Marie Antoinette, directed by Sofia Coppola, is a biopic of the queen of France at the time of the French Revolution. The film begins in Austria, when thirteen-year-old Marie (played by Kirsten Dunst) has a servant pampering her feet while she is surrounded by rich Viennese chocolates. Soon, she is informed that she has been betrothed to the crown prince of France. She then leaves by carriage with her pet dog and finest clothes. When she reaches the border to enter France, she is required to shed all her clothes so that she will conform to French style; her dog is also taken from her. Although she smiles serenely, the French immediately appear austere, unsmiling,a nd unfriendly, particularly her constant chaperone, the Comtesse de Noailles (played by Judy Davis). Next, she meets Louis XV (played by Rip Torn) and the crown prince (played by Jason Schwartzman); the latter is whispered to enjoy stable boys. Upon arrival at Versailles, she is showered with attention in the name of “protocol” by an excess of ladies-in-waiting; she remarks, “This is ridiculous,” to which the Comtesse replies, “This is Versailles!” After properly married at the age of fourteen, she spends the first night with her new husband uneventfully. Indeed, he has no interest in her sexually, though the purpose of the marriage is to cement the alliance between Austria and France with a male heir to the French throne. She receives considerable pressure from the French court as well as from her mother, the Empress Maria Theresa (played by Marianne Faithfull) for a baby, but her husband's disinterest is not questioned at first. One of her advisers warns Marie to have a child before one is produced by the king’s mistress, Madame Du Barry (played by Asia Argento), whom Marie loathes because she was formerly a prostitute. Meanwhile, she is bored, so she plays cards, gambles, goes on shopping sprees, goes to masked balls, and attends opera performances. At one opera, she breaks with convention by applauding a soloist for an aria, prompting the audience to follow suit. Gossip surrounds her movements in the French press, though much is fabricated, such as the “Let them eat cake” epigram that she never uttered. In 1777, Marie’s father Joseph (played by Danny Huston), the Emperor of Austria, visits Paris to find out why, seven years after Marie’s marriage, there is no child. He gives excellent advice to the crown prince, and a daughter is born. Later, she bears him a son and other children, though the film suggests, perhaps correctly, that secret lovers may have impregnated her. When Louis XV dies in 1774, her husband is crowned Louis XVI. Neither Marie nor Louis XVI have much interest in or knowledge about politics, according to the film, so the king’s advisers present options. Then Louis XVI decides on various courses of action, including the financing of the American Revolution to spite France’s chief rival, England. However, taxes go up to finance Marie’s shopping sprees and the money for the American Revolution, and the burden falls on the common people. The French Revolution begins in 1789, with the storming of the Bastille. History records that she tried to persuade the king to escape and indeed that she was much more politically savvy than the movie suggests, but the film has her agreeing to stay with Louis XVI, who refuses to leave the palace until the last minute. In the final scenes of the biopic she leaves Versailles with Louis XVI, and the camera shows that her room is subsequently sacked. Four years later, of course, she was beheaded. Marie is depicted in a sympathetic manner throughout the film, as a naïve but sweet woman who was out of touch with political reality, though in fact she was much wilier; indeed, she is reading from Jean-Jacques Rousseau at one point in the movie. Art direction (including culinary masterpieces), costuming, and makeup are so extraordinary that the film is destined to garner Academy Awards. Filming does not take place at Versailles Palace but instead at Fontainebleau Castle, three chateaus, and several other locations that delight tourists. Much of the music is contemporaneous (François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau), but some of the filmscore and a song (doubtless for contention as an Academy Award best song) are abrasively anachronistic. Although the film is based on Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001), much the same details are found in Sena Jeter Maslund's recent Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette. MH
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