Sofia Coppola Admits ‘Marie Antoinette’ Was a ‘Flop’ That ‘Nobody Saw,’ but She’s Happy ‘It’s Lived On’

I never understood the hatred/indifference for that movie. I loved it. Much more than Lost in Translation, in fact.

This movie came out when I was in high school, and I went to see it 3 times in theaters. I was, needless to say, obsessed.

I didn’t think it was as bad as critics thought. Certainly not the worst movie I’ve seen.

Not just critics. The majority of the few people who watched it didn’t like it at the time either. Seems it was gays who enjoyed it lol

It's fabulous, as are all her movies. I know she's unpopular here on DL (I'm surprised this thread hasn't been inundated with the haters yet) but I this she's incredibly talented. The only one I didn't love was that one with Rashida Jones a couple of years ago

I liked the movie, but then, I can get behind a movie that's more about a historical person's lifestyle than her life.

Bring on the lifestyle porn! Get XXXTREME, and I'm there to lap up every gown, gilded chair, and pastry!

The only movie of hers I liked was The Bling Ring

[quote] Not just critics. The majority of the few people who watched it didn’t like it at the time either.

Not just the critics but the women and the children too. They're like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals! I HATE THEM!

[quote] lol

LoL! :)

She has Priscilla coming out this year. She said she cast Jacob Elordi as Elvis after meeting him in a cafe in NYC. She said when he walked in all eyes were glued on him. Women kept gawking at him, admiring him, wanting him. That’s how she knew he was her Elvis.

[quote]She said when he walked in all eyes were glued on him. Women kept gawking at him, admiring him, wanting him

Was his fly open?

No. He’s just really tall and attractive r11

I saw it twice in the theater. It was released during the height of the fabulous rich girl era dominated by Paris Hilton and mirrored the pop culture sensibilities of the time. The soundtrack was popular among my friends too.

Sofia Coppola cast Jacob Elordi as Elvis after meeting him in a coffee shop near where she lives in New York.

“All the girls in the room just turned to him, they gravitated. I just felt like, ‘Yeah, he has that kind of charisma that I imagine Elvis had.’”

He’s ok. Doesn’t look a thing like Elvis and has no “it” factor. But he’s ok.

Also a huge fan of this movie.

The film spoke to the decadence of the early aughts before it all came crashing down in 2008.

Yeahh...that thing where you direct a film set in historic pre-Revolution France having the cast talk sounding like a bunch of '1990s teenagers hanging out in a hamburger fast-food restaurant parking lot, maybe? That said, I loved the film's costumes and campy dramatics.

The movie made $15 million domestically. It flopped bad. It did make $60 million worldwide though, but probably still lost money because it cost $40 million to make without promotion etc b

It sucked rocks.

I loved it. The costumes and sets alone were outstanding

That “Hong Kong Garden” birthday twirl scene made me love the movie.

I wanted to love this movie - saw it opening night. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I did love the soundtrack. I

It very much needed a better screenplay.

The story just dribbled out at the end--it didn't go anywhere because they stopped before things really got dramatic in MA's life.

I agree r5, completely.

And the soundtracks are sublime. I absolutely adore the pseudo 80s “Pulling Our Weight.”

I think she’s a national treasure. Only she would be bold enough to set a movie set in the waning decade of the 18th century to 1980s pop — another decade of supreme decadence.

R24 I always wondered why the movie ended at that point in her story (maybe her end was too hideous to fit with the vibe of the movie).

Well we all know the end. The end is sitting there staring at us the entire time. I don’t really see why it has to be shown? It colors every moment of the movie

I really liked " Marie Antoinette", the biggest disappointment from S. Coppola was the remake of "The Beguiled", a waste of time & talent. The original was far, far superior, even the wooden Clint Eastwood manages to gives a good performance.

[quote]even the wooden Clint Eastwood manages to gives a good performance

He had Geri to compete with

Is R14 also R10?

