Little Schönbrunn

A survey of all things Marie-Antoinette.

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!!!

It looks like the 20th anniversary plans for Marie Antoinette have begun, with a new book coming in September from MACK featuring Andrew Durham’s photographs from the set of the film, as well as an oral history (perhaps similar to the one published by Vogue a few years ago?) and a conversation between Sofia Coppola and Andrew Durham.

Per MACK, the book is coming in early September!

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Screaming. Sofia Coppola Archive, a 448-page scrapbook put together by Sofia Coppola, will be published in September 2023 featuring material from all of her projects, including our beloved Marie Antoinette. Loving that we’ll see more of those pre-production shots of Kirsten and Jason in the more exaggerated looks that didn’t make it to screen, and praying that we’ll see more on the deleted scenes from the original script.

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Super excited to have finally added this to The Collection! The 1925 English translation of Le Trianon de Marie-Antoinette by Pierre de Nolhac, the curator at Versailles from 1892-1920.

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I was originally going to make this post with short excerpts from one or two biographies of Marie Antoinette to mark the anniversary of the events of October 5-6th, 1789, but I thought I would try something different and just reflect quickly on how significantly the events of that night, over 230 years ago, changed her as a person and as a queen. I find that many works on Marie Antoinette often don’t give enough consideration to the trauma and grief that she no doubt suffered from, when, in the course of just a few months, she lost her eldest son, the Bastille fell, her closest friends and family fled France, and her husband sank into a depression. Not to mention the daily reminders of violent unrest received throughout that summer, which culminated in the harrowing events that took place in the early morning of October the 6th. The emotions that took over as the events of the Women’s March unfolded no doubt affected her in life-changing ways.

The fear that she never betrayed as the women of Paris charged towards her bedchamber, calling for her entrails. The panic that overcame her as she attempted in vain to reach sanctuary in the king’s apartments, finding nothing but locked doors. The shock as she waited with her family, finally reunited, just feet above the crowd who demanded her appearance before them. The trepidation as she stepped onto the balcony to appease them, and the momentary relief as their threats turned to adulation for their dignified queen. We can only imagine her thoughts throughout that night, and it’s no wonder that tradition has it that her hair had turned white at the temples by the time that she and her family were escorted back to Paris by the market women, who had come for bread and were returning with “the Baker, the Baker’s wife and the Baker’s son”.

Marie Antoinette never saw Versailles again. She never slept in that ceremonial bedchamber again, then destroyed by the murderous crowd whom she had escaped from with seconds to spare. She never visited her beloved Trianon again, to be comforted by that little arcadia, nor was there another chance to enjoy the respite of the Hameau. But while that great palace was no longer the home of the royal family, Marie Antoinette certainly maintained the dignity, devotion, and regard of a Queen of France. As the next four years of the Revolution unfolded, she became a political mastermind. Almost always barred from a political role before, and sometimes a bit clumsy with it when she was successful in her interventions, after October of 1789 she devoted all of her energy to saving and preserving her family and the society and government that she fervently believed was the correct order.

Marie Antoinette discovered a great reservoir of ability and confidence in herself after the October Days, but we also shouldn’t forget the emotional and mental traumas that the summer and fall of 1789 inflicted upon her, all of which greatly affected her character and actions thereafter. She rarely betrayed such emotions, but they’re integral to her story, and deserve great respect and attention.

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“I have news from Paris to the effect that you have been buying bracelets at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand livres, with the result that you have thrown your finances into disorder and have heaped up a burden of debt, and that, to find a way out of the difficulties thus incurred, you have sold your diamonds very cheap. These reports wring my heart, especially when I think of the future … A queen only degrades herself by decking herself out in this preposterous way, and she degrades herself still more by unthrifty expenditure, especially in such difficult times. I know too well how extravagant are your tastes, and I cannot keep silent about the matter, for I love you too heartily to flatter you. Do not forfeit, through frivolities of the kind, the good name you acquired to begin with. Everyone knows that the King is extremely modest in his expenditure, so the whole blame will rest on your shoulders. I hope I shall not live to see the disaster that is likely to ensue.”

