Marie Antoinette

List Price: $14.94 Buy For: $9.99
Usually ships in 24 hours


Add to Cart


Compare New & Used Prices From All Available Merchants:

Starring: Kirsten Dunst
Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Type: DVD
Directed By: Sofia Coppola
Studio: Sony Pictures
Release Date: 2007-02-13
Running Time: 123 minutes
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.

the life of debauchery
I can honestly, say that I loved this movie! Absolutely adore it! Now, I've been to movies that were bad. I walked out on Hustle & Flow, barely made it through the remake of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (but still loves Johnny Depp), fell asleep on Jerry Maguire but since have found an appreciation for it on cable television. I can't think of a single movie that I've ever booed, though. Written off, yes? But booing? I thought that was reserved for baseball games.

I loved that Kirsten Dunst was selected to play Marie Antoinette and that the director, Sophia Coppola decided to take a somewhat campy directive with this movie. Marie Antoinette is fun, naive, realistic, a blast and a little cheesy all at the same time. We all know her story from history class but we don't know her story before she was famously beheaded, before she said, 'let them eat cake!' That's what this movie is about and I loved it. Also, here is a list of some of my favorite lines from the movie:

"Who is she?/That woman is here to give the king pleasure."

"Snubbing the king's favorite in your position, is extremely unwise."

"Snubbing the king's favorite is publicly criticizing the king's behavior/Not a good idea. Not with your marriage exactly on solid ground."

"There are a lot of people at Versailles today."

"Those are my last words to that woman."

"Well, she is an Austrian spy and I can't imagine that's very warm in the bedroom."

"I hear she's frigid."

"When will give us an heir?"

"It's barren. What do you expect?"

"Yes, my sweet."

"Your majesty, you have the alliance to consider."

"Where will I be if there's a rupture between our two families? Am I to be Austrian
or the dauphine of France?"

"What do you have for breakfast?/Hot chocolate./Hmm?/HOT CHOCOLATE."

"Look at how fat the Marquis has gotten. I hope he doesn't break the chair." (No, Camille,
he doesn't. Maybe the chair isn't sturdy enough!)

"This is Dmitri. Isn't he divine?/Have you ever been with a Russian? They're so bossy."

Now, go see the movie! I loved it but please, promise me one thing: If you don't enjoy it as much as I did, please don't boo at the end. lol!

Technicolor Costuming & Set Design
I loved the costuming, make-up, set design, & cinematography as a whole as it was all very well done throughout the entire movie.

The acting was so-so.... The rock music sucked in this movie as it didn't go with this period piece at all.

The storyline was understated throughout this movie only touching lightly on various important themes/topics involving Marie Antoinette and her life, while vaguely touching upon her role and placement in France as Queen.

The only reason I gave this movie the high marks, I have is due to the positive features I mentioned at the start of this review. Otherwise this version about the life of Marie Antoinette sucked.

Beautiful
This movie was beautifully made.
The costumery was outstanding, and the directing was exsquisite.

However, I feel as though one must like to think in order to enjoy this movie. There is very little dialog, so one must be open and observant to the characters emotions.

Great movie.

atmospheric New Wave pop video biopic (thumbs up)
Just misunderstood? A scapegoat? A pawn in their game? A flibbertigibbet? That's the impression you get of the infamous Marie "Let Them Eat Cake" Antoinette presented here. Kirsten Dunst, well cast as the queen, actually says she would never say "Let them eat cake" in this movie. There seems to me elements of truth to this but I took it all in very lightly while looking at beautiful and elaborate costumes, the Palace of Versailles, the wigs, the shoes, the food and pastries, all the while listening to that New Wave/"alternative" soundtrack. I think we're exploring the personal and subjective here more than the political and historical... And we are enjoying playing dress-up. I had a sense of what to expect before seeing it so I enjoyed the show. The film Coppola made wasn't one that many critics wanted and nor for that matter is it a portrayal of Marie Antoinette and the French court that I'd have been most interested in. But it is what it is and it's a good movie and the one the director wanted to make. You got to give some points for originality. Judged based on what seems to be what Sofia Coppola wanted to do here, it works.

