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Andrzej Wajda's "Danton" (1983) used the French Revolution as a metaphor for events then taking place in communist Poland, as the "Solidarity" trade union/social movement was trying to stand up in the face of suppression by Jaruzelski's government. In Wajda's words:

"'Danton' was produced on commission from Gaumont, and originally was to be produced in Poland. The imposition of martial law on the 13th of December [1981], and the ban on gatherings of more than three people, made production in our country impossible. However, owing to Margaret Menegoz's enormous efforts, we were able to transfer the whole project to Paris, taking with us some of the Polish actors and a small group of co-workers.

"...Before we began filming in Paris, while "Solidarity" was still functioning in Poland, Gérard Depardieu came to Warsaw for one day to see the revolution, and especially, to see its leaders at the moment just before the collapse of their undertaking.

"I wanted Depardieu to see the face of Revolution - inhumanly tired, with eyes wide open, suddenly falling asleep and never fully sleeping. Depardieu, guided by Krystyna Zachwatowicz, stood for a long moment in the hall of the Mazowsze Region headquarters with its endlessly milling crowds, where the history of those days was being created... No words and no director could have made a better job of introducing Gérard to the subject of my new film Danton than the scene which he saw with his own eyes." (http://www.wajda.pl" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

During this period, the media were placed under military management, and thousands of journalists (especially Solidarity sympathizers) were banned from practicing their profession. Hence the several allusions in "Danton" to suppression of free press. ("Martial Law in Poland": Wikipedia)

zedz wrote:I saw this once a long time ago and wasn't too impressed: a well-heeled, respectable history pic, still the right side of Europudding, but nothing I've been desperate to resee.

GringoTex wrote:What he said, plus Depardieu in period is as bad as Brando in period.

zedz wrote:

GringoTex wrote:What he said, plus Depardieu in period is as bad as Brando in period.

I'm trying to think of an exception, but you're probably right. He's even a weak link in Sous le soleil de Satan.

GringoTex wrote:

zedz wrote:I saw this once a long time ago and wasn't too impressed: a well-heeled, respectable history pic, still the right side of Europudding, but nothing I've been desperate to resee.

What he said, plus Depardieu in period is as bad as Brando in period.

Zazou dans le Metro wrote:As for GD's period outings. Cyrano, Tous les Matins, Colonel Chabert, Martin Guerre. Are they really so reviled?

LQ wrote:I watched both Danton and Martin Guerre in a French film class a few years ago, and enjoyed the latter much more. Maybe someone here will object, but I don't see Danton having much appeal for anyone who doesn't "enjoy" the history of the Reign of Terror.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Those video interviews must be really long, or they are spreading this film and the extras quite thinly over two discs.

Polybius wrote:It's been a few years for me, but it seemed rather Neocon when I saw it. A bit too much in the Burke-Dostoyevsky Revolution = Meddling With The Natural Order And Leads Inevitably To Dictatorship vein for me.

Polybius wrote:Having a crummy regime imposed by force on the country from without by another crummy, foreign regime doesn't really qualify as an indictment of all revolutions in history. I sympathize with his anger but not the conclusions he seems to reach in reaction to it.

MichaelB wrote:I'm not talking about "a crummy regime imposed by force", which happened in 1944-45

I'm talking specifically about the events of 1978-81, which which Wajda was closely involved and which were entirely internal to Poland. I'm talking about the vast and unprecedented success of Solidarity, the closest thing to a genuine mass revolutionary movement in 20th-century Polish history - and its seemingly near-total suppression mere weeks before the film started shooting.

Polybius wrote:It's possible that I'm just projecting, but the film seemed like it was in sympathy with a total abandonment of the idea of any sort of political and historical progress, in line with the long standing Conservative line of criticism of the French Revolution in particular and the Enlightenment era, especially as it's represented in Rousseau's thought, in general.

He seemed to suggest that Danton (who is clearly a more appealing historical figure than Robespierre...the Martov to Robespierre's Lenin, the Jefferson to his Adams, to use a couple of [very] rough parallels) is ultimately wrong in placing his faith in the ideas of the Revolution and that Robespierre, as ruthless as he is, understands the nature of the game better and thus "wins." I happily confess that I could be off base in drawing this conclusion, but if I'm not, that sort of cynicism is something that I simply can't, in the end, get behind, no matter how well it's executed.

Polybius wrote:It's possible that I'm just projecting, but the film seemed like it was in sympathy with a total abandonment of the idea of any sort of political and historical progress, in line with the long standing Conservative line of criticism of the French Revolution in particular and the Enlightenment era, especially as it's represented in Rousseau's thought, in general.

MichaelB wrote:I think it's extraordinarily unlikely that Wajda would have subscribed to that particular view.

Bete_Noire wrote:

Polybius wrote:It's possible that I'm just projecting, but the film seemed like it was in sympathy with a total abandonment of the idea of any sort of political and historical progress, in line with the long standing Conservative line of criticism of the French Revolution in particular and the Enlightenment era, especially as it's represented in Rousseau's thought, in general.

I know you may have written that paragraph in haste, but Conservatives (both in the Burkean sense and modern American parlance) do not reject political or historical progress, and Rousseau was not a Conservative.

I think you may have read that paragraph in haste. I've bolded the key part above. There has always been a front of conservative criticism (maybe it's a kind of conservatism you don't agree with, but it's still there), of the Enlightment, especially as it was embodied in Rousseau's ideas.

dmk_world wrote:I don't think it's Wajda's best film, but it is a handsome production.

I've noticed that a few of Wajda's films were incredibly badly made (The Conductor), which seem like he didn't bother trying.

Danton was well made, though it is quite the dire film - though at times incredibly powerful.

Bete_Noire wrote:

I think you may have read that paragraph in haste. I've bolded the key part above. There has always been a front of conservative criticism (maybe it's a kind of conservatism you don't agree with, but it's still there), of the Enlightment, especially as it was embodied in Rousseau's ideas.

No, because in your original post, you capitalized Conservative which muddled what you might have been asserting. While certain aspects of Rousseau's thought might be characterized as conservative (in the generic sense, i.e., "resisting change"), he had little to do with Conservatism as a mode of political thought or disposition as exemplified by Edmund Burke or David Hume, or for more contemporary examples, Michael Oakeshott and Russell Kirk. The Conservative critique of the Enlightenment does not reject progress, as you claimed; nor does it romanticize the "noble savage" (a term he did not use himself, yet still accurately represents his thought) as Rousseau did.