The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 10 - 'Marie Antoinette’

0:28I'm Sean Fennessey. Yes. To talk about this movie, to talk about Sophia as part of this project. We've chosen Marie Antoinette. I think most listeners of the show were thinking. Expect Lost in Translation. Yes. Including my husband, who when I told him of this decision said, I don't agree with that. So everyone at home, if you don't agree, you, you know, are being heard in my household, but you are not in charge because it's not your podcast. I think that it's very important for you to be the most dominant voice on this episode. the one thing that I will say is I like Lost in Translation more as a film, but I think this is a superior film and an excellent choice.

1:07Yeah, thank you. Same. Take it away. Why did you go here? You encouraged me to. And people will hear on the episode that I think even I reflexively, I knew that Lost in Translation was Sofia Coppola's crowning achievement, sort of. She had made Virgin Suicides, but it was her big entrance into Hollywood. It is generally the most accepted. She won the Oscar for screenplay, was nominated for director and for best picture. So like, it's wonderful. I love that movie. This episode is presented by LinkedIn ads. Sometimes marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. Like if you see an ad for movie themed dog sweaters when you don't even have a pet.

1:48Reach exactly who you need with LinkedIn ads with a network of 130 million decision makers. They can help you target by job title, industry, company size, or even skills. It's one of the reasons LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Try it out. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash the big picture. Terms and conditions apply. You did a great episode of The Rewatchables on it with Bill. Thank you so much. You know, and Bill actually on that episode identified one thing about why I love Marie Antoinette that we'll we'll talk more about.

2:31But. I have been thinking a lot about the Quentin Tarantino quote that you mentioned a couple weeks ago when we were talking about one battle after another and deciding, like, what's the best? And there is the best movie, my favorite movie and the movie that only I could make. And this is the movie that only Sofia Coppola can make. And it's like the complete Sofia Coppola cinematic universe package. And also just it's so unexpected. She uses all of the money and clout from Lost in Translation. It is one of the great blank checks to make an epic costume drama filmed at the Palace of Versailles.

3:15like unprecedented access with seven wardrobe trucks worth of costumes. Um, and, uh, awesome rock and roll, like post-punk new romantic soundtrack, um, about the most reviled figure in French history. Um, and, and makes it a sympathetic portrait and like all about teen girl shit and then debuts it at Cannes. Like that, That is legendary stuff. And she does it also in like a sort of like unassuming, it's not quiet, but there aren't a lot of words in this. It's all baked into the filmmaking. So it's so, so deeply Sofia Coppola in a way that thrills me. And it also stars Kirsten Dunst. And that was what Bill observed, which was that you like my favorite Sophia Coppola movie does have to be a movie starring Kirsten Dunst.

4:11They have worked together. But that is also like my energy. And I love this performance. It's so beautiful to look at. And so I love watching it. I love the soundtrack. It just it rules. And it's and no one else could do it. refresh your good vibes with tic tac with the right vibes will

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4:50now try the different tic tac from minty fresh to fructy sweet tic tac Refresh your good vibes. So funny to see you in the spot that I often find myself in of kind of like finding all the things that I love and talking about why I love them. I think this is an amazing achievement of conception, right? She had like just a brilliant idea. Yeah. And we've been talking a lot about budgets recently because of the one battle after another stuff. And like PCA has never made a movie this big. And this is Sofia Coppola's biggest movie by far. It's not$150 million, but it's$40 million. I think her next biggest movie is probably in the area of$20 million.

5:31You know, like the, I think, Beguiled and Priscilla, and those films are all somewhere between 10 and 20. But this is an example of when we say, like, what can you do with more? Like, why you should empower an artist sometimes. Lost in Translation, I don't know what its ultimate box office take was, but it did very well at the box office, which is one of the reasons why she got to make this movie. and to her infinite credit puts it all on screen. Because it's such an oral and visual overload. It's just such an incredibly realized execution of her idea that I really doff my cap to this movie even though it's never going to be emotionally true to me.

6:15Which is also a little bit of what makes it exciting to me is that it is really, of all her movies, is like the most girl world, like the most sort of silo from male influence. Like, you know, Virgin Suicides is narrated by the neighborhood voice. Lost in Translation is Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. It's the two characters and what they can like teach each other. Beguiled and Priscilla are about what happens when like a weird man comes into like girl world or you get a girl gets slurped into a very weird man's world. On the Rocks is about like a dad-daughter relationship somewhere, dad-daughter relationship.

