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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top Ten Reasons why "Marie Antoinette' is quite possibly the best movie ever made in Hollywood, December 23, 2005
10. The script (dialogues)
The main scriptwriter on this movie is F. Scott Fitzgerald of "Great Gatsby" fame. The love scenes are extremely elaborate and exquisitely structured. They also introduce a few innovations that have since become clichés and the hallmark of 'women pictures' everywhere.
9. The actors
John Barrymore is unforgettable as the supremely elegant and regally cranky Louis XV. Robert Morley gives one of his best interpretations. Joseph Schildkraut plays the best two-faced villain of his entire body of work. As for Tyrone Power... remember the anecdote about the reporter asking romance-writer Barbara Cartland (Lady Di's stepmother) how she could possibly have written so many romance novels before she was even married and while she was still a virgin? Her answer was: 'Oh! We didn't have sex in those days. We had Tyrone Power.'
8. The director
W.S. Van Dyke was an expert at handling and keeping track of large crowds, a myriad details, heavy production calendars, big budgets, big stars, tyrannical producers and acts of God. His directing style was a compromise between time-efficiency and giving the stars leeway as long as they respected the general style of the piece. This 'honour system' seems to have encouraged the actors to do their homework and present a
credible, coherent performance every time. Both W.S. Van Dyke and
Shearer were fulfilling a legacy to Irving Thalberg and it shows.
7. The sets and costumes (artistic direction)
What can you say about a period film that tackled the challenge of recreating Versailles in the XVIIIth century on the MGM backlot? The production values are staggering. The Gallery of Mirrors is actually longer, higher and wider than the original. The costumes tread a fine line between historical accuracy (covered shoulders and revealed cleavage) and the requirements of the movie code (exposed shoulders were tolerated but bosoms had to be covered) but still manage to convey the era and the fairy-tale quality of Marie's court. The costumes were also specially constructed to shine, glitter and shimmer on black and
white film.
6. The story (historical accuracy)
The film's script is based (in part) on Stefan Zweig's groundbreaking biography of the Queen, "Marie Antoinette, Portrait of an Ordinary Woman", which tried to create the first accurate, adult, factual but Freudian-inspired narrative of the Queen's life by using documents and correspondence that had long been overlooked or suppressed. The book was the first to reveal Louis XVI's mechanical sexual problems, which prevented his consummating the marriage during its first seven years (until a slight surgical intervention) and explained in turn the Queen's extravagant spendthrift personality, in Freudian terms, as extreme sexual frustration. This story actually makes it to the screen in a large degree. Compare this to recent bios like "A Beautiful Mind", whose scriptwriters conveniently 'forget' essential but non-mainstream plot elements like the fact that John Nash's paranoia may have been caused or amplified by the McCarthy era persecution of homosexuals. Some historical events have been telescoped into one another in order to accommodate the general American public's limited understanding of
French history and the Orléans character was used to maintain tension by representing the turncoat part of the nobility which exploited MA for their own various agendas.
5. The music
Herbert Stothart may not be a household word but he did win an Oscar for his original score to "The Wizard of Oz", based, of course in part on Harold Arlen's melodies. Besides giving Miss Gulch/the Wicked Witch her immortal theme, he is also one half of the composing team that produced the operetta 'Rose Marie'. Stothart shines in two respects: the approximate recreation of XVIIIth century dance music in the court scenes, emphasizing the bored grandeur of the proceedings, and the psychological music that accompanies everything from exciting chase scenes to the love scenes between Shearer and Tyrone. Note especially the use of the harpsichord in a rupture scene between Orléans and MA
and the use of the viola d'amour in the garden love scene.
4. The cinematography
MA is in 'glorious black and white', but especially in the escape to Varennes sequence which has the most credible - and suspenseful - 'day for night' sequence ever filmed. And what of the marriage scene which must have inspired Queen Elizabeth II's coronation? The matte paintings? The overwhelming use of cranes to move in on particular characters in a crowd scene? The chiaroscuro of the last meeting with Fersen?
