MARIE ANTOINETTE 2006
56%
Written and directed by Sofia Coppola
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn
Synopsis
A stylized depiction of France’s beautiful, pampered, and callous queen who was stripped of her riches and position and beheaded during the French Revolution that began in 1789.
Why We Love It
For her stylish rock ’n’ roll directorial follow-up to Certified Fresh hits Lost in Translation and Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola once again tapped turn-of-the-millennium It-girl Kirsten Dunst, her Suicides star, to carry an exquisitely decadent film. The film was a triumph of style and auteurism. The daughter of a film dynasty, Coppola had rich examples for how to exercise artistic will, and boy did she exercise it. The outcome of her efforts on Marie Antoinette is vastly underappreciated.
In portraying one bold period, the film also captured a very specific moment and sensibility in film history: a time featuring the blasé swagger of Gen-X superstar film directors led by Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, and Baz Luhrmann on the top end and snot-nosed punks like Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Edgar Wright, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Coppola herself on the upswing. These two groups were given almost free rein. (It’s worth noting that though Coppola wasn’t exactly in the very first wave of female directors kicking down doors, she was something of a unicorn in her own generation.)
Coppola again demonstrated her knack for casting and great taste in music. Along with Dunst, the film features Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI, Jamie Dornan as the queen’s lover, Tom Hardy as a member of court, Marianne Faithfull as Empress Maria Theresa, Rose Byrne as the Duchess of Polignac, Asia Argento as the Countess of Barry, the band Phoenix as court musicians, and the music of Bow Wow Wow, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Aphex Twin, and The Strokes. Coppola showed her knack for collaboration in production, too: the film took home an Oscar for Best Achievement in Costume Design for the work of Milena Canonero (Chariots of Fire, The Grand Budapest Hotel).
Dunst tackled her character with aplomb, as you’d expect, portioning out naivete, insouciance, sexuality, and reverence for the queen’s place in history as demanded by events unfolding on screen. With a flick of her brow, the talented young actress could telegraph all of the above at once. How critics didn’t eat it up like so much delicious cake is beyond us.