Marie Antoinette

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Fraser: I was of course furious to hear about the booing, but as an Englishwoman who had written about Marie Antoinette, I wasn’t surprised. I would visit exhibitions at Versailles and see a French teacher point at a photo of Marie Antoinette and tell young children, “ Voila, le reine maschent.” [“Here, the evil queen.”] Coppola: Sony wanted to add a voiceover to explain everything more clearly, and I said, “We can’t do that.” They suggested a few things that would’ve made the film more traditional. It wasn’t Amy in particular, but more her team. They just had more conventional expectations that executives typically do. The phrase was supposedly said by Marie Antoinette in 1789, during one of the famines in France during the reign of her husband, King Louis XVI. But it was not attributed to her until half a century later. Although anti-monarchists never cited the anecdote during the French Revolution, it acquired great symbolic importance in subsequent historical accounts when pro-revolutionary commentators employed the phrase to denounce the upper classes of the Ancien Régime as oblivious and rapacious. As one biographer of the Queen notes, it was a particularly powerful phrase because "the staple food of the French peasantry and the working class was bread, absorbing 50 percent of their income, as opposed to 5 percent on fuel; the whole topic of bread was therefore the result of obsessional national interest." [7]

Shannon: There was a very “work hard, play hard” mentality. The studio got my family an apartment in the 15th arrondissement and I only had to work a couple scattered days over a month, so it kinda felt like having my maternity leave in Paris. Everybody lived in different neighborhoods so we’d compare notes on the best restaurants and supermarkets. Lanser, Susan S. (2003). "Eating Cake: The (Ab)uses of Marie-Antoinette". In Goodman, Dena; Kaiser, Thomas E. (eds.). Marie Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen. Routledge. pp.273–290. ISBN 978-0415933957.Argento: Madame du Barry was a kind of mythological figure. She was a courtesan who became the king’s lover, and even though he made her a Comtesse, she was not aristocratic. I could relate to du Barry feeling like she never belonged. She endured a rough life to get where she did and become the king’s favorite. The spoiled brats at Versailles despised her because she wasn’t like them, so she created this glamorous façade to protect herself. “We Wanted the Film to Feel Fashionable” She had optioned the film rights to the esteemed British historian’s best-selling biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey. Of all the books Coppola read about the doomed teen queen, she considered Lady Antonia’s to be “the best one… full of life, not a dry historical drama.” Unlike other portraits, which drew her as an overindulgent harpy who deserved to lose her head, Marie Antoinette: The Journey approached its subject with a radical sense of empathy. “The elegiac should have its place as well as the tragic, flowers and music as well as revolution,” Lady Antonia wrote in her author’s note. “Above all, I have attempted to tell Marie Antoinette’s dramatic story without anticipating its terrible ending.” In a monarchy increasingly under assault, the charm and horror of her feminine body and her destructive political power as a foreign intruder turned Marie-Antoinette into an alien other — the bestial “arch-tigress of Austria.” Working as a historian and writing like a novelist, Thomas reveals how Marie-Antoinette came to symbolize the marginalization and negation of women in French society before the French Revolution. Francois Furet & Mona Ozouf & Arthur Goldhammer. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution. Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 1989.

Katz: A lot of studios were interested, but all of them wanted us to shoot in Bulgaria or somewhere other than Paris because it would be much cheaper. But Sofia stood her ground and said this wasn’t the type of film where Toronto could substitute for Versailles. Sony said, “You wanna shoot in France? Go for it!”Our publication has been reviewed for educational use by Common Sense Education, Internet Scout (University of Wisconsin), Merlot (California State University), OER Commons and the School Library Journal. Bow Wow Wow’s 1982 EP The Last of the Mohicans was released at the height of the New Romantic movement, featuring the band recreating an Édouard Manet painting. Photo: Alamy Coppola: I always love working with Sarah. We find our tone in the editing room as we go. She has a great sense of humor and subtlety that helps so much in knowing how to capture performances the way I like. While shooting the “Morning Dressing Ceremony” scenes, I wanted to capture that idea of it feeling like showtime first thing in the morning. I was thinking of Roy Schneider’s morning ritual scenes from All That Jazz.

