Writer-director
Sofia Coppola (Is it true Coppola's Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
for "Lost in Translation" was an 80 page outline? Is it also true that
Bill Murray improvised his dialogue?) loosely based her film on Antonia Fraser's
biography of Marie Antoinette. I read Evelyne Lever's second biography of Marie
Antoinette: "Marie Antoinette, The Last Queen of France."
As
far as I am concerned, Princess Diana wasn't the first royal to present a son
to the world not her husband's. Did Marie Antoinette have two children with her
Swedish lover, Count Axel Fersen, and pass them off as the King's? Did the French
Court notice that the royal children did not look like the homely King?
Lever,
like Coppola and Fraser, offers a very sympathetic portrait of her obsession.
However, historian Lever does have to mention the persistent gossip regarding
Marie Antoinette's two other children after producing a "legitimate"
heir, the Dauphin. Lever mentions that the French Court took note that Marie Antoinette
got pregnant twice after Fersen's visits to France but fails to note if they looked
like the handsome Swede instead of the fat, clumsy, uninterested in sex King.
He did enjoy hunting parties and the company of stable boys.
Marie
Antoinette married at 14. Her husband, the future Louis XVI, was impotent and
had great difficulty consummating their marriage. It took him seven years! Did
he ever, or did he have a stand-in? It was publicly known he couldn't get an erection.
His grandfather, Louis XV ("Apres moi le deluge."), was a ladies man
(his official mistress was Madame du Barry), was enchanted by the adorable Marie
Antoinette, and insisted on an heir. Why didn't he just pay Marie Antoinette a
night visit? After finally consummating the marriage and producing a daughter
and then an heir, Marie Antoinette's husband encouraged her life-long relationship
with Fersen (just like Prince Charles was rumored to have done!)
I
do not agree with Coppola's rendering of Marie Antoinette as a confused pre-teen
thrust into the life of a Queen-to-Be in a foreign land. She was the youngest
daughter of sixteen children born to Francis Stephen I and Maria Theresa, Emperor
and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. She knew all about royal courts and arranged
political marriages. Her siblings were married to foreign royals. Maria Theresa
was a brilliant strategist who shipped off all her daughters.
Marie
Antoinette was brought up believing her destiny was to become queen of France.
Upon her father's death, her oldest brother was crowned Emperor Joseph of Austria!
By marrying the future King of France, she could have become a powerful figure
in Europe following the example of her mother. Marie Antoinette was not misunderstood.
She was selfish. She bankrupted the French psyche (and treasury) with her extravagance.
Frankly,
unlike the revisionists, I prefer Evil Marie.
Now,
on to the movie. Dunst as the 14-year old Marie Antoinette? What, French actress
Ludivine Sagnier ("The Swimming Pool") was too busy? Vincent Cassel
wanted too much money? 12-year old Dakota Fanning couldn't play "older"?
If
Marie Antoinette never said, "If they have no bread, then let them eat cake!"
("Qu'ils mangent de la brioche."), who was the genius who did?
While
the film is gorgeous and the production glorious, Coppola has only produced a
lovely portrait filled with vulgar decadence. What actress would play the self-centered,
narcissist last Queen of France?
The
only reason Coppola ended the film without Marie Antoinette's beheading is the
audience would have cheered.
Writer-director
Sofia Coppola sees her Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) as an innocent victim
of birth. She's a kid in a very grown-up world! Marie Antoinette married at 14
to Louis, the Dauphin (Jason Schwartzman) - quite realistic in a time when people
did not live long and childbirth was dangerous. Better to be young, its less risky.
Marrying early was a necessity especially if the future king needed steering towards
heterosexuality.
With
the French Court humiliating Marie for failing to consummate her marriage, her
decadent lifestyle surely was revenge on her husband's impotence. But we don't
see that here; instead, she is just a bored teenager with nothing to do but dress
up!
While Coppola
is creating divine sets and fantastic costumes, the concentration on the rich
desserts, fabulous dress-up balls, and pure excess puts the unintentional focus
on how uncaring and selfish Marie was. While the film's sole burden falls on cute,
dimpled but vacant Dunst, the rest of the cast is perfect: Rip Torn (as Louis
XV), Asia Argento (as Madame Du Barry), Marianne Faithful (as Maria Teresa) and
Judy Davis (as Comtessse de Noailles).
Coppola
does not dwell on Marie's lust for Fersten, reputed to have been a handsome, dashing
man who spent his entire life devoted to Marie. He's dutifully presented here,
then he's gone. Since Coppola loves her Marie, the nasty scandal of the affair
of the diamond necklace is left out. Why suggest Marie wanted an exquisite diamond
necklace and connived to get her hands on it?
Coppola
lavishes attention on the costumes, hair, jewelry, and shoes. Rich desserts are
their cocaine. Coppola's skillful production team, director of photography Lance
Acord, production designer KK Barrett, and costume designer Milena Canonero, are
fantastic. There are Academy Award nominations in the horizon for all of them.
As
for blending rock music with authentic 18th Century French music, didn't we see
this already in "A Knight's Tale?"
