Jefferson in Paris

...and the old one collapsing.How tempting!Jefferson,who epitomizes democracy and freedom visiting the old wreck,France on the eve of revolution.

Ivory's precedent works were masterpieces (Howards end and remnants of the day)but they took place in England and they were not really historical,even if "remnants" made a fine blend of the historical background with the storybook elements.When it comes to history,and mainly French history,all we get here is a full load of clichés:Marie-Antoinette, playing with her flock of sheep,Doctor Guillotin,showing his new machine (he used to say that the condemned person could feel a nice fresh sensation before dying!),La Fayette and his wife Adrienne,and of course,the de rigueur lines (c'est une révolte?Non sire,c'est une révolution").The only daring gesture,so to speak,is the puppet theater,but even that was already in Ettore Scola's "la nuit de Varennes",(1982)with much more finesse,at that.A lot of French actors appear,which is the least Ivory could do but they are not always well cast:Michel Lonsdale is a very competent one,but he's too old to be a credible king (64 when Louis XVI was about 30!)Charlotte de Turckheim is an ugly Marie-Antoinette and some scenes in which she appears ,probably influenced by "Fellini-Casanova" (1977),do not help. This is Jean-Pierre Aumont's farewell to the screen (he was in Carné's "hotel du nord" in 1938!)in a very small part:I thought he was playing Mirabeau,but actually it's an obscure D'Hancarville.Lambert Wilson ,on the other hand,is a good choice for La Fayette,but h,most of the time,he's reduced to a walk-on.

As for the American side of the story,of course,Ivory focuses on slavery,and deservedly so.The French cannot understand that a country so in love with freedom could approve of such a thing.But it finally boils down to Nolte-and-black babe affair and it's overlong and tedious.The first scene between Jefferson and the abbess promised great things.But it's a disappointment when they meet again towards the end.

All in all,this is a lavish production,which is sometimes entertaining,but which lacks epic strength and has missed its date with

destiny.

We are invited here to see some of the more infrequently discussed aspects of the multifaceted Thos. Jefferson: architect, scientist, horticulturalist. Less of these perhaps than we might like, but more than we usually receive. Jefferson the scientist is mostly implied -- he witnesses one of the early Montgolfier ballooning experiments, for example.

The primary focus is on the contentious matter of Jefferson's affairs of the heart. These include, most notably, a speculative miscegenetic one, but there is a second one, better documented, for contrast. Even if one suspects that the decision to direct attention here was primarily a commercial one, those portions of the film are well enough executed, while the creators, Prawer Jhabvala and Ivory, do provide us with a little seasoned food for the intellect, both here and elsewhere.

"Jefferson in Paris" does contain a few speech anachronisms but otherwise seems to have found the flavour of the period. Altogether, not an exceptional film, but one which has much to recommend it.

I love this movie, because I am a complete sucker for movies set in the 18th century, and this is exceptionally well done. Nick Nolte is the most extremely unlikely choice to play Jefferson, but somehow he and the director make it work. The extensive selections from Jefferson's letters as he watches things unravel in France add a great deal to the entertainmnet value.

Most people think that TJ signed the Constitution, when in fact he was US ambassador to France. From a costume point of view and in terms of certain vignettes, this movie does a marvelous job of debunking that notion.

Now to the Sally Hemmings thing. DNA evidence does not lie, and it is now clear that he did indeed father her children. But I have a problem, and I'm not sure if there is any historical resolution to it. In the movie, she is a "massah, how's you feelin' today" type slave. I'm willing to accept that they fell mutually in love, but I'm still having a hard time dealing with her not having more class. It is a mistake to believe that slaves of relatively enlightened owners (yes, folks, I know what I'm saying) had no sophistication.

Dumas Malone, the great biographer of Jefferson, would go into an apoplexy if you raised the possibility of this affair being real. Now that we know that it was, I might be his unworthy successor in suggesting that a man like Jefferson would not simply take a steppinfetchit slave girl to his bed, but would rather seek comfort in the arms of someone whom he could respect, however questionable the situation looks in a modern light.

This is a screen account, directed by James Ivory, of a fascinating historical episode - Thomas Jefferson's period as US ambassador in Paris for the five years leading up to the 1789 revolution. Many Americans may be put off the film, because they do not accept its assumption that Jefferson was the father of children born to his young slave Sally Hemings. Non-Americans may be less interested in this arguable relationship than in the undoubted fact that Jefferson - a passionate believer in individual liberty and draftsman of the Declaration of Independence with its ringing references to equality and inalienable rights - was a slave-owner, and that he could justify his two-way stance (at least to himself).

Jefferson also displays double-think when, though a fierce defender of religious liberty, he stops his pious, dutiful daughter Patsy (Martha) -an admirable portrayal by Gyneth Paltrow in a difficult role - from converting to Catholicism and joining a convent. Overall, Jefferson does not come out of the movie too well. In addition to revealing him as a child-molesting hypocrite, Ruth Jhabvala's scenario allows Nick Nolte to convey the tentative and observant side of Jefferson's character, but gives him scant opportunity to bring out the depth and breadth of Jefferson's mind or his political philosophy.

In addition to the visual delights of costume and setting that we have learned to expect from Merchant-Ivory productions, the most successful aspect of the movie is the all-but love affair between Jefferson and witty, charming Maria Cosway - the wife of a foppish English artist (Simon Callow in full make-up) - a role in which Greta Scacchi lights up the screen. By contrast, Thandie Newton has been criticised for her awkward hamming as Sally, but it should be remembered that she is playing an uneducated 14 or 15 year old girl.

Perhaps the movie's worst features are the "framing" sequences set in the late 19th century, where a Jefferson/Hemings descendent (James Earl Jones) relates his family history to a newspaper reporter. If these superfluous scenes had been cut, perhaps there would have been time to go deeper into Jefferson's politics, which after all is why the man is remembered today.

So many of the negative comments seem to be reactions against either downplaying or overemphasizing Jefferson's relationship with Sally. It strikes me that this is a reasonably balanced presentation of what's been learned in recent years. Other negative critiques are the disappointments recorded by patriots expecting some grandiose pageant for Fourth of July consumption. But this is all-in-all a less pretentious and better film than the typical celebration of Americana. Nolte presents Jefferson as an idealistic but very human being. Paltrow is very persuasive as Patsy, and many of the rest of the cast present excellent (or well-proportioned) characterizations. Except for some trivial inaccuracies, this is a richly textured reconstruction of history as it may very well have occurred. I find that I look in on it just about every time it pops up on cable--and I'm always rewarded.