18th century blog

I finally sorted through and edited my Jefferson in Paris screencaps. When I wrote about the movie earlier I just showed a few pictures I found on the internet, but after the cut are 145 new screencaps.

Edit: Fixed the screencaps so they won’t take so long to load.

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Click the picture above to watch a podcast about this dress, created by Rose Bertin and probably worn by Marie Antoinette. The dress belongs to the Royal Ontario Museum but will apparently be exhibited at Versailles next year March 16 to June 14, as part of an exhibition about 17th and 18th century court dress. I’ll hopefully visit!

I just found these two “sister blogs”, Georgiana’s gossip guide to the 18th century, and Marie Antoinette’s gossip guide to the 18th century. Both very entertaining blogs with bits of 18th century information and lots of pictures, even some I hadn’t seen before. Check them out!

Jefferson in Paris
I’ve been wanting to see this movie forever because of the costumes and I finally got it on DVD! As a movie I found it kind of uninteresting but ok. Both of Jefferson’s romances seem completely unmotivated and unromantic, not very believable. The costumes make up for this a hundred times though, it’s an absolutely gorgeous movie. The costumes are unusually detailed and interesting, and though I saw a few bad wigs most of it looked wonderful.

The actress who played Marie Antoinette had a pretty good likeness. I think she looked most like the actual Antoinette than any other actress I’ve seen portraying her, although I think she looked quite a lot older and less classically beautiful than the real Marie Antoinette does in paintings from around this time. Then again Marie Antoinette is said to have aged quickly when the revolution came. The actor playing Louis XVI also looked much too old to me. In fact when I first saw him I thought he was supposed to be the old king and this confused me for a while.

I highly recommend watching it! More movie stills after the cut.

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Marie Antoinette (2006)
This is one of my favourite movies. It guess it doesn’t really have much of a plot, but it’s extremely gorgeous to watch, and it’s one of those movies where the music fits so well with the pictures that the (already good) songs become even better than on their own. Kirsten Dunst plays Marie Antoinette, and while the way she is portrayed isn’t exactly like my own vision of Marie Antoinette, I think she’s amazing and so charming and beautiful. I also love Rose Byrne as Polignac.

While the 1938 Marie Antoinette movie focuses on the last part of her life, this one is almost all about her early days at the French court, which to me is more interesting. It doesn’t aim at perfect historical correctness but I think it’s still fairly correct.

The clothes and sets are absolutely gorgeous. It’s probably the most beautiful movie I’ve seen. The only thing that bothers me a little is that while many of the hairdos are great, some of them, particularly Marie Antoinette’s poufs, aren’t that great, and don’t look much like the actual poufs of the 1770s. In the documentary on the DVD someone says they wished they could have put more effort into the hair, but they put all of the effort and money into the clothes so they didn’t have time, or something like that. I would love to see what the movie would have looked like if they had been able to do more with the hair. Some of the hair you see on the extras is better though, strangely enough.

All in all I think this is an amazing movie and I watch it very often. You can see some more movie stills and promotional pictures behind the cut.

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Portrait by Vigée-Le Brun.

Marie Antoinette on Wikipedia.
Marie Antoinette online.
Marie Antoinette, queen of France.

Many more portraits after the cut.

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Marie Antoinette (1938)
I really liked this movie. It focuses mostly on the revolution and the latter part of Marie Antoinette’s life, and everything before is kind of rushed by. The second half of the movie is also the best part. I would have really loved it if they put as much focus on the “happy” part of her life as well since that is my favourite part, but the sad part kind of makes up for it.

I loved Norma Shearer as Marie Antoinette, she behaved very much like I imagine the real Antoinette. And I think she looked a bit like the original as well. She was really the best thing about the movie. I felt the portrayal of Louis XVI was a bit too comical in comparison to the rest of the movie, his acting didn’t fit in with the others.

The costumes are not that historically correct for the most part, but I don’t really care because they’re absolutely gorgeous. It’s a very beautiful movie. More pictures after the cut.

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Queen of Fashion by Caroline Weber
I got this book for Christmas and really really loved it. It tells Marie Antoinette’s story through her clothes. Lots of interesting information about 18th century fashion, and a very engaging biography. Not the slightest bit boring. It doesn’t have many pictures at all though so don’t expect a lot of illustrations. I highly recommend it.