Amy Pascal, then-Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman: I’m obsessed with Sofia. I worship her. After I saw Lost in Translation I was so blown away that I followed her around like a groupie. I basically stalked her until she agreed to make a movie with me, and Marie Antoinette was her passion project. A Franco-Austrian alliance was certainly a controversial development, as many people in each country hated the other; prior to the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), King Louis XV of France (r. 1715-1774) himself had been an enemy of Maria Theresa. Yet following that conflict, the weakened Kingdom of France had begrudgingly entered into an alliance of necessity with Austria, with both nations agreeing that such an alliance should be solidified with a marriage. It was eventually decided that Maria Antonia would be married to Louis XV's grandson, Louis-Auguste, Duke of Berry (l. 1754-1793) who had become heir and dauphin of France upon the death of his father in 1766. So, after a proxy marriage and a renunciation of all claims to Habsburg lands, Maria Antonia set off for France to meet her new husband and arrived in Versailles on 14 May 1770, aged only 14. Along with the title of dauphine, she also adopted the French version of her name: Marie Antoinette. Dauphine of France Coppola: I asked the Phoenix guys to do a really small cameo and they ended up in fittings for six hours. They were such a small part, but she still wanted to make sure they looked perfect.

Dunst: There was a lot of jumping around because we could only shoot at Versailles one day a week. We had to shoot a lot of important scenes on Mondays so it wasn’t uncommon for me to play old and young on the same day. In the morning I’d be a 14-year old arriving at the palace, and then in the afternoon I’d be grieving the death of my child. It was all very tiring. Barrett: The bedroom was the most historically accurate set. The fabrics we used for her bed and the walls were incredibly detailed reprints of the real thing. We built a lot of the furniture since it wasn’t like we could rent all those different antiques. We had to be honest not only to history but also to the craftsmanship of the period. Coppola: It was so fun to be in Paris with Kirsten. She was 16 when we made The Virgin Suicides, so she’s always been like a little sister to me, but [on Marie Antoinette] she was old enough for me to take her out all over Paris. Jason Schwartzman, Louis XVI of France: Sofia said, “I wrote this movie and I was hoping you’d play the king,” which is a wild proposition. I’d never done anything set in the past before, and as a very nervous person with a lot of insecurities, I wanted to do the best job I could. Booth, Trudie Maria (2005). French Verbs and Idioms. University Press of America. p.127. ISBN 978-0-7618-3194-5.

May 1770 Marie Antoinette, aged 14, is married to the 15-year-old dauphin, the future King Louis XVI of France. With production over, some of the film’s more high-end contributions were returned to their owners, such as Blahnik’s eye-popping footwear. Sony and a private collector bought a bulk of the costumes while Canonero kept “a few.” Otherwise, the art department assembled a “fire sale” to sell off all the other luxury items used in Marie Antoinette. Schwartzman: I knew Kirsten from over the years but it was a dream to actually work together. We would do these scenes in bed where we’re not connecting, but you’ve gotta be so connected to do that. It felt like we could just be together and laugh a lot. Those are some of my most vivid memories from set. We care about our planet! We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere.Despite all this, Marie Antoinette was indeed popular during her first few years in France. Young, beautiful, and charming, her first official visit to Paris in 1773 was a grand success. Her practiced gracefulness endeared her to the ladies of the court, particularly the dauphin's aunts, and she made efforts to connect with her husband as well, accompanying him on his beloved hunts. But she still had rivals, most notably Madame Du Barry, Louis XV's chief royal mistress, whose influence over the aging king made her regent of France in all but name. Coppola: Lance understood that I wanted those scenes at the Trianon to have a really intimate, youthful feeling. Lance’s style doesn’t have that typical formality you expect from a period piece, there’s a certain looseness to it. I wanted to have a more intimate connection with how you see and connect to the character of Marie Antoinette. Coppola: A lot of friends came to visit, like Marc [Jacobs] and Anna [Sui]. Pedro Almodóvar was in Paris hanging out with Wes Anderson, so I invited them over too. We were just so excited to show everything off at Versailles.