Stupendous 'translation' of Marie's life and times for those of us alive today. Allows us to feel and experience what those folks felt and experienced, perhaps?

Rating: 10/10 (21 October 2006)

Sophia Coppola's 'Marie Antoinette' works on all levels. It is a brilliant and spectacular portrayal of a long-past time; yet it also has an immediacy, and intimacy, and a warmth that draws us in and seduces us. The realness of the human dimensions, and the warmth and truth of the movie was truly surprising to me. I expected a bit of a chick flick--- but despite the 2-1/2 hours length, I was engaged right through the ending credits.
Part of the success goes to Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman, of course. And the brilliant supporting cast, such as Rip Torn, as King Louis the 15th. And the surprisingly apt Molly Shannon, as the bitchy and cavilling Versailles court snob. But surely a ton of the credit must also go to Coppola, for the insightful writing, and inspired directorial choices.
I have seen some of the nay-sayers for this movie criticize it on an historical accuracy basis. Fair enough. Maybe this or that aspect of the life of Marie Antoinette was not displayed fully, or 'just right'. But these critics are missing the whole point of THIS movie. THIS movie is not a 'bio pic', nor a flat, factual 'visual aid' for a history classroom.
Think about it for a minute--- how do you portray other times, or other countries and cultures than your own, and those of the likely audience? Some artistic translation is required. If we could go back in time and plant hidden video cameras in Versailles from 1768-1790 (or whatever it was), what would we have? I doubt very much that we would understand any of what was happening. Because the times have changed, and the values and mores and norms and expectations have changed, AND the manner of expression for each of those things has changed--- I don't think 'real time' video footage of a long distant past age would even be comprehensible to us. We need a way to portray the values (etc., as above) in current terms, terms that we can feel and understand NOW.
For example--- I noticed a party scene, where Coppola had modern, cool, very So-Cal music playing as the background. One might think 'Hey! That's not the 18th century!', and they would be right, of course. But the party vibe that we, the actual audience in 2006 might feel NOW--- the exuberance, the color, the fast moving interpersonal interactions, the joy and the abandon of a true party goer, lost in the happy, wacky party atmosphere of the moment--- all of that must be evoked to us now. Modern party music is an appropriate way to convey it.
I have seen so many movies with an historical aspect, showing parties, dancing, social interactions from previous centuries, using music and speech from the time. That has its place, too. But often, what we get is a remote, stilted, unapproachable and unaccessible museumy-looking piece that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to relate to at all.
So we, the audience, might be said to be experiencing and feeling the same vibe the actual 1780 crowd felt and experienced. We just had to have a slightly different means of evoking those feelings within us.
It is analogous to a movie about ancient Greece, or modern Mongolia, or even France (if one is not French)--- the movie, if intended for an English-speaking audience, will be spoken in English, because that's what the audience speaks. No one would say--- 'How dare the director not have the actors speaking in ancient Babylonian, or ancient Greek, or Mongolian'. No. Equally, we are not offended when English language movies are translated into other languages, so other folks in other countries can enjoy them too. It's simple. It's called communication.
Sophia Coppola, and the stellar cast, did a stupendous job of translating what it might have FELT like for the young Dauphine and then queen in the 18th century for us here in the 21st century. Also, do note that the movie was able to accurately get would it also looked like--- the filming was done on location, at the Versailles Palace itself.
So--- tremendous and spectacular job all-round!!! I gave this a 10 out of 10.