Customer Reviews

Marie Antoinette

5 star:		(113)
4 star:		(76)
3 star:		(56)
2 star:		(67)
1 star:		(69)

 

 

While listening to The Cure's "Plainsong" a few hours ago, a track included in Sofia Coppola's latest feature film, which chronicles the iconic Queen of France, the motion picture really came together for me. "Marie Antoinette" is, undeniably, one of the most polarizing and bold films I have seen to come out of Hollywood in some time and perhaps Coppola's greatest achievement thus far; yes, better than Lost In Translation, folks.

Critics have unfairly attacked it as a celebration of decadent flair over substance, and while I had also shared these censures, I really feel people are misunderstanding the motion picture. Those looking for an accurate explanation of French history will be sorely letdown. I'll come out right now and say it, "There is no beheading!"

"Marie Antoinette" is a much more private and introspective experience. Coppola's focal point here is nothing more and nothing less than the manipulation of adolescence. Though Marie may have been excessive from time to time, there is more to her story than what has always been perceived. She was merely a teenager when she was uprooted and forced into foreign lands that held her, as well as Louis XVI to unattainable standards; their tragic exploitations serve as only more proof of how outdated and senseless the monarchy was. Sofia Coppola's prevailing test, undoubtedly, is to reverberate empathy for this young woman, and despite almost impairing it with a hefty illustration of the character's gluttony, Coppola, in due course, is winning.

Going back to my allusion of The Cure's "Plainsong", the film really works as something of an ill-fated fairy-tale. We know the doomed fate of our heroin, and thanks to Coppola it is a captivating journey, reminiscent of the song, with delicate instances of passion and affection, graciously supplied by Kirsten Dunst and a notable supporting cast, that makes us dread the inevitable conclusion. Wisely, Coppola restrains from placing in a spiteful guillotine scene, which would be absolutely unnecessary after the tender and personal feature it is throughout.

Now onto the feature's vastly-criticized directorial choices, I really think Sofia Coppola has produced the most contemporary period piece since Milos Forman's "Amadeus". From the daring incorporation of 80's New Wave as well as classical music to the energetic cinematography and editing, "Marie Antoinette" is a masterpiece in audaciousness.

The soundtrack is, easily, one of the best I have heard in a while. It actually aids in encapsulating the youthful spirit Coppola wants Marie to have. Those who pay close attention will appreciate the progression in the music and how it depicts the main character's emotions; it begins quite buoyantly and slowly becomes mellower. New Order, The Cure, Bow Wow Wow, The Radio Department, and The Strokes can all be heard during the film.

Even the costumes have a bubbly gaze to them. I know who is going to snag the "Best Set Direction" and "Best Costume Design" Oscars this year. Coppola really takes advantage of the unprecedented access the feature was given to the Palace of Versailles. She utilizes the awe-inspiring splendor of the location through opulent set pieces, colors, and atmospheric outdoor surroundings.

In honor of Marie Antoinette's eerily ironic last words: "Monsieur, I ask your pardon. I did not do it on purpose," Sofia Coppola's newest motion picture is for those yearning a lavish dream about a lost youth, who became something of a scapegoat for the tumultuous events that occurred around her.