7:00So there are, you know, looming Francis Ford Coppola-like figures in most of her movies. And there are obviously men in this in the form of Rip Torn as Louis XV and Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI. but like they're incidental. They are, they are like technically in power, but you know, Louis the 16th, Jason Schwartzman's character is like, I don't know if he's impotent or just, you know, blocked for a long time. It seems, it seems like blocked. I think he's a little picky, a little specific. Sure. Psychological, you know, and they, they don't really matter. And so everything that Kirsten, that Marie Antoinette is played by Kirsten, is experiencing is like dictated by women.

7:50You know, the power figures are her mother and then one of the countesses. I can't remember her name. Judy Davis's character. Judy Davis's character. Yeah, they all have like very long titles and are pronounced with like varying degrees of a French accent. So we'll just use the actors' names. Yeah, and played by actresses who have these kind of like severe and intense qualities. But and then, so the rules are laid down by women. She gets approval and companionship from women with the acceptance. This is famously one of Jamie Dornan's, if not his first part. His first movie part. And he's there as the hunky guy.

8:30But he shows up 90 minutes in for 15 minutes. Huge W for the Irish in this movie. Yeah, and he looks great. He's a very handsome chap. It is the rules, the social structure, the stakes, everything. and really all of the people around her are all women. And then it's the concerns are girl stuff, you know? And girl stuff in terms of like shoes and like macarons and pastries and fashion, but also like who's being mean to me and like who is going to sleep with me or why won't this person sleep with me or how does this all kind of work out? It just feels very young woman, like enclosed. in a way that is awesome to me because it doesn't have any of your shit.

9:20And I like your shit. I'm raising the next generation of Bobs. My shit? You know, most boy stuff. I appreciate it. And when I am submerged in it in a male filmmaker's film, I appreciate it, but there is something special about it. I'm just like, look at all these flowers. I really do like flowers that much. I want to see this many flowers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think Sophia is the great artist of her generation in this kind of milieu. Exactly. You know, not all female filmmakers are interested in macarons and pink and, you know, chucks or converse set in the world of 17th century France.

10:04It's really related to the world of fashion and fashion spreads. I was rereading her archive book last night. And in one of the captions, the captions are just like hilariously perfunctory. I love this woman so much. What is an example of that? Where she's just like, it was nice to have Jamie Dornan in his first film. It's like literally a caption. She just like lists people on them. But it's okay. That's fine. She, you know, she has used other languages. Can I like dig in a little deeper on that? Wait, but let me just finish. Yeah, finish your thought. She says that she, the idea for the color palette of this movie came from a Marc Jacobs show that was inspired by the Lauderdale Macarons.

10:52And then, so it goes from fashion show to this movie to then like every mall in America, basically. Right, right. Very influential. Yeah, but the, you know, but the fashion and the, and like the art world, music of it all, she references like photographers a lot and did study photography. so that is her language not speaking yeah and now full circle with making a Marc Jacobs documentary you know 20 years later they have been like friends and collaborators for many many years so I think this movie has quite a lot to say about what women are and are not allowed to do and what they represent and maybe why they are demonized in ways that men are not demonized like I said an ingenious conceit behind this idea, even though she very comfortably like fudges with the history, you know, like this is not meant to be a dramatic recreation of the facts.

11:48It is inspired by an Antonia Fraser or Fraser biography that is historical, but it's like a reinterpretation of this idea of Marie Antoinette, who, you know, who did not say let them eat cake reportedly. so those captions yeah like the the the this is not my belief but this is something that you hear that the inarticulation is representative of no they're there you know that like so so but that's like i mean that's both being sexist and like not having eyes because another thing that sofia Coppola does in her filmmaking that makes me vibrate with excitement is she is one of the most observant and judgiest people in all the great land.

12:47And the judging is communicated through a camera angle. The judging is communicated through what is included and what is seen and what is not scene? And why is this person wearing makeup like that? And why is this shoe here? And why are we looking at something this way? And what is the perspective? So she sees all. And this is like a pretty vicious movie about everyone involved and, you know, is definitely sympathetic to Marie Antoinette, but also like she she really just does like disappear in the countryside to like read Rousseau in a, is it Rousseau that she's reading in like a pretty stupid way?

13:29Like, I don't think that particular scene is filmed like they're, you know. No, it's a movie about a princess who's lived in absolute. But, you know, it does not feature her being beheaded. You know, for example, like there are elisions of truth. Yeah, it's not punishing her. What's that, elisions? I mean, it's just. I think you would go to a Marie Antoinette movie expecting to see a beheading. I think that's reasonable to assume. That is the thing that people know most about her beyond like a kneecap. I mean, you see the crowd showing up and you see like the final wrecked room. And I love that.