- Maria Theresa to Marie-Antoinette

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In the original script for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, the scene depicting the royal family celebrating the return of soldiers who had been fighting in the American Revolutionary War imagines the Queen and her companions outfitted in fashions a bit different than those shown in the completed film. In this script (completed in 2004), Marie Antoinette, the duchesse de Polignac, the princesse de Lamballe, and the Queen’s attendants are all displayed in coiffures and hat styles celebrating the French victory at the naval battle of Grenada in July of 1779.

Marie Antoinette was intended to have been shown with her hair decorated in a coiffure à la Grenade, an elaborate style that featured scenes of the French Navy, led in part by comte d’Estaing, attacking the British fortifications at St. George’s, the capital of the Caribbean island of Grenada, as depicted in the contemporary sartorial illustration here on the left. This fashion plate shows the subject’s coiffure being styled with the said fortification under attack, as well as with the British red ensign, flown by British merchant ships, and cannon fire. The script only mentions “a battle scene” atop the Queen’s hairstyle, but perhaps Coppola’s intention was to pull from the coiffure à la Belle Poule, shown on the left, and feature warring ships among the other decorations.

The princesse de Lamballe, the duchesse de Polignac, and the Queen’s attendants were meant to be shown wearing chapeaux à la Grenade, as shown here on the left. In addition to this ladies’ hat style, which references the battle less literally and more so with the celebration of bounty and victory in mind, the traditional French grenadier’s tricorn, decorated with plumes to soften it, was donned by women in further celebration of the capture of Grenada. On the right is a satire of these fashions worn to observe comte d’Estaing’s wartime achievements, with the comte himself seated in a fashionable woman’s elaborate hairstyle.

However, the styles of dress for the Queen and her ladies in this scene was altered for the film and we see them instead wearing the loose hairstyles that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing them in at Trianon, as well as flower headdresses (which the Queen removes from her own head and crowns comte d’Estaing with). As we can assume that they are coming from Trianon back to the château for this celebratory event, perhaps Coppola thought it made more sense aesthetically to maintain the relaxed fashions that we see the Queen in for this chapter of the film.

We do, however, get a glimpse of Marie Antoinette and the duchesse de Polignac wearing the aforementioned coiffure à la Belle Poule style a bit earlier in the film, during the coronation celebrations and before the Queen’s 18th birthday party. The Belle Poule was a French frigate involved in a battle with the British Navy in June 1778 which drew the French into the American Revolutionary War, so we are treated to at least one of the coiffures that were worn by fashionable women in Paris to celebrate the French victories in America.

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This is so interesting. I’m attending a screening of Marie Antoinette this weekend and this 35mm version of the teaser trailer is being used to promote it.

This is different from the teaser trailer that was originally released - the ratio, mastering, color correction, etc. aren’t completed on it yet so the scenes are all from the rough cut of the film and show much broader detail, and even cameramen and lighting equipment in some of them. Here are some examples, compared to the same scenes in the completed teaser trailer that was released in December 2005. Oh, to see a rough cut of this film …

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This week’s episode from Chanel’s Les Rendez-vous littéraires rue Cambon series features Chantal Thomas, author of Les adieux à la reine and L’échange des princesses, in conversation with Charlotte Casiraghi.

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The death of Louis Joseph, the seven-year-old dauphin, on June 4th of 1789, just weeks before the fall of the Bastille, is never directly mentioned in the film adaptation of Les adieux à la reine, but one could gather from this exchange between Mme Campan and Mlle Laborde the deep sorrow that Marie-Antoinette was experiencing that summer, exacerbated by anxieties related to the Estates General and how offensively little she found the dauphin’s death was mourned.

Mme Campan suggests to Mlle Laborde that she read the Funeral Orations of Marie-Thérèse to Marie-Antoinette that morning at Trianon, but Marie-Antoinette won’t have it, and insists that they read from Félicie by Marivaux instead. On a surface level, the decision could be read as frivolous, but Marie-Antoinette’s tribulations by early July of 1789 no doubt left her in such a state that her desire was to relax in solitude at Trianon and reminisce about her former years on the stage of her little theater.

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Not Marie Antoinette-related, but this is very exciting! Coming to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this Fall. There’s actually a Holbein exhibit on display at The Morgan right now as well.

