18th century blog

A new 18th century tv series is coming soon to Swedish tv, Anno 1790. Apparently it’s a crime series set in the 1790s, though from the trailers it seems to be set at least 20 years earlier.

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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After the cut are two commercials for Magnum Temptation that I recorded from TV, plus a few screencaps. They feature people in 18th century costumes, some of which are really beautiful. I’m wondering if the costumes were made for these commercials alone (probably not) or if they’re from a movie or something. Some of them look pretty similar to some costumes used in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

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The Duchess

When I first heard they were making a movie about Georgiana I was so exited, but when I heard Keira Knightly was playing her I was very disappointed. Not that I have anything against Keira Knightly but I couldn’t think of anyone who looks less like Georgiana and I just couldn’t see her in the role. I was happily surprised when seeing the movie though. Even though it’s not the amazing movie I expected when I first heard of the plans, Keira did a great job playing Georgiana, and even though she didn’t really look the part she looked beautiful in her own right and was very charming.

The movie was more serious and somber than I expected. I was hoping for more frivolity, society life, parties and gambling, but the focus is all on the unhappy marriage. It’s not the kind of movie I’d want to watch over and over again, but it was definitely entertaining the first time. There are little inaccuracies and things left out and switched around in Georgiana’s life, but it’s all understandable for the purpose of the movie. Since it’s just about a part of her life, it has a bit of a non-ending, just like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

The costumes were overall amazing, lots of beautiful redingotes and jackets. There were some hairstyles I didn’t like but for the most part the hair was great too. I loved the scenes with many extras, there are lots of amazing outfits if you look in the background. At times the fashions tended to be a bit earlier than the time depicted, at least for a fashionable person like Georgiana, but that’s nitpicking. One thing that bothered me though was the scene where Georgiana’s hair caught on fire, and it’s revealed that it’s just a wig. I’m pretty sure Georgiana didn’t wear wigs, probably plenty of hairpieces, but actual wigs were not common for late 18th century girls.

More publicity stills and 164 high resolution screencaps after the cut!

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The website of the upcoming movie The Duchess is up with lots of photos and information. My favourite thing about it is that many of the costumes are presented with detailed photos and information, I also liked the “discover” section. I have mixed feelings about this movie but mostly I can’t wait to see it! Click the picture to go to the website.

Dangerous Liaisons
I love this movie. It’s based on a book published in 1782 and set about the same time, but (based on the fashions) the movie is set several decades earlier in the mid 1700s. I haven’t read the book, yet, but I’m planning to read it in the future and I’m guessing it’s good since it has inspired such a great movie. I’m also a fan of another film adaptation of the same book, Cruel Intentions.

The movie is set before my very favourite period fashion and style wise, but the costumes are absolutely amazing and the environments are incredibly lavish. The sets are very detailed, and we get to see many typical 18th century situations. The beginning where the main characters wake up and get ready is probably my favourite part of the entire movie. There are also some beautiful opera scenes that I wish they would have shown more of.

I noticed a few small anachronisms, like a portrait on the wall sporting a 1780s hairdo, and one of the operas appears to me to be set in the 1780s as well, but I certainly don’t mind since I love the 1780s :) All in all a great movie!

Lots of screenshots and some publicity stills after the cut.

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Amazing Grace
I thought this movie was very boring and it was much too sentimental for my taste, so I don’t have much to say about it. There were a few nice outfits but most of the movie was about men dressed in simple dark suits.

One more picture after the cut.

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Blackadder is a great British comedy series, or actually a series of series. The third series, Blackadder the Third, is set in the late 18th century, and the costumes are of a much higher quality than what you might expect. Some attributes are obviously exaggerated for comic effect, and the costumes are not always chronologically correct, but there are some really wonderful outfits in there. The picture above is Hugh Laurie as the prince regent, in my opinion the funniest character on the show, and after the cut are some blurry screenshots of lovely costumes.

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39 screencaps from the second part of Gustav III:s äktenskap after the cut. You can find screencaps from the first part in the previous entry.

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Gustav III:s äktenskap
This is a Swedish mini-series from 2001 in two parts, about Gustav III and his wife during the time when they had their children. The first part builds largely on a rumor that the royal couple needed actual hands-on help to consummate their marriage, so it’s not entirely based on cemented facts. The second part is a bit more slow, and much darker. It’s obviously in Swedish, but English subtitles are available on the DVD.

I thought it was really great, and very beautiful. When I first started watching the acting seemed a bit stiff, but the feeling soon went away. Even my boyfriend who doesn’t have an interest in 18th century fashion really liked it. I thought the actor playing Gustav, Jonas Karlsson, was such a great choice. He is a very good actor and really looked the part.

I found some of the outfits a bit costumey looking, but there were many great ones as well and the overall effect was gorgeous. It’s also really beautifully filmed. I definitely recommend it!

Tons and tons of beautiful screencaps (69 of them!) after the cut. Screencaps from part two will be in a separate entry.

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Lavinia Spencer by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Probably 1780s.

In keeping with the season here are some pictures of 18th century ladies dressed for winter.

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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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La nuit de Varennes
A fictional movie about a group of people who end up traveling together at the same time as the French royal family’s attempted escape from France, and along the same road. Among them are for example Casanova and one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies in waiting.

It’s a bit slow and probably not to everyone’s taste, but it’s interesting if you know about the flight to Varennes. I really liked the end of it, and how you could just glimpse a bit of the royal family at the house where they were detained.

Costume-wise there’s not a lot to see since we follow a small group of people, who, since they are traveling, do not change clothes a lot. I could hardly find any pictures from this film, so you just get this one above.