13:58That's another example of, to me, I'm not criticizing it. I think that that is an artistic gesture that is like very considered and smart. And not showing the beheading is obviously very intentional. It is very purposeful that like what we don't need to do is to show a woman being butchered in the face of this revolution. Now, reasonable people can disagree about that, but I really like that there are a lot of choices being made here. Lost in Translation is an interesting movie because it feels very worked out in real time. It's very naturalistic. It's funny and it's a lot of fun to watch, but you can feel Bill Murray kind of like making parts of the movie up with Sophia and Scarlett Johansson in real time.

14:40It has his antic energy. Yes. This is a very framed and imagined and executed film. Like it is very specific to your point about what we're seeing and what we're not seeing. It feels it's it's it is deeply a tourist, you know, in a way that like not even not a lot of costume dramas are like costume dramas feel like they're trying to like. Yeah. Adapt a book or hit history. And this being such a such a dramatic reimagining of the world, I feel like is one of the big achievements of it. Yes. And another thing of it's. you expect certain music cues, you expect certain, like, even like character development in a costume drama.

15:23And this is a coming of age story in a way, but she does also then not really pay attention and then is beheaded. Like, you know, even if you don't see it, like the last shot of Marie Antoinette is her saying like, I'm saying goodbye to the Palace of Versailles. So, you know, But it subverts everything that someone like me who grew up on Merchant Ivory movies expects to see in this type of film. Yeah, we've been preparing for a Daniel Day-Lewis episode. Yeah. And I watched A Room of the View recently, which is a very good movie. It was your first time, right? Yeah. and I was surprised by how those films don't have energy and I don't mean that as a criticism I think that's unfair to Room with a View in particular because the field scene I mean there's beauty in the film there is a lack of electricity they're very analog films and this is not an analog film even though it is a time without electricity you know what I mean that's sort of that's the point I'm trying to make I'm not trying to denigrate Room of the View which I thought was good but this movie feels like it's plugged into something and that's hard to accomplish in costumes you know you don't really see that very often with this kind of thing I think the soundtrack does a lot of heavy lifting of course I think it like lights up a lot of moments it's also very helpful that her taste is so funny because half of it is here's what I liked when I was 12 right you know like bow wow wow and you know I discovered Gang of Four and all that stuff and then half of it is here's what I thought was cool when I was 26 and it's like the Strokes which is like which is honestly for us is great I honestly I had forgotten the Strokes Needle Drop until my rewatch and I was just like oh wow like this really is sort of my you know my Rosetta Stone yeah total I mean that's one of their best songs yeah and perfectly used in this and there is like it's to me the music in this movie always felt like this fine grain combination of here's why I'm cool and here's why I'm sincere, which I think is a good, that's kind of the Sofia Coppola project, right?

17:36Like she is really plumbing the depths of her experiences and she's trying to, through her characters, show how she feels as a person. That's what all great filmmakers do, right? Especially writer-directors. But, you know, she's like, I'm fucking cool. Like I'm into cool stuff. My shit looks cool. You know, my hair is nice. I know, I know. And that is a big part of what she's interested, that is a big part of what you're interested in too. I know, yeah. And this movie communicates that, I think, more than most of the other movies. That's not, it's not, there is a coolness to somewhere, but that's not what the movie is interested in.

18:08Like, that's the two characters, like, it's a young girl and it's a guy who's kind of like a little, starting to get a little washed out in his life. Yes, exactly. Bling Ring is about like trying for that. Right. But posing. It's kind of like the mirror image of this in a lot of ways. Yeah. And then, and you could also tell in Bling Ring that like she's not comfortable in those aesthetics. Like, you know, TMZ, like the Paris Hilton of it all, is not what Sofia Coppola thinks is cool or how she would dress. Yes. And so like there is a discomfort in the filmmaking that is because it just doesn't look the way she thinks things should look.

18:41I think that's super insightful because she has sympathy for those girls but doesn't really get it. No. Like she's not, because she's not of that world. And yeah, the more recent films are her entering, I think different levels of abstraction through her ideas. You know, the Beguiled, even on the rocks, and especially Priscilla to me, are kind of like late style. You know, where you're like, I know what you're interested in. Yeah. No one is better at this kind of production design. Like you make these movies beautiful. There's a real cleverness to the writing and the framing of especially the female characters.