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Some photos from The Morgan Library’s exhibit “Bound For Versailles”, featuring many books from the private libraries of Marie-Antoinette, Marie Leszczyńska, Mme de Pompadour, etc.

Above, letters written by Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI to the elector of Saxony and king of Poland upon their accession in May of 1774, from the château at Choisy.

A copy of Dorat’s Lettres d'une chanoinesse de Lisbonne à Melcour from Marie-Antoinette’s library.

Mme Élisabeth’s prayer book from the Temple, passed down from Marie Leszczyńska.

The comtesse de Provence’s copy of Histoire de France and the comtesse d’Artois’ copy of Les mille et une nuit, contes Arabes.

A selection of books from the libraries of Mesdames (Adélaïde, Sophie and Victoire) and two volumes belonging to Mme du Barry.

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Not Marie Antoinette-related, but I adored Gaspard and am very devastated by today’s news. I, like many people my age, discovered Gaspard in my teens when he was up-and-coming in French cinema and his pictures were my introduction to foreign film. I very much remember discussing him with a French professor once, even. I loved him in La princesse de Montpensier, Saint Laurent and Juste la fin du monde, and I had the privilege of watching him host a talk at the NYFF in 2014.

I’m not really sure what to add other than that it’s a very sad day for film and for France.

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“Do not believe that Mercy has sent me word of this!”

- Maria Theresa to Marie-Antoinette, May 8, 1771

The crux of the matter was that communication between Vienna and Versailles ran along two separate channels but only one side was aware of this. Marie Antoinette was under the impression that her correspondence with her mother was confidential. In fact, Mercy knew all about it, whereas Marie Antoinette was kept in the dark about her mother’s correspondence with Mercy … The empress even kept the exchange hidden from Joseph (II); when he once asked to be shown the letters, she gave him only a select few.

- Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress In Her Time

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First look of Emilia Schüle as Marie-Antoinette in Deborah Davis’ 8 episode series premiering later this year on Canal+/BBC

(Is this the same carriage from Sofia’s film? … The exterior is the same but the interior fabric is a little different)

(Wait, another note, I’m thrilled that they didn’t give her light blonde hair and are going with the more historically accurate darker blonde/auburn shade that earned her the derogatory “La petite rousse/carrots” nickname from the Barryistes)

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I got this wonderful Viennese doorstop! Can’t wait to get into this one. Please put Goldstone out on the recycling and pick this up instead!

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Sofia Coppola: Lance understood that I wanted those scenes at the Trianon to have a really intimate, youthful feeling. Lance’s style doesn’t have that typical formality you expect from a period piece, there’s a certain looseness to it. I wanted to have a more intimate connection with how you see and connect to the character of Marie Antoinette.

K.K. Barrett: We really wanted a white Rolls-Royce peeking out of the background of the dinner scene outside the Petit Trianon. We were trying to say that royalty is kinda timeless when you live in that much of a privileged bubble. I wanted one of those long White Ghosts from the ’60s, but we ended up getting a Rolls-Royce from the ’80s with a vinyl top that just wasn’t iconic enough. Sofia thought it didn’t feel right. The famous Converse, on the other hand, did feel right.

I do like how you can see the Temple of Love behind Polignac and Lamballe in this scene.

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‘It Was Like Hosting the Ultimate Party’: An Oral History of Sofia Coppola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’

To commemorate the film’s 15th anniversary, Vogue talked to the cast, crew, and production team behind “Marie Antoinette” about how it all c

An oral history of Marie Antoinette (2006) published today by Vogue.com to celebrate the 15th anniversary.

Antonia Fraser: I was of course furious to hear about the booing, but as an Englishwoman who had written about Marie Antoinette, I wasn’t surprised. I would visit exhibitions at Versailles and see a French teacher point at a photo of Marie Antoinette and tell young children, “Voila, la reine méchant.” [“Here, the evil queen.”]

Jeanne Hollande, shooting coordinator at the Palace of Versailles: Marie Antoinette was presented as an intimate film, more of an artistic creation inspired by the historical figure. Versailles used to be quite restrictive, with a desire for projects not to stray too far from the historical truth. We are much more open-minded today; now the important thing is to show off the palace and make you want to understand more about its history. We immediately agreed to host Sofia.