Often maligned, passionately debated and ultimately a misunderstood young woman, Marie Antoinette, through Coppola’s vision, emerges neither as staid historical villain nor divine idol but as a confused and lonely teenage outsider thrust against her will into a decadent and scandal-plagued world on the eve of disaster.
Coppola brings to the screen a fresh interpretation of the life of France’s legendary teenage queen. Betrothed to King Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman), the naïve Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) is thrown into the opulent French court steeped in conspiracy and scandal. Alone, without guidance, and adrift in a dangerous world, the young Marie Antoinette rebels against the isolated atmosphere at Versailles and, in the process, becomes France’s most misunderstood monarch.
"Everything we did is based on research about the period, but it’s all seen in a contemporary way," says Coppola. "My biggest fear was making a ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ kind of movie. I didn’t want to make a dry, historical period movie with the distant, cold tableau of shots. I wanted this film to let the audience feel what it might be like to be in Versailles during that time and to really get lost in that world."
Marie Antoinette today conjures up images of a glamorous queen who lived in luxury and uttered the immortal words "Let them eat cake" while the French peasant class starved. Ultimately the peasants revolted, and she was sentenced to death for her perceived contempt and indifference. However, recent historical research demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about Marie Antoinette was just a myth–and in fact she never uttered the words she is so famously credited with saying.
The real Marie Antoinette was a naïve and lost teenager who was unprepared to take her place as a major player in the turbulent history of late 18th century France. The Austrian-born princess was shipped off to Versailles at 14, where she was shocked by the rigid etiquette, brutal family infighting and merciless gossip of the French royal court. Trapped in a dispassionate marriage and forced to live in the unforgiving glare of the public spotlight, Marie Antoinette found her escape in the only refuge allowed her–the sensual pleasures of youth. But her frivolity unwittingly made her the object of scandal, a target for political propaganda and a convenient scapegoat for a poverty-stricken society on the verge of revolution. In the end, she faced her enemies and accepted her fate with dignity and courage.
The true story of Marie Antoinette’s misunderstood life came to widespread attention in 2002 with the publication of Antonia Fraser’s highly readable biography Marie Antoinette: The Journey. The book immediately garnered acclaim for its meticulous research, which offered a completely new and compelling view of the much-maligned monarch. Fraser painted a picture not of an imperious queen oblivious to suffering but rather of a fanciful, lively teenager who was warm and empathic by nature, yet unprepared for the demands of her highly visible life in the French royal court and the intrigues of political power.
The irony was that, despite being surrounded by thousands of onlookers and attendants, Marie Antoinette felt utterly secluded and alone–a young girl trapped in a fantasy world that left her precious little freedom.
It was this unusual and surprising take on Marie Antoinette that caught the attention of Coppola who, like most of us, was familiar only with the standard myths about the world’s most infamous queen. Through Fraser’s biography, a more sympathetic and believably human young woman emerged. Here was a Marie Antoinette who was vibrantly youthful and strikingly contemporary in her struggles–with loneliness, gossip, desire, love and coming of age–except that the consequences of her journey unfolded on an enormous historical stage.
"I had heard the usual clichés about Marie Antoinette and her decadent lifestyle," comments Coppola. "But I had never realized before how young she and Louis XVI really were. They were basically teenagers in charge of running France during a very volatile period and from within an incredibly extravagant setting, the royal court of Versailles.
That’s what first interested me: the idea that these young kids were placed in that position and trying to find out what they went through trying to grow up in such an extreme situation." She wondered how a modern teenager would have handled such a completely surreal situation.
Coppola was also interested in Marie Antoinette as a struggling young wife, desperate to please her husband but incapable of making him happy. "I was taken by the idea that, because she was so unhappy in her marriage, she started shopping and going to parties as a distraction –like a contemporary rich wife in a loveless marriage. She really didn’t want to go home to this guy who was always rejecting her, so she found other ways to distract herself."
In order to convey all these ideas, Coppola reasoned, she would have to write Marie Antoinette’s story in a completely different way. Instead of the typical sweeping costume epic, she wanted to tell a more intimate tale, invested with all the energy and angst of a young woman’s coming of age. Her Marie Antoinette was to be a flawed woman, ultimately redeemed by the grace she displays under fire.
Showing exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4 & Greenbelt 3) starting Nov. 1, Marie Antoinette is distributed by Columbia Pictures.