19:21I think Priscilla's very good. Priscilla is this movie in a lot of ways on a smaller scale and budget, obviously, and in a later period of life, right? It's 20 years after Marie Antoinette, so Sofia Coppola is 20 years on this journey of being the young woman in a gilded cage with perfect taste. so I find it interesting in a way to watch her like revisit like the same idea but now with teen daughters of her own yeah but yeah I mean she's got a house style it's important to me her analog is not in this conversation from my perspective is not her father or Scorsese or even her Gen X contemporaries like Tarantino or PTA or whatever it's Paul Schrader where it's like every Paul Schrader movie is kind of the same movie it's in a different world it's in a different time yeah The person has a different job, but the hallmarks are so consistent that if you only see two, you might say to yourself, like, why are you repeating this idea?

20:23But if you see 10, then you're like, well, I'm so happy to be back inside this person's head. And this movie is a very, very elevated example of being inside of Sophia's head. Last night when I was like getting really wild with the outline, I was like, in some ways, this is like my taxi driver, you know? It totally is. Now that you bring up Paul Schrader. It totally is. But it's like, you know, they have some things in common and then Sofia Coppola would not be caught dead on Facebook. Well, not yet. You know, when she's on TikTok in five years. She is on Instagram. Okay. But not like going live.

21:00No. Has she reviewed One Battle on? No. She only uses it to. Did you see Schrader posted on One Battle? No, did he? He said, the filmmaking was A plus level. however I kept waiting for Leo and Sean Penn to die through the entire film okay well that sounds like a very Paul Schrader take it certainly does on I agree with that on filmmaking first of all I think we should say some of the names of the people who worked on the movie because you're right to point them out why don't you do it since you put this together okay so this was shot by Lance Accord which is the last Lance Accord movie last feature last Sofia Lance Accord collaboration he made a movie called God's Pocket with John Slattery, the actor from Mad Men.

21:43That's the last movie he shot. That's over 10 years ago. But he shot, you know, Lost in Translation and also many of Spike Jonze's movies when they were, because this is after the Spike Jonze. The split. Yeah, Spike Jonze is in the featurette for the making of Lost in Translation. He's there at the beginning and then he's not there at the end and he's not there at the Oscars. Yeah, they are starting to split. Well, yeah, because we've seen Lost in Translation. But Lance Accord shot Where the Wild Things Are after this movie. So he managed to bridge the gap. Yes. Costume design by Milena Cananero, a four-time Oscar winner, including for this film.

22:23Yes. And also for Barry Lyndon, right? I believe so, yeah. And A Clockwork Orange. Yeah. Yeah. I think she made like four movies with Kubrick. Yes. She's also, she's the costume director for Megalopolis. So if you've seen Megadoc, you can see her mask just being like, no, I need to vet like every single person's drape just to give you an idea of the energy. But like the wardrobe undertaking is phenomenal in this movie. I think she has also been Wes Anderson's costume designer since like Grand Budapest, maybe? Definitely Grand Budapest because she won an Oscar for that and then through Phoenicians game.

22:58She's a genius. Yeah. A legit genius. 60 people on the wardrobe crew, seven transport drivers, 10 rental houses near Versailles for all of the storage and everything. Like, that is action filmmaking but for costumes. No, seriously. Yeah, this is your Michael Bay movie. And it's absolutely, I mean, they're beautiful. They're incredible. I wouldn't want to wear any of them but, you know, that's the point. And then Hair by Odile Giber, including the very large, who did like a lot of hair for Galliano which was some of the inspiration. Okay. And then Flowers by Thierry Boutimi. And I know this because another of the captions in the archive was just, the flowers were by Thierry Boutimi.

23:40It was always a lift when they arrived. I love her so much. You know, her publishing imprint is called Important Flowers. That's great. No one's gotten me any of those books. She's got a Chanel book. She's got a Virgin Suicides book. Like, I'm waiting. Anyway. Well, one day you'll turn 40 and you'll get them. I think that someone should do a coffee table book about this show with those kinds of captions. I think we should have Chris write captions like that about various episodes we've recorded together. Hell of a cast. Yeah. And a very... They're not quite discoveries, but a lot of people at very early stages of their career.

