Marie Antoinette

The other day, I felt compelled to watch a bunch of movies and do nothing else. So, I watched Bye, Bye Birdie, Failure to Launch, and Marie Antoinette. The only reason I watched Failure to Launch is because I adore Zooey Daschenel, and I try to emulate her mannerisms on a daily basis. Other than that, the acting was an attempt at charm, but overall...a failure. Bye, Bye Birdie is of course, a classic musical, with classic actors and songstresses. Marie Antoinette was by far my favorite of the three. Sofia Coppola did a fantastic job capturing the young queen of France's naivity and indifference, as does Kirsten Dunst playing her. You probably know the basic story- a young Austrian girl forced to marry the Dauphin of France to secure the alliance between their countries, a marriage that would be riddled with scandal, adultery- everything but love. Marie is constantly hounded about not having any children, so she submerges herself into a world of constant parties, gambling, and other men. When she and her husband finally become king and queen, she is overwhelmed with requests from her public, and delves deeper into the dark.

The plot is so dramatic, but Coppola livens the story up, modernizes it, with a ridiculously catchy soundtrack, featuring new wave bands like The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, along with period music from classical composers like Vivaldi. The contrast between the modern and the traditional is what makes the movie so captivating. Scandals and adultery are better portrayed by The Strokes than they would be with Couperin. Marie is more flighty- she's a pop star. Though the movie is historically accurate concerning facts, Coppola's interpretation of Marie's life is perfect. A teenage queen wouldn't be perfect all the time, she wouldn't want to follow the rules. There is a particular scene in which she is trying on all sorts of shoes, and there is a blurred pair of Converse in the background. This was, for me, the best part of the film, though it probably went unnoticed to most. Another scene, in which the Dauphine and her friends were drunk after a party, and ran out to watch the sunrise, captured the essence of the modern and traditional teenager. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars. He said, "every criticism I have read of this film would alter its fragile magic and reduce its romantic and tragic poignancy to the level of an instructional film. This is Sofia Coppola's third film centering on the loneliness of being female and surrounded by a world that knows how to use you but not how to value and understand you." I think he's totally right- the reason Marie Antoinette went astray was because of her the people who surrounded her. Every morning, it took her at least fifteen minutes to get dressed, not only because opf the elaborate outfits, but because her royal counterparts had to dress her, one by one. She must've been so frustrated, as her mother wrote to her constantly about not having any children. She was afraid she wasn'y charming enough for her husband, and it was clear that other subjects thought so. So much stress caused her to go crazy, to live the high life in the extreme. She took advantage of her royalty, which made her a rock star.