Marie Antoinette - Film Review

Pop culture film references have grown old, and nothing has sped these annoyances along as quickly as the modern soundtrack. In the right hands, a pop or alternative soundtrack can be a welcome addition to any film. In the wrong hands, you get efforts like Varsity Blues, any modern horror film, or any project that stars teenage divas like that waif of an actress who starred in Lizzy McGuire. In the right hands--in assured, tasteful hands, you can achieve brilliance. Enter Sofia Coppola and her 'Music Supervisor' extraordinaire, Brian Reitzell.

What they have done with Marie Antoinette is added a heretofore unheard of emotional dimension to the tired genre that is the Bio Pic. It is one of the more perfect blends of filmmaking and music that this critic has ever seen, aside from The Graduate and, well... Lost In Translation.

Back in my college days (at film school, of course), one of my professor's teaching assistants banned us from using music for our short films. She said it was an emotional cheat. I always took exception and let the rest of my classmates know my displeasure. Sure, film must stand on its own artistic and creative merits; but, music is such an important aspect of filmmaking (going back to the silent era), that the two artistic forms are joined in ways we really cannot fathom. The emotional power is elusive but profound.

However, none of this talk would amount to anything if Coppola hadn't written and directed such a wonderful film. My use of the word 'wonderful' bears some explanation. I am not essentially elevating this film into a pantheon of objectively great films. For what is art but deciding on subjective grounds what each person finds pleasing, intriguing or repulsive? By wonderful I mean that this film is full of wonder. It is a dream biopic. As if we, the audience, are experiencing the short life of Marie through a dream. And dreams are nothing if they are not wonderful, whether they are beautiful or terrible. Coppola deftly fuses the beautiful with the terrible in Marie Antoinette. She has channeled the spirit and sense of surreal wonder found in a Fellini film. In fact, if Fellini were alive, he would have directed this film. Of that, I am sure.

The politics of pre-Revolutionary France are relagated to the periphery in favor of a more personal, human examination of what it means to be young and royal, and responsible for producing not only a male heir, but a strong, strategic relationship with another country. And the wonder of such a predicament, the beauty and the terror of it all, are lovingly conveyed by Coppola.

And the modern music of Kevin Shields, The Radio Dept, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, and many others, helped this film resonate with audiences who live in the present, not in the past.

Bon Voyage Syd... You Always Felt So Unreal.

There was once a magazine with a face on it. Not just any face, you see, 'cause this face was quite beautiful. Sad, mysterious, lost and all that business, you know, all that jazz. The curly, disheveled hair intrigued me. The dark eyes were dark globes, and the face was asking, "Wouldn't you miss me?", but I didn't know this was the question being asked of me at the time. Now, of course, I realize that this face was asking if I'd miss him 10 years on. The face transcended time I tell you. It weaved through the wondering years with me: a pocketbook companion for a musical soul. My uncle Von Frederick lent me this dandy of a magazine. Methinks it was pre-ordained by God: a bona fide deus ex machina, if you will. (Christ, I used more Latin there than I have in the last 5 years combined.) It was meant for me, and I for it. It was written in the stars, as it were.

Who was this fellow with the dark globes for eyes and medusa-like curls? Why, it was The Floydian Syd Barrett--the imperfect flower. He whispered to me something inaudible. And I said, "What's this that you say?" Syd replied, "I never lied to you." To which I said, "I'm sorry to be harsh, but we've never met Mr. Syd." "Of course we haven't, you twat, I've lived alone for the better part of 30 years in me mum's house. That was the name of one of my songs. I was in Pink Floyd" "No need to call me a twat, I'm a 13 years old, Mr. Syd. And I have listened to Pink Floyd as long as I can remember," I said. Syd looked down and then whispered, "Sorry, people think I'm crazy, so I'm a bit irritable. As for Pink Floyd, you've never heard the songs that I wrote. But, you will some day."

I nodded obediently.

I looked into his globes and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Syd, I know you're not crazy, you're just a wild flower who was tired of the music.... no worries."

Syd smiled and said, "I've been painting since I left the music." "Oh really?" I said, "That's wonderful."

Syd went on to tell me that many of the major works of art from 1975 on were actually his works, and that in fact he hadn't been all that absent from the public eye. You know Jean-Michel Basquiat, the black artist with similar medusa-like hair? Well, that was actually Syd. He simply painted himself black so people wouldn't recognize him. I had a grand laugh at that one.

He also related how he had developed diabetes and he feared his time on this planet was growing shorter. I cried a bit and said, "No, Syd, you're just a beautiful flower that never quite blossomed. You can blossom still!"

Syd paused and then parted with, "I go to blossom in the gloom."

And with that... he vanished, and I played a merry air.

Bon Jour

This is a recent interview in its enitirety with the Zindane Zinadine red card, which sent him off of the pitch for the last time:

TuBeaucoup: whats your favorite color?
CarteRogue: azzuri! Anche sono il razzista!