[quote] Well we all know the end.

And we all knew the end of "Gandhi" and "Lincoln," too; but that didn't mean Lean and Spielberg avoided depicting the ends of their protagonists. Showing their deaths made those films more dramatic... and neither was a flop at the box office.

[quote] And we all knew the end of "Gandhi" and "Lincoln," too; but that didn't mean Lean

Lean?

That obviously wasn't the movie Sofia wanted to make, r31.

Sorry, I meant Attenborough, not Lean.

R1 It’s not a good movie. It’s just cool. But cool has value.

Regarding the film’s undramatic ending, I remember a French critic exclaiming, “they left out the best part!”

Marie outdoors enjoying herself in gardens with sunlight and bugs in silhouette was beautiful.

[quote] That obviously wasn't the movie Sofia wanted to make, [R31].

And it was a flop, both financially and critically (only 58% at rottentomatoes).

One of my favorites. Just fabulous. Roger Ebert's review is accurate.

I saw it then and I liked it. Especially when count Axel Fersen... I mean when Jamie Dornan first showed up on the screen, I was left panting for MORE, pretty much the way Brad Pitt had imposed himself onto me (and my gay friends) in Thelma and Louise. I also liked the idea that Marie-Antoinette would dance to pop and rock music from 21st century. And last but not least I liked the scene where she bends over the parapet and stupefy and silence the crowd of revolutionaries under her balcony. The film would have been worthy of a 7 to 8 the way I remember it.

Trying again

[quote] (only 58% at rottentomatoes).

Oh well — case closed then!

Meanwhile, back at the tomato patch:

I love this movie. Great performance by Dunst

[quote]And last but not least I liked the scene where she bends over the parapet and stupefy and silence the crowd of revolutionaries under her balcony.

That part pissed me off, and not just because of how ahistorical it was (much like the rest of the movie). Really not feeling this bossification trend with historical female characters in order to serve present-day female empowerment. The Noble Blood podcast, which I usually enjoy, pulled the same shit when it covered Antoinette.

You know who should actually be bossified instead of this foreign frau who ate good food all her life, but was ultimately completely inconsequential to anything? The millions of ordinary French women who could barely get by because they were drowning under all those taxes.

I think it's aging well. It's more of a mood-driven production-designy film than it's a riveting screenplay-driven movie, and that's just fine.

With the great Rip Torn!!!

I enjoyed it as a spectacle although it's lightweight. My favorite Marie Antoinette film is 'Farewell, My Queen' directed by Benoit Jacquot.

Love that beautiful Fools Rush In segment after the Paris ball. Too bad it really sinks in on itself and putters out in the final act. It's comfort watching for me.

I remember being so excited to see this movie and then watching it and being so disappointed. I think people (such as myself) were expecting “Amadeus” with an 80’s new wave soundtrack.

Instead it was a very beautifully shallow and stylish film that was very slow and quiet. It was like a long music video.

I think Sofia wasn’t interested in making a historical film, I think she was interested in shedding light on the bubble Marie Antoinette lived in during this historical time and how young and dumb and naive she was.

It was more about humanizing a historical figure her than telling the actual story.

I think it’s that exactly, R49. The fact that she was beheaded wasn’t relevant to that story, and didn’t require the story to be historically correct. As someone unthread said, it was about the decadent lifestyle set against a soundtrack from the decadent 80s. It was just a snapshot of time where life was shiny and glamorous. You knew her fate. I still found the ending melancholic knowing that.

R40 all your gay friends? Honey, Thelma & Louise made Brad Pitt a household name. It wasn’t just “your gay friends”. His appearance in that film made women wet all over the world.

I caught Lost In Translation for the first time in 20 years a few months ago, and holy shit, that’s a movie that hasn’t aged well. From the hooker rolling around screeching “Lip my stocking!”, it only got worse from there.

Marie Antoinette was a bit dull and removed. It was full, and I mean full, of poorly directed comic actors (not to mention virtual non-actors like Swartzman and Argento) not adding their own gifts of timing and wit but playing it straight and failing.