Booed at its Cannes premiere this year (as Anthony Lane in the "New Yorker" states: "Who was in the audience, Robespierre?"), "Marie Antoinette" is that rare bird: a film that is beautiful on the outside (everything about the physical movie is eye-poppingly gorgeous: Costumes, Food, Pastries, Shoes {yes shoes...in fact I can't remember a film in recent memory of which almost every reviewer credits the shoes to the designer: in this case, Manolo Blahnik}) as it is on the inside: studiously, exhaustively researched, thoughtfully written and impeccably directed by Sofia Coppola who gives us a revisionist portrait of M. Antoinette that is humane, heartfelt and above all measured and compassionate. There is no doubt who is in charge of this huge production and Coppola's obvious tender touch is evident everywhere throughout this film.
This "Marie Antoinette" is told from a Marie as a girl perspective: she is very young, she is giddy, very much impatient of the French Court and it's customs, very much into clothes and shoes yet she matures, has children, takes a lover grows wise, becomes the subject of gossip, learns to love Louis and becomes a loving and doting mother. This is a fully fleshed out role of a victim, really: a victim of politics, of circumstances beyond her control.
At the center of this film is the tragic, sad and revelatory Marie of Kirsten Dunst. Dunst's Marie is the outsider, reviled by the French court (called "L'Autrichienne" by most...the Austrian *itch), lost and 14 when she first arrives in France, literally stripped of everything Austrian, Dunst navigates this difficult role with ease. But this is not a surface performance...not at all. Dunst digs deep and reveals all the nuances, all the insecurities, all the strengths of one of the most hated women in all of history. Dunst plays Marie from her gut and she leaves her blood as well as her tears on the celluloid. Do not be swayed or fooled by the naysayers: this is a towering performance of the first order.
Coppola is getting a lot of bad press or her use of 80's music on the soundtrack (Bow Wow Wow, Gang of 4, The Cure) but she has so far in her two previous films ("The Virgin Suicides" and "Lost in Translation") proven to be nothing if not a populist, a product of her environment, a lover of popular culture. In "M.A." the music serves the story effectively by blasting away and preventing any cobwebs from growing on what could have been a stodgy Historical drama.
Though Coppola will not be beheaded for making this wonderful film, it is apparent that most people just don't get "it." With all that said the fact remains: "Marie Antoinette" contains one of the most beautiful images ever committed to film: Marie in a carriage, having been forced out of Versailles, deep sadness in her face, clutching her children and holding Louis's hand, the camera pointed out at the grounds of Versailles, she poignantly says "Goodbye" to the only place she can claim as home...as the carriage takes her family to Oblivion.

I enjoyed "Marie Antoinette" a lot more than I thought I would. The film begins with Marie (Kirsten Dunst), the Austrian Archduchess, setting off to France to marry Louis-Auguste (Jason Schwartzman). Unfortunately, Marie's new husband has little interest in her or in the act of consummating their marriage, so the future queen finds herself in limbo for quite some time, as it is uncertain whether she will produce an heir to the throne and thus survive at court. Eventually Louis-Auguste comes around, and Marie gives birth to a daughter, and later a son. In the meantime, Marie becomes known as the Queen of Excesses, spending copious amounts of money on clothing and jewels instead of bothering to become acquainted with the issues of relevance to the French people. Marie enjoys parties, sweets, and even an illicit affair, but the fun comes crashing down when the monarchy falls out of favor with the citizens of France, who angrily storm the castle in an attempt on Marie's life. Eventually the royal family is forced to flee their home and go into hiding.

Obviously, the best thing about this movie is the way it looks on screen. Watching "Marie Antoinette" is like stepping into a high-end bakery and admiring a bunch of scrumptious, frilly wedding cakes. Everything about the film is absolutely beautiful: the costumes, the shoes, the palaces, the desserts. However, the dialogue in the first half of the movie is very choppy and sparse, so the only thing for the audience to do is admire all the visual beauty. After a while the script does manage to turn itself around, and I think the second half of the movie is much better in terms of storyline and character development. "Marie Antoinette" has a fabulous soundtrack that consists of mostly punk music, which is a lot of fun. Also, the cast is excellent. I was impressed with all the performances, especially Dunst's. She portrays Marie as a naive, frivolous, but not entirely unsympathetic person. I thought she did a really good job.

I was surprised that the film ended so abruptly and did not take us to the end of Marie's life. I think the story could have wrapped up a lot better than it did. All in all, though, "Marie Antoinette" isn't great, but it's very good.

Marie Antoinette DVD

This movie is about the life of the teenage Austrian girl who married King Louis XVI of France. I had read about her saying "Let them eat cake" for years, when she asked why the peasants were rioting during the French Revolution and was told that they had no bread to eat. What I didn't really realized until watching this movie was how sheltered and out of touch she was. She was only 14 when she was packed off to marry Louis, who she had never seen before, was stripped and inspected for blemishes when she reached the hand off point( how embarrassing) and had something like forty people sitting around her bed watching on her wedding night. "Nothing happened, apparently." Well duh?

