, after all. Yet sometimes, visual sweep and poetic moments are not enough. The script, largely written by Sofia, has one central insight, and it is that living in Versailles must have been a lot like living under the constant gaze of a celebrity-obsessed media. This is made clear by all the tongue-clucking that attends Marie’s arrival at Versailles, the scenes of Marie eating lots and lots of French pastries while voices whisper intrigues on the soundtrack, and of course the many shots of frilly French shoes. Marie acquired an "image," unjustly or not, of spending France into the poorhouse with her extravagances (again, shades of Imelda). But a sub-theme is that of Louis stubbornly funding the American Revolution, if only to teach England a lesson (shades of Bush’s Iraq war, perhaps?).
Worse, Marie and Louis are under constant pressure to produce a male heir, through an unrelenting court gaze that reminds us, not so subtly, of the fishbowl existence lived by celebrities who concede to peddle their private lives for reality television.
Because of the pressure (the pressure! the pressure!) we see Marie slowly descend into decadence, smoking opium and having affairs with French officers, the kind of thing Young Hollywood would do in a heartbeat, if only they had the style.
But midway, Sofia’s script seems to run out of insights. There’s no second act, except to show Marie coming to terms with her marital estrangement by living in a "retreat house" nearby. Here, she reads Rousseau and gets in touch with nature – and it all kind of turns into an episode of The Simple Life, until the French peasants start grumbling in earnest and we know the jig will soon be up.
Part of the design, and the problem, of Marie Antoinette is that we never leave the insulated walls of Versailles. We never get a glimpse of Paris, or see the suffering there (this surely could have been handled with another music montage, say scenes of starving masses cut with Gang of Four’s What We All Want or Tears for Fears’ The Hurting). But this would require too much dramatic development, and would have turned into another movie. Les Miserables, perhaps. Thus, Marie doesn’t convincingly develop as a character (there’s nothing outside the vacuum to contrast her to), so we don’t feel that much, really, when she lays her neck on the balcony of Versailles before the assembled peasants, as if to say, "Here’s my head, you may take it."
The casting of Dunst and Schwartzman may seem a bit cute, if not nepotistic (Jason’s the cousin of Sofia). Their Hollywood pedigree prevents us from viewing Marie Antoinette as much more than a stunt, a gimmick, a trifle as delectably constructed as those petits-fours that keep showing up onscreen, only to be placed back on the plate unfinished a few moments later, too light to satisfy even a whim.
BrandSpace Articles
<
>