I look forward to more from Sofia Coppola. LOST IN TRANSLATION is a favorite. Her films are so moody and atmospheric, at times dreamlike, and I that's what I like most about them.

Maybe check out "Ten things that occurred to me while watching MARIE ANTOINETTE" by Roger Ebert on his website for some nice insight and appreciation. Ebert is a great friend to the movies and I hope he's around for a long time to come. Also, The New Yorker's Anthony Lane's piece "Lost in the Revolution" is excellent. For a different reaction see "Sofia Coppola's MARIE ANTOINETTE: Not even cake?" by Emanuele Saccarelli on World Socialist Web Site. Lol.

An Honorable and Interesting Failure. . .
"Marie Antoinette" is utterly ravishing to look at and, at last, peculiarly touching in a way its histrionics and the director's disastrous choices should have precluded. A real woman emerges from the manifestly surreal structure of this film - but that isn't because of Coppola's use of vernacular English and modern pop music in stark contrast to the environment of 18th century Versailles - it's because of Kirsten Dunst's talents.

It is clear that, as others have pointed out, Coppola researched the living daylights out of the era. Scrupulous attention is paid to food, dress, entertainment, hairdos, etc. What that research must also have turned up, and that Coppola chose to ignore in service to her quaint vision, is that Versailles was one of the most formal places ever to exist on the planet. Even in French its denizens would not have used the vernacular to each other, let alone her friends fall all over the French Queen with a familiarity that would never have existed! Louis XVI's court was ruled by a rigid formality that would make the constraints of Victoria's reign look easy-going by comparison. Were it not for the wistful charm brought to her portrayal of Marie Antoinette by the truly gifted young Dunst, this would have been a total, rather than an honorable failure.

In omitting the crushing formality of Louis XVI's court, which served to insulate him and his wife from events taking place just beyond their vast, manicured lawns, Coppola omits a crucial element of the monarchy's downfall. It is rather like making "Nicholas and Alexandra" and leaving out the Romanov's history of absolute rule. In her distrust of her audience's ability to empathize with someone who doesn't talk like them, Coppola ends by sacrificing necessary historical context to support why Marie and Louis are on their way to their deaths in the final frames, and makes insupportable assumptions about how they related to each other and their friends. A few references to Marie's spendthrift ways just aren't enough to support the astonishing downfall of the last of the French kings. Barely any mention is made of the revolution brewing outside the gates until someone runs in with the news that the Bastille has been stormed. To fail to enlighten us about the events leading up to Marie's fate is in some sense to fail to enlighten us about the woman herself - they are inextricably intertwined.

One example of the historical disconnect is the the familiar way in which Marie and her ladies and courtiers lie around together gossiping and eating and shopping - it looks like nothing so much as an episode of "Sex and the City" in 18th century clothing. The fun Marie seems to have with these friends as she wanders through gardens, throws parties, and tries on new clothes, etc., doesn't support her passionate desire to escape to Trianon, her pastoral alternative from Versailles to a place more "natural".

The director's "time warp" gimmick only serves to draw attention to the gimmick itself, and distract from characterization and story. Anything less likely to focus the audience on Marie's amorous state of mind after she meets the handsome Swedish guardsman than a recent (and substandard, in my opinion) cover of "Fools Rush In" can scarecely be imagined - all one thinks is, "Oh, listen, it's "Fools Rush In" right in the middle of a film about Marie Antoinette in the 18th century! How cute!"

Marie's difficulties at the French court have been well recorded by history: the hostility she met there, exacerbated by her failure to bear an heir for so long, her homesickness, her initial isolation, and her young husband's difficulties in the marriage bed. The rest of the cast, especially Jason Schwartzman as the benighted Louis, do as well as they can in the jangled time warp gimmick that robs their story of one of its crucial underpinnings. But essentially they are working against their own interests.

The backdrop of modern English and pop music against 18th century Versailles is interesting for about ten minutes. One gets the point quickly and then it palls just as quickly. This film is worth seeing for Dunst's sweet performance and for the amazing physical production, but, finally, this is yet another film that substitutes gimmick for content. It is as if American filmmakers can't function intellectually on a par with history - they seem to feel compelled to reassure their audiences that this won't be too hard to understand or absorb. A pity.