Now The Beguiled, that was a pointless project. It pussed out in everything from the sexual politics, to the historical politics to the racial politics, all of which Don Siegel hit so well it looked effortlessly in 1971 so Coppola had no excuse other than her myopia. Ok, Nicole Kidman was kind of fun doing her frigid ice matron routine, but that’s not counting for much.

We’ll always have The Virgin Suicide, Sof.

Virgin Suicides is so sublime, even with that asshole Jimmy Woods.

I was obsessed with this movie in high school and college. Seconding what people say about the rich-girl-chic and decadence of the era. It was never meant to be historical; she was pointing out the universality of Marie Antoinette’s story, not the specifics. There are shades of Princess Di and Paris Hilton and Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton in the story. It’s a poor-little-rich-girl, all-that-glitters-is-not-gold, Ecclesiastes style plot.

Anyway, the root of my obsession was the costumes and Versailles and the music and Jamie Dornan. The movie symbolizes and era for people, but the era of the 2000s not the Louis XV Louis XVI era. Plot was secondary. The movie is about mood.

I’ve never seen anyone mention Jamie Dornan as far as this movie goes besides that one poster who keeps bringing him up

[quote] We’ll always have The Virgin Suicide

Just the one, dear?

The Bling Ring is a fun one

This was the movie that introduced the 15-year-old me to the wonderful world of 80s New Wave. For that I'll always love it.

I loved the art direction/production design of MA. The gorgeous ruffles of the silk gowns and converse sneakers, jeweled velvet slippers and the patisserie. The only scene I remember because I’ve seen the clip on YouTube is when she tried to get dressed in the morning and every time a woman of higher rank entered, they took over.

Lost in Translation was a bore about a whiny woman who never left her luxury hotel in one of the most fascinating cities in the world.

[quote] I’ve seen the clip on YouTube is when she tried to get dressed in the morning and every time a woman of higher rank entered, they took over.

This is ridiculous.

MA kicked off the macaron craze.

I am not the poster who brought him up but every time I think of this movie I think of Jamie Dornan. It was the first time I ever saw him in anything -- had he modeled before it? I probably saw him as a model in things but didn't really clock him until this movie. God he was (and still is) gorgeous

R62 yes. He modeled. We all know this.

And yes, you are the only person who keeps bringing him up. Even on most threads where this movie comes up no one mentions him. He was not much of a presence. Pretty though.

R61 this movie grossed $15 million in the USA on a $40 million production budget. It flopped. Almost no one saw it. It kicked off no craze.

"And last but not least I liked the scene where she bends over the parapet and stupefy and silence the crowd of revolutionaries under her balcony."

R44, that actually happened! The queen went out on the balcony alone, to face a mob of revolutionaries who were howling for her head, and she fucking stared them down! They went from screaming for her to be killed to screaming "Vive la Reine!".

Okay, she and the king were arrested afterwards and were executed in due course, but the queen really did have her girl-boss moment.

I love this movie, too. It’s one of my movies I watch for a certain pace and for aesthetics, like "Call Me By Your Name”, “Room With a View” and "Green Card”.

Jesus r63 you're school-marm bonnet is definitely pinned a little tight -- feel free to do one of those poster checks on people that I always see stalkers talking about on here, you will see plainly that I, r62, was not the person who brought Jamie Dornan up earlier in the thread. And I was asking a legitimate question -- was he modeling before this movie, or after? I am not sure of that timeline. I think Coppola got him early either way. Anyway please do hiss some more, it's becoming

Hiss. HISSS. HISSSSSSSSS.

LOVED IT

[quote]I think Sofia wasn’t interested in making a historical film, I think she was interested in shedding light on the bubble Marie Antoinette lived in during this historical time and how young and dumb and naive she was. It was more about humanizing a historical figure her than telling the actual story.

