La reine Margot
La jeune reine Margot se retrouve piégée dans un mariage arrangé au milieu d'une guerre de religion entre catholiques et protestants. Elle espère s'échapper avec un nouvel amant, mais se ret... Tout lireLa jeune reine Margot se retrouve piégée dans un mariage arrangé au milieu d'une guerre de religion entre catholiques et protestants. Elle espère s'échapper avec un nouvel amant, mais se retrouve emprisonnée par sa famille impitoyable.La jeune reine Margot se retrouve piégée dans un mariage arrangé au milieu d'une guerre de religion entre catholiques et protestants. Elle espère s'échapper avec un nouvel amant, mais se retrouve emprisonnée par sa famille impitoyable.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Nommé pour 1 Oscar
- 9 victoires et 16 nominations au total
- Guise
- (as Miguel Bosè)
- Condé
- (as Jean-Philippe Ecoffey)
Avis à la une
In all this horror is the rather cute tale of the relationship between two disparate personalities thrown together in marriage, Catherine's daughter Margo and Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV of France, and one of its better kings). Margo is repulsed at first sight by Henry `the peasant' while Henry rightly regards her as about as loving as a trapped tiger. Yet they reach an accommodation and finish up friends. Both have other lovers (and both respect that) but neither can prevent the lovers from coming to sticky ends.
It's always a bit hard to assess the acting when you are relying on sub-titles (if only the French didn't speak so fast) but Isabella Adjani at the age of 40 pulled off a remarkable job and had me convinced she really was a spoilt, willful little nymphomaniac in her early 20's. She looked as young as she did in the `Story of Adele H' 20 years earlier. Daniel Auteuil was also excellent as the unprepossessing but very intense and quick-thinking Henry. Virna Lisi, a sex symbol in her earlier film career, made a good villainess as Catherine. Most of the other principals seem to have been chosen for their looks by rent-an-ego casting though Jean-Huges Anglade was suitably pathetic as the doomed King Charles.
The rather claustrophobic sets brought home the medieval lack of privacy, even (perhaps especially) in royal palaces the old Louvre was about as spacious as the loo. The film fades a bit in the second half, but it's still not a bad story, if at times a bit difficult to follow. I have to say I found `Elizabeth' more interesting and a lot less bloody. Anyway, `Margo' is very French, and not to be judged by Hollywood standards (whatever they are).
The movie concerns the machinations leading up to the event as well as portraying the massacre and the after effects. I'm not going to say more, as I don't want to spoil it for the viewer. However, I will say that the writing, acting and pacing of this film were excellent and kept my attention throughout. This fictionalized account of this true-life tragedy is compelling.
Then I went home to my apartment and when I turned on the TV, I got to watch torture, mutilation, immolation, throwing naked bodies in the river, all because people were of the wrong group. This time it was in Rwanda.
Catholics and Huguenots, Hutus and Tutsis, Seine or Nile, we haven't progressed very far in a half millennium.
The movie was a bit complicated, but it seemed to catch the the politics and the scheming that was taking place in the French court at the time as well as the horror of the massacre. But it is also a movie of our times: the message that civilization is only a hair-trigger away from from the most savage acts of barbarism. And that we haven't stopped even yet. The timing and the message were an accident, and made all the more vivid for it.
I highly recommend the movie for the performances but also for the message.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesPatrice Chéreau edited the original cut of the film (roughly 160 minutes) to a shorter 138 minutes for international release. This was due to the disappointing box-office performance in France and the criticism (by, among others, Variety critic Todd McCarthy) of the film as being too violent and often incoherent. The French press were scathing of this 'American censorship' (they described the film as having been 'given a face-lift' for American audiences), but the new version was defended by various French critics being both more coherent whilst also maintaining Chereau's artistic vision. The shorter cut was later released in France too, in the hopes of increasing the film's box-office takings. 20 years later, Chereau slightly re-edited his film again and re-mastered it for a new BluRay release with a running time of 161 minutes. This was one of Chereau's last completed acts before his untimely death, so it can be regarded as the definitive version.
- GaffesLa Mole is shot in the legs and the wounds and bloodstains are visible as he goes to execution. But when Margot views his semi-naked corpse, his legs are unmarked.
- Citations
Charles IX: One who gives life is no longer a mother once she takes that life back.
- ConnexionsFeatured in The 52nd Annual Golden Globe Awards (1995)
Meilleurs choix
Détails
Box-office
- Budget
- 42 000 000 DEM (estimé)
- Montant brut aux États-Unis et au Canada
- 1 304 237 $US
- Week-end de sortie aux États-Unis et au Canada
- 4 985 $US
- 11 mai 2014
- Montant brut mondial
- 1 318 578 $US