Sophia Coppola's latest film, "Marie Antoinette," traces the life of the young, beautiful, reviled, and perhaps misunderstood young Austrian royal who became the Queen of France. Coppola, whose films focus on the private lives of young women (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation), investigates the life of this "teen queen" beyond the decadence, the frills, the fashion, and the gossip that often follows a young celebutante, to use the modern day vernacular.
The film couldn't come into the public realm at a better time. At the same time that it calls into question our own modern decadence and reliance on material aesthetics to bring us happiness, it is also the catalyst for a new slew of aesthetic desires and creations in the fashion world. Coppola's film has set off a new trend - a return to frills and decadence. Whereas last year's fashion trends followed the bohemian stylings of Mary-Kate Olsen, this years trends turn on the reimagined lives of disenchanted royals. VOGUE magazine devoted a good portion of its fall issue to the teen queen, with Kirsten Dunst, her avatar on the cover, with articles inside by the likes of Kennedy Fraser re-examining Marie's life. Books are filling the shelves at bookstores as well.
The cultural phenomenon this film has touched off is amazing to me. I just hope that while enjoying the beauty on the surface, we as viewers follow though for Coppola by critically thinking about Marie Antoinette, no just as a political figure or a symbol of royal hedonism, but as a young woman living in a complex time, thrown into a complex situation at a very young age.
Here are some sites to check out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/books/review/Schillinger.t.html
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/marieantoinette/index.html
http://www.chateauversailles.fr/en/240_Marie-Antoinette.php
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