Versaille & Marie Antoinette

We went and saw Marie Antoinette last night with a group of friends from art history. I don't really know about them, but I loved it. The culture was spot on and they included all of the things that we've been discussing in our feminism seminar: Chinoiserie, issuse with nursing, embracing everything English (which is partly why the French did not like Marie Antoinette), the Hamlet and Petite Trianon escapism, Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun, etc... It was just wonderful. I really liked the superficiality of the film because it mirrored the superficiality of the late 18th century.

One of film's strengths, which may be a weakness for the critics, is that is avoids all of the historical 'text book' aspect of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. The movie ends with them leaving Versaille and does not go into their arrest or execution. It lets the story be its own thing and does not bring in all of the historical baggage of the Revolution. Plus, it really shows how isolated the aristocracy were at Versaille- there was no hint of outside problems in the film and when the mob came, it really was shocking and scary.

Now on to the reason of this post, the movie was shot at Versaille and it was insanely exciting for me to see the grand interiors put back into the 18th century with the costumes and lots of people buzzing around. Plus, we were just at Versaille last summer on our study abroad, so I'm illustrating this post with some of my photos.


Going through my Versaille pictures, I've sadly realized that they are severely lacking, but I'll put them up anyway. We had a wonderful time there and Versaille is always a hightlight of any trip to Paris. One of the pictures was a part of an art project where I got people from the group to pose as statues- so this is from the Apollo grotto follie at Versaille.


Moral of the Post: Go see Marie Antoinette if your in the mood for eye-candy, but not for deep plotlines and drama. Enjoy!