Well put; she was like the first large scale celebutard; as others have noted, it was hardly the worst movie and it did drag at times, but I thought it humanized her as a person - she wasn't exactly a victim, but she was young, didn't know who to listen to so she listened to no one and ultimately everyone turned against her because that was the easy thing to do. At the end when everyone is leaving her but she stays by her dopey husband, you genuinely feel for her.

bird brain

"At the end when everyone is leaving her but she stays by her dopey husband, you genuinely feel for her."

I've forgotten the details, but in real life once the revolutionary hammer came down, both Marie and Lois gave up a chance at freedom, if it would mean throwing the other to the wolves.

They weren't madly in love, but they were loyal to each other.

The problem with this film is that Sofia Coppola didn't merely direct it, but also wrote the script and imprinted her utter and complete imbecility on it, which utterly ruined what could have been a very interesting film that would have humanized figures that have become little more than archetypes, and reflected the complexity of the changes they had to face - and in many ways, chose to ignore until it was too late.

Antonia Fraser's book isn't particularly objective, as it goes to GREAT lengths to paint Maria Antoinette as a tragic heroine of sorts and a victim of circumstance, while downplaying the self-indulgent passivity with which she accepted what benefited her and the childish disregard with which she treated anything that she didn't like, or required any effort on her part. However, it is a painstakingly researched book that vividly brings to life historic events and lends depth to the people who lived through them. However, all that retarded Sofia got out of this is that Marie Antoinette went on shopping sprees, ate lots of pretty cakes, was part of the Cool Kids Club and everybody else was like, you know, SO TOTALLY jealous of her! OMG! The French nobles were like, such total bitches!

The film looks very pretty, which is in no small part a product of the fact that it was filmed in Versailles and Lance Acord is a great cinematographer, but it has no discernible story and all the truly important events are either ignored or brushed aside as if they had been of no real significance. Thus, it ends up being little more than a series of fashion vignettes linked by isolated scenes that aim to reflect how boring, unpleasant and uncool everything was when dresses, shoes and parties were not involved... And then there was a Revolution for some reason, and Marie Antoinette had to leave her super cool palace and well, nothing.

The film's real problem is that Sofia Coppola is an idiot whose entire world revolves around shopping, parties and being Francis Ford Coppola's daughter (which in her eyes makes her talented by default), and she transferred her own stupidity and superficiality to the material. If you don't believe me go and read or watch one of her interviews, and you'll be shocked at how dumb, dull and lacking in substance she is.

It's my favorite movie of hers. I'm surprised she cares so much about the financial success of the movie considering she's already rich and will become richer when daddy dies.

R73 Didn't her daddy just throw away $120 millions of his own money on some bloated project? If he were my dad I'd be seriously pissed about him squandering my upcoming inheritance like that.

I liked it, it was more of an asthetic and melancholic movie, and I also love Kristen she was the it girl actress of the end of 90s and 2000s . It Gives me a bit of nostalgia.

It was a flop in terms of box office and the impact it had on Kiki Dunst’s career (zero). However, I’ve been surprised to learn I’m not the only one who considers it a cult classic. It really is a gorgeous film and the soundtrack is amazing. Only a few of the performances really stand out (Molly Shannon and another actress as bitchy Bourbon duchesses…Judy Davis as a countess and adviser to Marie-Antoinette), but the whole thing just works. Oh, and don’t forget Jamie Dornan and Tom Hardy appearing at their hottest!

I forgot Tom Hardy in this.

One of the most beautiful, melancholy films of all time.

This was something of a misfire.

R74, are you referring to the Copia center in Napa? I visit Napa frequently, I never had any idea what that place was supolposed to be, except another way for Coppola to throw away money.

It's a CIA now. Culinary Institute of America.

It was pretty shallow.

My favorite portrayal of MA was by Charlotte de Turckheim in Jefferson in Paris. They show her as a gullible frivolous woman. She really does resemble her. The same Hapsburg nose.