24:20You mentioned Jamie Dornan. This is the first time I'd ever seen him for sure. Gotta be one of the first times I ever saw Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy, yeah. Black Hawk Down is the first time I saw him for sure. but then after that this might be the next thing I saw him in some years later and then Rose Byrne is a huge part of this movie great incredible entrance she's wonderful throughout the film she's so beautiful but she's great in this movie she's very funny thank you for coming all the way from Sweden yeah I was reading about her character and literally in the Wikipedia page of her character she's described as a favorite of Marie Antoinette and I was like okay well that explains it and you know if you like the movie The Favorite there's certainly some aspects of that story in here and then you mentioned the great Rip Torn Marianne Faithful playing her mother Judy Davis as sort of the countess Danny Houston as her brother phenomenal in one scene of this movie two scenes I guess basically you win an Oscar and then you use it to have Danny Houston petting an elephant at Versailles okay like that is art it's a good choice it's a very very good choice Shirley Henderson Steve Coogan two British actors we tend to see in a lot of films like this Steve Coogan as the ambassador and like trying to play it straight and serious, but the fact that you've cast Steve Coogan in this role like underlines the absurdity of it all.

25:32But it's a good choice because there is something, especially in the second half of the movie that I love tonally, where it's like, things are really bad in France right now. And her being kept in this little Easter egg, this Fabergé egg that has been built around her. Right. And he is one of the only people who is giving her information that could encourage her to realize what is happening, but he's doing it in such a careful, restrained, don't fire me kind of way that he's well cast. Yeah. Who else? What other names haven't we said? We've said Kirsten Nuts once, but this is... Tell me about her performance.

26:11What do you like about it? Well, I mean, it's amazing how young she is in it now, you know, which just because she's kept working and I'm glad to have her. She is... She's actually supposed to be even younger, right? Wasn't Marie Antoinette like 15? Yeah. And when, I mean, they, they age her down, but it's like a pretty wide age range. Um, a vulnerable, mean girl, just a mix of all of the emotions that I do think that you feel if you're 15, 16, 17, but like, you know, you want other people to like you. You also want to edge some people out. There is an obliviousness, but also like a sweetness to everything that she's doing.

26:59And just, you know, her face can communicate so much. And this is a film that it's like maybe the ultimate reaction shot film because it just cuts to people either in the crowd or Kirsten Dunst just being like, yeah, or really? Or, you know, it's they're very, very funny. And then she gets some of, to me, like true, truly laugh out loud moments. The one when she's forced to say hello to the contest to Barry because of how Versailles works. And he's like, there are a lot of people at Versailles today, like in her best Valley accent. So funny. And then later on, she wants oak trees. The whole oak tree scene is up there for me with her just like driving the golf cart away in Melancholia.

27:43Which is like, I need big trees. how long will that take? And then they're like hey you've run out of money and she's like I'll take the small trees and then runs off and really I'll take the small trees. She's very very the choice also to obviously not have her perform a British accent or French accent or everything also very wise. And I would do you think that that made this movie more successful or less successful? Because you know critically it's very split. The accents? Just the whole conceit. Like Roger Ebert just got it. He gave this movie four stars. He was like, this is a brilliant act of realization.

28:20But other critics were like, this is a silly, soft defense of Marie Antoinette. They were judging both Marie Antoinette as well as, you know, they had the old interpretation and aren't really willing to get on board. And there obviously is a huge amount of, I mean, not a huge amount, but you can see the parallels between Sofia Coppola, daughter of one of the great American filmmakers, had a rough start in the cinema industry as an actress, and then is now making her own, you know, concerned with a lot of the things. likes fashion, which I guess is completely superficial to some people. I think it is considered frivolous by some, but in the world of filmmaking, it's hugely important.

29:09Right. So people, I think, are receiving... Some people received Marie Antoinette, the movie from Sofia Coppola, as they received Marie Antoinette at the time. Yeah. There's one other thing that you have here that I find really interesting. Oh, the cited influences. Oh, yeah. So I had a couple of observations, a couple of questions for you about this. So she cites Kubrick. Barry Lyndon is an obvious perfect match double feature, and especially the characterization of Ryan O 'Neill in Barry Lyndon opposite. So you can see huge inspiration points there. This is kind of like the flip, you know, spoiled person who gets their comeuppance in a lot of ways.

29:57Terrence Malick, which is interesting. I mean, all the Petit Trianon, which is the palace that she moves to at the end when she's like running around with the fields and that little French child is like, Petit Tabbé, I love you, Petit Tabbé. You know? Yes, the natural world. Our relationship to the natural world. Milos Forman, which I guess is his series of costume dramas that he's worked on over the years. And then Ken Russell's Listomania, which is his gonzo biopic of Franz Liszt, the composer, the megastar composer. Now, Listomania is also the name of Phoenix's biggest hit, right? Yes, which...