Marie Antoinette (2006)

The retelling of France's iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette. From her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI at 15 to her reign as queen at 19 and to the end of her reign as queen and ultimately the fall of Versailles.

Director:

Sofia Coppola

Writer:

Sofia Coppola

Stars:

Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis

Won 1 Oscar. Another 8 wins & 9 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kirsten Dunst	...	Marie Antoinette
Jason Schwartzman	...	Louis XVI
Judy Davis	...	Comtesse de Noailles
Rip Torn	...	Louis XV
Rose Byrne	...	Duchesse de Polignac
Asia Argento	...	Comtesse du Barry
Molly Shannon	...	Aunt Victoire
Shirley Henderson	...	Aunt Sophie
Danny Huston	...	Emperor Joseph II
Marianne Faithfull	...	Empress Maria Theresa
Mary Nighy	...	Princesse Lamballe
Sebastian Armesto	...	Comte Louis de Provence
Jamie Dornan	...	Count Axel Fersen
Aurore Clément	...	Duchesse de Char
Guillaume Gallienne	...	Vergennes

Storyline

"All eyes will be on you," says the Austrian Empress, Maria Theresa to her youngest daughter Marie Antoinette. The film, marketed for a teen audience, is an impressionistic retelling of Marie Antoinette's life as a young queen in the opulent and eccentric court at Versailles. The film focuses on Marie Antoinette, as she matures from a teenage bride to a young woman and eventual queen of France.

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Plot Keywords:

marie antoinette | queen | austria | versailles | marriage | 

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Taglines:

Let Them Eat Cake

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Genres:

Biography | Drama | History

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and innuendo

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [fr] Official site [jp]

Country:

USA France Japan

Language:

English Latin French

Release Date:

20 October 2006 (USA)

Also Known As:

Marija Antoaneta

Filming Locations:

Basildon Park, Lower Basildon, Berkshire, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$40,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£283,883 (UK) (20 October 2006)

Gross:

$15,962,471 (USA) (1 December 2006)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation, Pricel, Tohokushinsha Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

123 min

Sound Mix:

DTS SDDS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Marianne Faithfull's mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso, was originally from Vienna, Austria, with aristocratic roots in the Hapsburg Dynasty. In the movie, Marianne Faithfull plays Empress Maria Theresa, a member of the Hapsburg Dynasty and Empress of Austria.

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Goofs

When Marie Antoinette is pouring tea for her brother Emperor Joseph II, his tea cup is on the table in front of him. The next shot of the tea set, his cup is sitting on the tray.

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Quotes

Marie-Antoinette: Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness.

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Connections

Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Episode dated 21 October 2006 (2006)

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Soundtracks

"The Melody of a Fallen Tree"
Written by Dan Matz and Jason McNeely
Performed by Windsor for the Derby
Courtesy of Secretly Canadian
By Arrangement with Zync Music Inc.

User Reviews

A sensory delight

Based on the recent Marie-Antoinette biography by Antonia Fraser, Sofia Coppola's film focuses on the personal qualities of the character of Marie-Antoinette and thus participates in the character's historical rehabilitation. Antoinette is seen as a respectful loyal daughter, a loving mother, a patient wife, who had to withstand a flood of vindictive criticism since the moment she set foot in the French court. This depiction contrasts strongly with many prior representations of the character in film ("The Affair of the Necklace" for example), which show her as superficial, selfish and vain.

The visuals and auditory elements, which evoke a powerful image of 18th-century Versailles, are the movie's forte. And their effects linger in one's mind (or at least they did in mine) long after one's exit from the theater. As a budding art historian, I was stunned by the intensely lush visual spectacle the film has to offer: the pomp and circumstance of ritualized and regimented 18th-century Versailles. The semi-private world that Antoinette builds for herself to escape Versailles's codified, quasi-totalitarian atmosphere, is evoked through a sequence of fast-moving images of champagne-guzzling, beautifully-decorated cake-eating, and Manolo Blahnik shoe buying. Thus Antoinette's fantasy world is likened to a world recognizable to you, me and Carrie Bradshaw. Some people may scoff at this 21st century world transposed to an earlier time. But as the center of the world in 18th-century Europe, Marie-Antoinette's "secret Versailles" would certainly have been as "hip" as this, and Coppola has found effective means through sound and image by which to make this hipness accessible.

The story zooms in on the character of Marie-Antoinette, played by a ravishing Kirsten Dunst, who arrives at Versailles at the tender age of 14, to become queen of France a mere 5 years later. Coppola emphasizes the loneliness of Antoinette throughout the film: most important is her alienation from the French court by the fact that she is a foreigner (something that made her a scapegoat for all of France's problems during the 1780's). Her powerlessness to "fit in" is emphasized also through her sexual alienation from her socially-awkward husband (played by Jason Schwartzmann), her mother's chidings that she has not yet produced an heir to the French throne (and thereby has not secured Austria's political place in Europe), and the bitchy gossip that goes on behind her back at court.

Marie-Antoinette is depicted as an intensely personable, friendly and playful person. Coppola fashions a Marie-Antoinette who is a dutiful daughter, a patient wife to Louis (who eventually overcomes his shyness and becomes a loving and protective husband and father), and a caring and tender mother. She is shown as both bold and humble, two qualities which had quasi-miraculous effects on both the court and the angry mob, as is shown in some of the film's most touching moments.

Equipped with these "essential" personal qualities, the charges traditionally made against Marie-Antoinette fade completely. It is precisely Antoinette's ill-fated attempt at fitting into French court society that causes her escape into a world of idle futility and libertinage. Her escape into the world of "playing shepherdess" in her pleasure-house of Le Hameau is shown not as a silly escape from responsibility but as the simple human need to be surrounded by the natural world. This place appears to us as it does to Antoinette: as a refuge from the backbiting, totalitarian regime of Versailles. Even the legendary "let them eat cake" statement allegedly made by Marie-Antoinette is discarded as fiction.

There is almost no place in the film for the 18th-century reality as it existed outside the bubble-like world of Versailles. This is not the movie's purpose. The end of the film is a bit abrupt: the last image shows the royal family heading to Paris to be imprisoned in the building of the Conciergerie. There is no mention of the guillotine anywhere, which again can seem surprising, but which shows that Coppola deliberately tried to eschew stereotypes and do something different. And it is all to her credit.