Marie Antoinette Information

This 11″x17″ framed poster is from the motion picture “Marie Antoinette” (2006). This is the Marie Antoinette movie by Sofia Coppola.

Marie Antoinette: A Film by David Grubin (2006)

This is the story of a callous monarch, swept to her death in the torrent of the French Revolution. It is also the tale of a fragile young woman struggling to find herself during one of the most turbulent moments in human history. Filmed in France and Austria, with rare access to Versailles, Le Petit Trianon, and the Austro-Hungarian palaces of her youth, Marie Antoinette will tell the intensely human story of the often misunderstood monarch who was beheaded during the turbulence and horror of the French revolution.

The lavish, overstuffed house style of MGM in the 1930s gets a fluffy showcase in Marie Antoinette, a preposterous epic about the pampered Queen. One of MGM’s longtime queens, Norma Shearer (who had been married to head of production/wonder boy Irving Thalberg until his death in 1936), plays the young Austrian girl imported to marry the man who would become Louis XVI of France. The film covers Marie’s girly youth at court, through an affair with suave Tyrone Power (then in his early, dewy prime) and finally to the dark days of the Revolution. Like Sofia Coppola’s 2006 version of the Queen’s life, this film emphasizes glitz, and leaves the Royals mostly innocent of blame for what happens to the starving peasants. Unlike the Coppola picture, this one takes Marie and diffident husband Louis (Robert Morley, his film debut) through their imprisonment and all the way to the guillotine. The parade of enormous sets and opulent gowns contributes to the general sense of stodginess, even if one might pause to note the rather continental attitude toward Marie’s extramarital needs. John Barrymore plays the declining Louis XV, but it’s the childlike Morley that steals the show. Shearer’s glamorous star turn might leave some viewers puzzled as to her appeal, although the very ordinariness of her personality actually works in concert with Marie’s out-of-her-depth character. The project had been a pet of Thalberg’s, and MGM went ahead with the film after his death, but it marked the end of Shearer’s period of major stardom. The opposite of this film’s highbrow literary approach can be found in Josef von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress, with Marlene Dietrich, a delirious and cinematic treatment of a Queen abroad. (This DVD includes overture and entr’acte music.) –Robert Horton

Description

Her eyes shine as brightly as the diamonds at her slender throat or as the countless candles that turn the Palace of Versailles into a light-drenched fantasy world. She is Marie Antoinette, Queen of France: beautiful, imperious, headstrong…and doomed. With an opulence exemplifying Hollywood’s Golden Era at its most glamorous, the grandeur and revolutionary fervor of 18th-century France sweeps across the screen in this nominee for 4 Academy Awards?.* Elegant Best Actress Oscar? nominee Norma Shearer stars in the decades-spanning title role, Tyrone Power plays her ardent beloved, John Barrymore is crafty Louis XV and debuting Robert Morley portrays timid Louis XVI. From ballroom to boudoir to guillotine, Marie Antoinette is regal romantic adventure.

DVD Features:
Other:1938 MGM Shorts: Another Romance of Celluloid Hollywood Goes to Town Vintage Short Another Romance of Celluloid Goes Behind the Scenes on This and Other Studio Productions That Year
Theatrical Trailer

While much was made of the fact that Marie Antoinette elicited boos at Cannes, the many favorable reviews attracted less attention. Inspired by Antonia Fraser’s biography, Sofia Coppola fashions a portrait that’s just as dreamy as The Virgin Suicides, her first literary adaptation, and the Oscar-winning Lost in Translation. Set to a soundtrack of post-punk (a conceit that adds more interest than resonance), the teenaged Marie (Kirsten Dunst, quite good) may be shallow, but she’s rarely unsympathetic. The story begins in the late-18th century as the Austrian Archduchess agrees to marry Louis-Auguste (Jason Schwartzman). After bidding adieu to her mother, Maria Theresa (Marianne Faithfull), she travels to France, where King Louis XV (Rip Torn) sets the rules–and the list is endless (Judy Davis’ Comtesse de Noailles is the primary enforcer). As for the Dauphin, he’s just a boy, really, with more interest in his key collection than their marriage bed. Should Marie produce an heir, it might be enough to sustain her–since life is nothing but an endless shopping spree–but clouds gather on the horizon as an impoverished populace rises up against their extravagant leaders. Coppola merely suggests what happens next, although history paints a darker picture. Filmed in and around the Chateau of Versailles, Marie Antoinette is a riot of rustling gowns, sparkling jewels, and Manolo Blahnik-designed shoes. To say that style trumps substance does its maker a disservice, but the look of the thing does leave the deepest impression. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

Extras from Marie Antoinette (click for larger image)

Featurette: On the filming of Marie Antoinette: high bandwidth

Film Clip: “The Introduction” high bandwidth

Film Clip: “The Royal Treatment” high bandwidth

Stills from Marie Antoinette (click for larger image)

Description

Academy Award® winner Sofia Coppola directs an electrifying yet intimate re-telling of the turbulent life of history’s favorite villainess, Marie Antoinette. Kirsten Dunst portrays the ill-fated child princess who married France’s young and indifferent King Louis XVI Jason Schwartzman. Feeling isolated in a royal court rife with scandal and intrigue, Marie Antoinette defied both royalty and commoner by living like a rock star, which served only to seal her fate.