Marie Antoinette

Over the last couple of years, Hollywood has been infested with the big budget biographical picture. Stories about the lives of Johnny and June Cash, Ray, Truman Capote, George Reeves and JFK have been produced and embraced by audiences across the nation. This year the availability of the biopic is just as strong as in pervious years with the release of The Queen, Fur and Marie Antoinette to name a few. All of these films look amazing within their own right, but there is one film that stands out in my opinion. Marie Antoinette is the third film to be written and directed by one of Hollywood’s children Sofia Coppola. The film is both told effectively and entertaining within its historical context, and it is able to capture a portion of Marie Antoinette’s life and fictionally document it on screen.

The film Marie Antoinette starts with Marie, at the age of 14, leaving her home in Austria by being turned over to the French aristocracy, and her transformation from a girl to a young woman at the hands of the French court. For the most part, her life before the age of 14 was cut from the film so the story could really focus on the period in which she became famous, which was necessary to be able to tell an effective story in a two-hour cinematic presentation. The majority of the film takes place in Versailles and only deviates from this location for a small portion when Marie is away at her chateau in the country. Basically, by staying in this one location the film is able to focus on how this iconic historical figure rose to fame and how her actions affected the people close to her.

To move the story along an effective path the filmmakers use such things as pictures and portraits to show the passage of time. For example, to show the time between the birth of her son and the death of her next child family portraits were used. There is a scene in which Marie and her two children are being painted in the gardens, then the film cuts to two servants hanging a portrait of the three and a baby in Marie’s arms, and then shows the servants replacing the portrait with a somber painting of Marie, her two older children and an empty cradle. This short bit of film probably runs about two minutes, but it is able to effectively tell four or five years of story. Also, Coppola uses benchmark events from Marie’s life to get from one point in the time line to the next.

In order to tell the story of Marie’s reign in Versailles, 20 years of story was covered. This may seem to be a daunting task, but by jumping between times surrounding benchmark events in her life it was accomplished quite nicely. Such events as childbirth, important birthdays (her 18th birthday to be exact), iconic parties, and lavish gifts were utilized as tools in moving the story down its timeline, which ends with the King and Queen being taken from Versailles to Paris as prisoners of the French Revolution. It is almost ironic that Coppola decided not to include the beheading in the film, but within the context of the story she was trying to tell this ending offered closure. With the film being a slice of life, there was no need to show her legendary death, but only offer a certain point as the ending of one chapter of her life. Not only was the film Marie Antoinette was able to show a span of twenty years in only two hour, it was an entertaining and satisfying piece of art as well.

Personally, I found the film to be both entertaining and satisfying, and I really enjoyed the fashionista angle the film took. With Marie Antoinette being an over the top, lavish woman I found it extremely entertaining to watch how she was able to live such a full life style every day of her life. One of my favorite scenes happened just after she was married to Louis XVI and the ladies of the court had the privilege to dress her in the morning. I found it hilarious that every time a lady with a higher title came into the room the dressing had to stop and then she was given the privilege to continue dressing Marie. To imagine this is how Marie was dressed every day during her tenure in the palace is ridiculous and way too over the top not to laugh at. Also, I felt that the musical choices were effective to tell the story in both the diegetic and non-diegetic world.

Coppola used music accurate to the time period and mixed it with modern day music and songs to build a totally unique sound and feel for the film. Within the diegetic world, historically accurate classical songs were used. This gave the film credibility in being a historical piece, and allowed audiences to experience music not used much in modern day life. However, Coppola decided to use songs, such as the pop classic “I Want Candy,” to set a mood in the non-diegetic story world. The song “I Want Candy” was used during a fun, lighthearted sequence in which Marie and her ladies were shopping for shoes, gambling, eating sweet and just having a wonderful time. The girly theme of this scene and the upbeat energy the song gives off combine perfectly to convey the lavishness and overindulgence Marie was infamous for. By using music like this Coppola is able to effectively convey the energy of the scene and make it relatable to the audience as well. However, there were parts in the film that were not as effective as this one was.

There was one small element that distracted my attention from the story telling, and funny enough it happened during the wonderful shoe and shopping sequence. There is a shot in which there’s a pair of purple sneakers in the background, but the shot is so fast that there is no time for a double take. I was like, “wait a minute did they just show a pair of purple tennis shoes?” It took me out of the story for a moment and in a way broke the illusion of watching a story take place during a different historical era. However, this film was so stylized and designed that everything Coppola captured on film must of been intentional. It would have been a great mistake if something so obvious had been missed in both the production and editing processes of the film. After realizing this, I was able to move on from the small distraction and be immersed back into the film.

Overall, I really enjoyed Marie Antoinette due to the story the film told and how the filmmakers decided to tell the story. By focusing in on one certain part of Marie’s life, Sofia Coppola was able to write a wonderful story in which there is enough action to not bore or over stimulate the audience. This then translated into an effective two-hour film that used wonderful story telling techniques to move the audience down the timeline of her life. In the end, not only did I find this film to be entertaining and beautiful, I really feel it is an effective piece of art that shows the life of a historically iconic public figure in a way that people have never seen before.