The French Revolution

A column about French Revolution films?  Well, sure. We had our revolution in 1776 and the French helped us. Shoot, the main street in my town is named after Lafayette. The French had their revolution in 1789 but we didn’t help them. Anyway, there is a bucket full of good movies about the French Revolution. 

The film most of us are most familiar with is the musical version of Les Miserables from 2012 with Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe. While not as good as the play (no surprise) it’s pretty good. It’s maybe a bit long at 2:38 but there’s a lot of story to cover. The 1934 version was produced by the French, and is good but probably more than you want to know at 4 hours, 41 minutes. Other good versions were made in 1978, 1998 and 2019. 

Danton (1983) produced by the French is about one of the baddest guys in the revolution, his rise to power and merciless killing of citizens. Then came his falling out with Robespierre and his turn at the guillotine. With all French actors and a Polish director, it’s a good film. But the French hate it for its historical inaccuracies. 

For really good historical accuracy, you can’t beat The French Revolution (2005), a documentary produced by the French. 

On the lighter side, there’s Marie Antoinette (2006) with Kirsten Dunst having a grand time flouncing around in fancy clothes. She is reviled by most French citizens. Perhaps she didn’t really say “let them eat cake”, nobody knows for sure. After she becomes queen, the revolution really heats up, with her facing the guillotine in 1783. The film ends with her leaving Versailles sparing us from her beheading. 

Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities is perhaps his most serious book. It was made into a film many times. I think the best one is actually the oldest, the 1935 version with Ronald Coleman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver and Basil Rathbone. Two men fall in love with the same woman during the early days of the French Revolution. Some of the later versions are actually TV series, but that gives the writers more time to develop the story. 

Farewell My Queen (2012) is entirely fictional but a cracking good story. Lea Sedoux plays Sidonie, a servant girl hired to read to Queen Marie. As the Bastille falls and the revolution gets rolling, she is talked into pretending to be one of the aristocracy trying to escape the country. She agrees to this ruse and actually it works and she escapes from France. Her boss, the queen, was not so fortunate. 

There are at least two versions about the fictional hero The Scarlet Pimpernel. The 1934 version is the best one, with Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey. The Pimpernel is a nobleman in disguise who frees otherwise doomed aristocrats by means both fair and foul. The whole country seems to know about him and wonder who he is. 

I think most of the films in this article are available to watch somewhere. They are all adult fare.