Kirsten Dunst gives an excellent performance as the teenage queen, in this movie which starts off set in Austria in 1768. She spoke German, by the way, not French.

Highly recommended for students of History who want a better insight of this period of European history. Other items about Marie Antoinette include:

Marie Antoinette: The Journey

The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette: A Novel

Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France

Another book related to Marie Antoinette is Norby and the Queen's Necklace (Norby Series)

Gunner March, 2008

Perhaps unfairly, the name Marie Antoinette has become virtually synonymous with the upper class' indifference to the sufferings of the poor. Even all these centuries later, many people still believe that the much-maligned French queen actually uttered the words, "Let them eat cake," when confronted with the news that her subjects were starving (the phrase actually comes from a play popular at the time). Writer/director Sofia Coppola's new film, "Marie Antoinette," based on the book "Marie Antoinette: The Journey" by Antonia Fraser, seems determined to clear her name and change that perception.

In this film, Marie Antoinette is seen as a sheltered, somewhat frivolous young girl unprepared for the role history was about to thrust upon her. The movie begins at the moment when the Archduchess of Austria, aged 14, has been promised in wedlock to France's Prince Louis XVI as part of a treaty between the two countries. She is quickly whisked away to her new nation and new role, becoming a virtual prisoner to the proscribed rites and regulations of court life at Versailles in the late 18th Century.

In a wise move artistically (if not commercially), Coppola has seen fit to bleed the film of most of its potential hyperbole and melodrama, choosing instead to concentrate on the gossipy pettiness and mind-numbing rituals of royal life at that time. We see Marie completely stripped of any sense of personal privacy, as she endures the indignities of a virtual cast of thousands having a hand in her dressing herself in the morning and being constantly under the watchful eye of moral advisers on the lookout for any breach of etiquette or protocol deemed unbecoming of a queen. Coppola immerses us in all the finery and opulence of the glittery setting, while the drama ever so subtly plays itself out. Even though Marie clearly resents the restricted life she is forced to endure, she rarely whines or wallows in self-pity, choosing instead to accept her role with an uncomplaining, almost fatalistic, good grace. Even when her husband refuses for years to consummate their marriage, she remains generally sympathetic to him and understanding of his "problem."

There are those who will find this movie slow-moving, stultifying, and boring because it doesn't go over-the-top by focusing on major moments of crisis or by overplaying the queen's famed cruelty or self-indulgence. She is, instead, seen as a woman neither actively engaged in the outside world nor entirely dismissive of it. Some have objected to the fact that the filmmakers have stacked the deck in her favor by showing us so little of what life was like for the suffering populace of the nation. But it is just that insularity that helps us to see how a woman with such an apparently good heart could have been so badly misunderstood by those in her own time and by generations that followed. At the end, when she and her family are being carted off to certain doom by a mob thirsting for rectification and vengeance, she seems genuinely bewildered, yet also strangely heroic in her stoicism and grace. Much of this is due to the tour de force performance by Kirsten Dunst, who never overstates the obvious but allows us to see the complex woman trapped beneath all the jewel-encrusted trappings of pampered French royalty. Marie may not display an interest in world affairs or the arcane machinations involved in running a nation, but she is shrewd enough to know how to maneuver her way through the often absurdly arbitrary power politics of court life.

The movie has garnered perhaps its greatest notoriety for employing an anachronistic rock music soundtrack (a la "A Knight's Tale"). For me, this worked fairly well (though I don't think it is indispensable to the film by any stretch), mainly because it brings a more contemporary sensibility to a film that might otherwise feel weighted down by period piece stuffiness. History-obsessed purists may object to the choice, but even they may find compensation in the relatively understated and historically accurate approach the screenplay has taken towards her life as a whole.

"Marie Antoinette" is, more than anything else, a study of repression, of what happens when human beings are locked into figurative gilded cages and then are expected to go about their daily lives as if anything really mattered. Seen in that light, this is a very sad, very poignant - though often quite funny - movie indeed.

This was a lovely film. I can't claim to know much about history or anything of the sort, but the elegance of Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette was astounding.