3. Details and scope
Every scene has something special added to it in characterization, movement, rhythm, lighting, art direction, choreography (and not just in the dance scenes). The costumes could have starred in a picture by themselves.
2. The lost art of story-telling
This film was planned with intelligence and skill and was built around the principle stated by Selznick when filming GWTW: 'The secret of adapting a book to the screen is to give the impression that you are adapting a book to the screen.' Which means that many literary devices are used to give the story many interesting arcs and recurring themes. The story is well balanced in terms of spectacular action, recreation
of important historical events (giving the impression of the passage of time) and intimate scenes. It is truly 'the intimate epic' that Mankiewicz's 'Cleopatra' was supposed to be. Needless to say I am dreading Sofia Coppola's upcoming infantilized version ...
1. Norma Shearer
Norma Shearer is an unjustly forgotten star of the first magnitude. MA is a permanent testament to her uncanny abilities. In this film she portrays the main character from the age of sixteen to her death as a prematurely aged and debilitated woman of 38, all with perfect verisimilitude, thanks to her magnificent vocal instrument and stage presence. As a fairy-queen, she makes Cate Blanchett as Galadriel (in LOTR) look like Carol Burnett's charwoman. Her virtuosity as the fated widowed Queen is all the more poignant when one realizes that at the
time she was Thalberg's widow in her last husband-approved venture and that the Hollywood suits were rapidly closing in on her.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
NORMA SHEARER WAS ROBBED OF THE OSCAR!, July 30, 2004
This film is a masterpiece in every way. Stunning in all aspects, especially the constumes and makeup.
Norma Shearer in a tour-de-force performance surpasses anything she did before or since. If anyone deserved the Oscar for 1938, she most certainly did. Instead, it went to Bette Davis, who deserved the nomination for Jezebel, but compared to Shearer's portrayal its like comparing a Baloney Sandwich (Davis) to Filet Mignon (Shearer). But, then, in Hollywood, I suppose there were a lot of people who liked baloney. Nevertheless, her Oscar loss notwithstanding, it is Shearer who makes this film and knowing the tragic outcome makes one sit on the edge of their seat all the more, especially the last hour of the film. The film is long but it seems to fly by in half an hour and the production values are MGM at its finest. Do not miss this one.....you will see why Norma Shearer deserved the Oscar of 1938.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
THE TRAGIC QUEEN OF FRANCE, July 31, 2001
Hollywood no longer turns out such lush, opulent productions such as MARIE ANTOINETTE. The high level of quality of this long (160 minute) historical pageant is astonishing (it's extreme length is probably why it's rather underrated and rarely shown on televison.) It cost MGM nearly 2 million dollars to film this in 1938 and every cent shows in the magnificent ballrooms, royal chambers,courtrooms and palace halls as well as speaking roles for 152 actors plus thousands of "extras". The property department built an incredible 98 sets including a replica of the Grand Ballroom at Versailles - which was several feet longer than the original. Adrian designed 1250 splendiferous gowns and the make-up department sewed genuine human hair into 5,000 wigs! In the title role, Norma Shearer at 38, gave what many to believe her finest performance; her portrayal of Marie, based on the biography by Stefan Zweig, is the perhaps the most sympathetic one since that lovely lady was be-headed over 200 years ago! John Barrymore was personally declining but he still was a powerful actor with presence; he's the dying old Louis XV. Robert Morley is effective as the ineffectual, dim-witted Louis XVI and Joseph Schildkraut is hammy though good as the duplicitous Duke of Orleans. Perhaps Gladys George's interpretation of DuBarry is somewhat lacking - but she's appropriately sharp-tongued! Nominations for the film included: Cedric Gibbons,(art direction), Robert Morley for Best Supporting Actor and Shearer (She lost the Best Actress AA to Bette Davis for her near-legendary Julie Marsden in JEZEBEL.
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