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Somewhere & Marie Antoinette
Dec. 31st, 2018 07:51 amTo wrap up my project, I’ve been doing a final sweep of Sofia Coppola’s work. (Although I’m not going to get it all in this year: I still haven’t seen The Bling Ring or The Virgin Suicides.) First, I rewatched Marie Antoinette, which I first saw back in high school and found charming but totally baffling, because I wanted it to conform to a normal Hollywood movie structure and this movie is just… not interested in that.
There are sources of tension: if Marie Antoinette’s husband, the dauphin, doesn’t consummate their marriage, then that marriage and the Franco-Austrian alliance may fall apart. And of course anyone who knows their history knows what’s in store for Marie Antoinette at the end, and one hears rumblings of discontent, like distant thunder.
But until nearly the end, it all remains distant. The focus of the movie is not politics or even Marie Antoinette’s relationship with her husband (who is and remains a somewhat distant figure, although he moves from distant and a little intimidating to distant but familiar and affectionate), but conspicuous consumption: even when Marie Antoinette is trying to simplify at Petit Trianon, it’s a chance for her to show off her luscious strawberry beds and her new picnic tent with actual chandeliers hanging above the diners.
You get the impression that Marie Antoinette and in fact the court in general are just so cut off from the common people that the revolution comes as nearly a complete surprise. Oh sure, there were awkward moments like the time no one would clap along with Marie Antoinette in the theater, but when a crowd of thousands comes to Versailles with torches and pitchforks screaming for the queen’s head… Where did they come from? Why are they so angry? What is even happening?
Fresh from the high of Marie Antoinette, I dived into Somewhere, only to discover that it’s boring. Why is it so boring? You’d think it would be interesting too - they’re both movies about conspicuous consumption with main characters whose wealth cuts them off from much understanding of scarcity or indeed reality - but on the other hand reality keeps intruding on Marie Antoinette, either in terms of that long-delayed consummation or those commoners with pitchforks, whereas Johnny Marco remains immune. He breaks his arm at the beginning of the movie and even that doesn’t give him any kind of grounding.
I think in general Coppola does better when her characters are in mortal peril. No matter how many layers of tulle they manage to interpose between themselves and said peril, it’s there in the background giving a backbone to the story.
There are sources of tension: if Marie Antoinette’s husband, the dauphin, doesn’t consummate their marriage, then that marriage and the Franco-Austrian alliance may fall apart. And of course anyone who knows their history knows what’s in store for Marie Antoinette at the end, and one hears rumblings of discontent, like distant thunder.
But until nearly the end, it all remains distant. The focus of the movie is not politics or even Marie Antoinette’s relationship with her husband (who is and remains a somewhat distant figure, although he moves from distant and a little intimidating to distant but familiar and affectionate), but conspicuous consumption: even when Marie Antoinette is trying to simplify at Petit Trianon, it’s a chance for her to show off her luscious strawberry beds and her new picnic tent with actual chandeliers hanging above the diners.
You get the impression that Marie Antoinette and in fact the court in general are just so cut off from the common people that the revolution comes as nearly a complete surprise. Oh sure, there were awkward moments like the time no one would clap along with Marie Antoinette in the theater, but when a crowd of thousands comes to Versailles with torches and pitchforks screaming for the queen’s head… Where did they come from? Why are they so angry? What is even happening?
Fresh from the high of Marie Antoinette, I dived into Somewhere, only to discover that it’s boring. Why is it so boring? You’d think it would be interesting too - they’re both movies about conspicuous consumption with main characters whose wealth cuts them off from much understanding of scarcity or indeed reality - but on the other hand reality keeps intruding on Marie Antoinette, either in terms of that long-delayed consummation or those commoners with pitchforks, whereas Johnny Marco remains immune. He breaks his arm at the beginning of the movie and even that doesn’t give him any kind of grounding.
I think in general Coppola does better when her characters are in mortal peril. No matter how many layers of tulle they manage to interpose between themselves and said peril, it’s there in the background giving a backbone to the story.