Her films are the perfect cure for insomnia. She’s an untalented nepo-baby.

I love the Norma Shearer version.

"However, all that retarded Sofia got out of this is that Marie Antoinette went on shopping sprees, ate lots of pretty cakes, was part of the Cool Kids Club and everybody else was like, you know, SO TOTALLY jealous of her! OMG! The French nobles were like, such total bitches!"

That's truly about 20 minutes of the movie, R72.

R84 I remember Coppola saying in some interview that she deliberately avoided seeing that version before making this film, so she wouldn't be influenced by it.

I only saw the 1938 film for the first time recently myself and I was surprised how much I liked it. Sherarer definitely turned in the performance of her career in that one.

I really liked this film - more than Lost in Translation.

The French get all pissy about any foreigners trying to make movies about their historical figures. Feh.

It's a good film. And an incredible soundtrack.

The thing the movie should get credit for is the costumes. She went for historical accuracy and that was groundbreaking.

Like Ancient Rome / Greek films, old European films of this era always went with dark colors that matched the faded paintings.

Whereas Sofia went with what their wardrobes really looked like.

[quote]I love the Norma Shearer version.

"Muh-MAH, I am to be queen of FRAWNCE!"

[quote]The thing the movie should get credit for is the costumes.

R88: Marie-Antoinette DID get credit for its costumes! Milena Canonero won an Oscar for Best Costume Design.

R89, her mother should have told Marie not to lose her head over it.

Too soon?

r72 in reality, MA was not allowed to influence her husband's affairs in any way. Maybe she didn't have the talent or maybe Louis didn't believe in listening to women, but the end result is that MA was 100% iced out of French government affairs. As the movie stresses, the entire point of the marriage was for her to influence French politics for the Austrians. No queen ever had influence until they produced an heir, so her power was diminished before she reached the throne.

Since she was iced out of decision making, and honestly never cared for politics, the events we all see as vital steps towards revolution, were mere gossip points for MA. Not something she spent much time worrying about because the world of French court kept on spinning as if nothing outside was happening. There is no way in which she or the King would ever believe their actions would lead the unwashed masses to their doorstep. Another poster blaming her for being naive needed to understand that Versailles and everywhere the French court was a glamorous bubble, as the movie shows.

Even trips to Paris are like an upper middle class or rich person's trip from the burbs into a city center. They stay in nice areas, do nice things (dinner and show) then leave with next to no context or time spent in the city or learning of life for the city dwellers. Louis XIV was traumatized from being stuck in Paris so for nearly 100 years the French court spent little time there. And there weren't many things a French queen with zero political influence could do to stop the flood of revolution.

Finally, Louis hurt MA's reputation by not taking a mistress. Every French king was expected to have a mistress. The mistress would be the kicking post for the public and court, leaving French queens to be hard to hit targets. Louis had no mistress and took ages to get MA pregnant sinking her reputation and making it very easy to place 80% of France's problems on this foreign born shopaholic.

Oh and I just got done re-watching this movie. Damn, is it effective as a mental escape. I love this dinner scene, everyone is such a bitch! No wonder my gay ass loved this.

I fucking love the sets and costumes in this film. Very enjoyable! Have seen it many times. It looks like a big fancy wedding cake, the whole thing! Like those baroque European buildings in the old towns.

It must have been REALLY BAD. they have a high tolerance for shitty movies at Cannes

I hate any historic era movie with modern music.

Her films cure insomnia.

I rewatched this tonight for the first time in quite awhile. I've always liked it, and it still holds up. It's gorgeous, and the cast is incredible—I forget how many big names were in this. Sofia Coppola is hit and miss for me, but I love this film, "The Virgin Suicides", and "Lost in Translation" dearly. Didn't care for "Somewhere" or "The Bling Ring", and also thought her remake of "The Beguiled" was uninspired as fuck. Still, despite being a nepo baby, I think she has a good eye and is a capable filmmaker.