If you are looking for a documentary, or a piece about Marie Antoinette's life, this is not what you want. The film is about Marie Antoinette as a person; how extravagant she was, how oblivious to anything outside of Versailles. She spent money as if it grew from trees almost, and the extent to which she indulged was almost insane.

The sets, the music, the costumes, Coppola manages to make one feel as if you were there.

Beautiful, a visual ecstasy.

What I do in life is read histories. It is an obsession with me to "be in time" - to see our life now as being history as we live it. Day to day life just doesn't translate into experience to reflect upon, not until well after the fact.
Point is, that the 18th century was pretty rockin and rollin. Look at it...there was never a time so radical and so philosophically In Your Face. Maybe Greece, maybe China, but we digress.
Now really, would we choose to be a culture that includes Reality TV, Fast Food, and paperback romances? Maybe - I love me some Top Chef, French Fries and...well, many people do like to read romances, and I say go for it if that's what makes you feel good. We don't choose our surroundings.
This retelling of Marie Antoinette's story fascinates me because we have this girl born into her own circumstances (and aren't we all), and she gets on with it. Can any of us see our outcome, can we even guess at the world when we're 14?
An 80's soundtrack? Sure. Listen to Mozart, Beethoven, endless unknown composers who are just as interesting - it's music that is happening to you NOW, which is exactly what history is.
This movie makes me love this girl - and this boy - because that's exactly what they were at the time. Do you think that if you were born a queen you'd see Your Place in the World, even if you were looking for it? Not if you were a teenager. Not if you were a young mother with your very own child. Not if you were partying down with your arranged husband, and find yourself having a good time anyway. Not if you've discovered lust. Not as if anybody around you ever put a book in your hand to take you away from yourself.
I seek out movies like this, because I adore the vision of time as a fiction. Whenever you're alive is when it's happening.

Not to mention Kirsten Dunst who is someone I'd like to have a conversation with - girl seems to see sompin out there, I like her I think.

There are actually several Marie Antoinette biographies out there that paint Marie Antoinette in a sympathetic light. This film is based on one of those biographies written by Antonia Fraser. But the film is by no means a faithful transcription of Fraser's biography to screen; in fact Antonia Fraser has gone on record as saying that the Marie Antoinette of Sofia Coppola's film is not the Marie Antoinette of her biography. What you get in Sofia Coppola's film is a character that is largely the product of Sofia Coppola's imagination which means among other things that this film is a very personal take on this historical figure.

At times it seems Sofia Coppola seems to want us to see her Marie Antoinette as a product of her cultural context but at other times it seems that Coppola wants to radically decontextualize this figure and allow us to see that the distance between 18th century France and our cultural context is not that great. On the one hand we are invited to observe Marie Antoinette as she was put on display before the courts of her time and on the other hand we are invited to see Marie Antoinette with her gaurd down behind the scenes in the personal space of her bedroom. While most people will not be able to relate with Marie Antoinette's royal upbringing and lifestyle most people will be able to relate with the fact that there is a great distance between Marie Antoinette's public and private lives because all of us have at one time or another felt the great disparity that exists between social formalities and decorums and our natural selves. Most of us treasure our privacy and value time spent alone as the most important time of the day but Marie Antoinette is caught in a world where she has virtually no privacy. In fact her most private moments are what interest the court and the public the most. Hence her private life is not really private at all. Being deprived of personal space at a time in her life when she needs it the most (early teen years) is something that Marie Antoinette never gets used to and even if we can't relate to every aspect of her life we can certainly relate to this. There are really several moments in Marie Antoinette's life that are presented in ways that allow us to identify with her: her search for a confidante, her wish to express her own identity, her first feelings of love. By focusing less on Marie Antoinette the royal and more on Marie Antoinette the teen Sofia Coppola offers her audience a figure that they can relate with and even like. As personable as this character is, however, we are only allowed a very limited access to her. Though we see her in her private rooms all that we know of Marie Antoinette in this film is based on surfaces and appearances and appearances are always vague, always enigmatic.

Certainly few films have been so thoroughly dedicated to the purely visual as Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. Filmgoers looking for a compelling plot or character might be nonplussed by this extravagantly realized piece of visual art that shuns the usual narrative strategies of the film biography. Though we catch fleeting glimpses of Marie Antoinette both in public and in private we are kept at a distance from the real dramas that are affecting her life. On one occasion we do see her break down after visiting her brother-in-laws newborn and are thus given a glimpse of the pain she feels at not yet having conceived a child of her own but these candid moments are rare. The film does not have a lot of dialogue and we are never really allowed into Marie Antoinette's thought process. Also the film does not proceed along any particular narrative line; instead it moves in a rather impressionistic way from one thing to the next and one time span to the next, sometimes without any sort of transition, and thus theres not a lot of connective tissue linking the various scenes together. One of the advantages of this compelling near-silent anti-narrative approach is that Sofia Coppola is free to craft a portrait based not on the usual accumulation of scenes that dramatize what we already know from the historical record and existing biographical data but on an accumulation of isolated vignettes. Each vignette presents us with another angle from which to view the enigma that is Marie Antoinette even though none of these visual cues supply us with any concrete or definitive answers as to who she is. The resulting film is thus less a literal rendering of a life than an open-ended evocation. As a result it is a much freer kind of biography; one might even call it an anti-biography because the person being studied remains a mystery for the most part. This film is not for the literal minded but for those who enjoy the enigma of surfaces. This film, like the paintings of Velazquez, or Goya, or Manet offer rich but elusive surfaces to the eye; Marie Antoinette, like the faces in these paintings, looks straight at us but tells us virtually nothing or at least tells us nothing in a literal way. With Marie Antoinette Sofia Coppola is experimenting with film as a purely visual medium instead of as a medium that relies on familiar narrative forms and she effectively uses this experimental anti-narrative technique to offer a Marie Antoinette that does not fit into any of the narratives that have been told about her.

This film experiments with style and invites us to examine style as an alternative language--a language of appearances--that disrupts the usual narrative forms that cinema is so fond of. If you leave behind your usual need to follow a traditional narrative and find literal meanings and allow yourself to simply gaze upon this films many polyvalent surfaces then you will be in a position to appreciate this films original approach which does not attempt to capture Marie Antionette by defining her but shows her time and again attempting to elude her captors.

I found Marie Antoinette to be a visual feast for the eyes and I found Kristen Dunst quite dazzling and pretty. Both of those elements found my favors. However, I really failed to understand the purpose of this movie outside of showing off the fantastical visual feast and beauty of Kristen Dunst. This really isn't a bio-pic on Marie Attoinette. It really doesn't captured the flavor of late 18th century France and the story line goes from one relatively meaningless party scene after another. Jason Schwartman who played hapless Louis XVI, proves equally hapless in a thankless role. Sofia Coppola made very interesting choices but they were choices that will be dated in a few years as today's music in the movie become yesterday's news. That where some of the mistakes of the movie come in was that many of contemporary 21st century concepts were inserted in this movie about a 18th century woman.

Perhaps, the saddest thing about this movie was that it ended just when Marie Antoinette's life was about to get very interesting. Kristen Dunst had a chance to show off her acting bit instead be being so one dimensional carefree, free spending character. Coppola had a chance to create a landmark movie but instead, she choose to make momentary statement movie that sounds dated even now.

The DVD of this movie proves to be well made. The sound are excellent and images proves to be astoundingly well presented. The extras proves to be average, your usual "Making of the...." and few interviews that follows. Overall, an average package for a movie that really don't have much to say.

The first thing you notice about this film is how beautiful everything inside it is. It truly captures the feeling of the film. Everything from the camera angles to the settings to the costumes to the props exudes the height of French glamour and prestige -- the rise before the fall. They captured the escence of Marie Antoinette, a young, innocent girl whisked away from everything she knows and put into the strange new world of France. She becomes caught up in the food and glamour as a way to ease the troubles of her new life, complete with being yet unable to bear an heir (through no fault of her own). Her true courage comes in the film when France begins to fall under the French Revolution. Through this film, the viewer begins to understand just who Marie Antoinette was as a person, instead of the vixen who said, "Let them eat cake."