Lady Oscar

Jacques Demy's movie of Lady Oscar frequently moved me. It is not a "swashbuckler" in spirit, it does not glamourise violence; it is not a movie about "girl power". It is a tragedy that raises important questions about freedom and gender. After becoming father to a series of daughters whose mother dies in childbirth, Général de Jarjayes decides that his latest daughter will in fact be a son, Oscar, and brings her up to be an heir and defender of the de Jarjayes name. He is delighted to find her a position as bodyguard to Marie Antoinette. Oscar is unquestioning of the system into which she is inducted, a bubble of privilege, acid wit, and decadence. She is dutiful and she "knows her place". At the same time the young boy and later groom who was her companion when Oscar grew up seems to have much more class consciousness.

What her gender transformation helps to do is to de-romanticise the material, when Oscar accepts a duel, the result, devoid of machismo, comes off as a banal murder, which is precisely what it is. It is difficult to wholeheartedly see Oscar as an éoniste or transgender hero as her identity as Oscar is created for her by her father. Indeed her self-actualisation is intertwined with her accepting a more female identity. On the other hand she does use her identity as Oscar to react against male society, and becomes a role model for some of the Versailles women.

Oscar, despite adopting a male role, is not free. This is potentially quite an important point of the movie, equality and freedom are not the same thing. Her role is to hang around the wilful and indolent Antoinette, and she develops a strong sense that her life has become meaningless. To become a man is not to have meaning, it's an escape from a trap within a trap, the outer trap being the Ancien Régime in the case of this movie. When Oscar attempts to enter a regiment, her male soldiers refuse to obey her, and her superior officer gives her no support whatever. In any case the regiment only exists to suppress the people.

At a very late stage Oscar finds freedom in an act of defiance. You can feel the weight lift off her shoulders as she spends her first day as a truly free adult, despite residing in a prison cell. This feels very contemporary, freedom is something very few of us are born with, it's something we have to seize, it's profoundly personal and cathartic.

Another reviewer on this site refers to Barry Lyndon as inspiration, "Now the magic of that was its carefully spaced vacuums. It had engineered emptiness, something that only a master could do." That is definitely something Lady Oscar is attempting, in my belief it worked better than my fellow reviewer felt.

A note on historical accuracy. Thomas Jefferson described Marie Antoinette as, "...proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck." That is exactly how she is portrayed in Lady Oscar by Christine Böhm. Jefferson also describes the relationship between the King and the Queen thus, "he had a Queen of absolute sway over his weak mind and timid virtue..." Again this seems to have been very well captured in the movie.

Lady Oscar is a politically complex movie which seems often to have been misjudged by relying on a fruitless comparative analysis with the animé and manga sources of the story. Whilst actually quite serious it does however have its gorgeous moments.

This film is an absolute joke. The acting is so horrible that I got up during the film and went to check IMDb to have some entertainment from all of the scathing reviews I was sure I would find... Well, the critics didn't even bother to review it and the only published review was from a person who is probably related to the director or the producer. This film is so bad, I'm sure 40 years from now it will be a cult film simply for its downright awful acting!

I only read the first few chapters of the Rose of Versailles manga years and years ago, so this review is not coming from the point of view of someone biased against this film on the grounds of inaccuracy to the source material. Because even when measured on its own merits, Lady Oscar (1979)is a weak movie.

It's a shame, because this is a pretty production. The 18th century costumes and lavish sets are wonderfully realized, pastel-colored and almost fairy tale-like. They contrast well with the squalor of the lower classes. Michel Legrand's score is lovely and emotional.

Too bad everything else is borderline terrible. The dialogue ranges between passable and cringe-worthy. Exposition is delivered via clumsy lines and voice-over. The story is epic in scope, yet it rushes through events and years, leaving us little time to get to know the characters since the script is more obsessed with racing to the next plot point.

The acting is not wooden or too over-the-top, but it is incredibly weak all around. No one seems to contain much passion or enthusiasm for the material. The leading lady in particular possesses too little inner strength or charisma to hold our admiration. Heck, she's supposed to be a military officer and yet she cannot mount a horse without aid!

I was disappointed with Jacques Demy's direction, which had little verve or flow to it. It was as distant and disinterested in the action as the performers seemed to be. The editing was especially clumsy and confusing at moments.

The worst aspect of this movie may be the characters and the way they were written. Marie Antoinette is made into an idiot. Louis XVI is antagonistic. Andre is a creepy jerk. And Oscar is unbelievably wimpy for someone so respected by the other characters. Her appearance and manner are also not as androgynous as they should be.

I think this story could have made for a solid swashbuckling melodrama, but as it is, this feels like a lifeless TV movie. While I feel there is a good movie lurking within this mess, the few good things there are cannot save it from mediocrity.

Actually,to correct what another reviewer said(wanting also to correct a supposed error,but making a mistake),the anime "Lady Oscar(Rose of Versailles)" came AFTER the movie(that means almost an year after the movie was made) and WAS ALSO TARGETED TOWARDS THE CHILDREN.So,the movie is based ONLY upon the manga and NOT AT ALL upon the anime.Also,the "historical clichés" aren't "cliches",but REAL HISTORICAL FACTS and I really don't see why the movie shouldn't present them,like the manga did,too. To talk about the movie,as a Lady Oscar's fan,I would consider it somehow average.It has some good-or even very good-parts(the costumes,the sets,the music,some aspects of the play of some characters-I disagree with someone who said that the acting is "incredibly weak all around",because it's clearly not like that!) and some more bad parts(the way in which most of the characters were presented,different from the ones in the original story,the fact that some important events in the story aren't showed at all,the play of some actors,the ending which is an almost complete nonsense).But,in the end,it's,like I said,it's an average movie,though enough fans are,quite rightfully,disappointed of it.

I've watched this movie once over ten years ago and again today. I have also watched the anime and read the manga at different parts of my life and have taken away different things at times.

The movie is called Lady Oscar but it honestly feels more like it should be called "Andre, the manservant" or something else entirely (Rose of Versailles would have been ever more appropriate than Lady Oscar), as Oscar doesn't feel like much of a centerpiece of this movie, we're hardly privy to her thoughts and feelings and it seems to be dictated and stripped of her agency but every other force.

I personally did not dislike the acting this time around, it looks and feels quite theatrical, which can be jarring since the trend has been naturalistic for a long time. The scenes though are very clumsily strung together and don't make sense if you don't have the knowledge of the manga/anime. For example near the end when we see Oscar transfer to the French Guards, they don't respect her. We don't see them again until much later when Oscar and the guards are stationed against the peasants and Oscar refuses to attack the people and the guards somehow follow her. What the movie decided not to show was the relationship Oscar built with the guards and gained their respect.

In general the movie despite being called Lady Oscar failed to show the qualities that make Oscar stand out as a character and that still stands out despite the passage of time. Oscar has a lot of internal conflict in the original source as well as physical prowess due to her training from a young age, she is also educated as she is a noble and very aware of the ideas of the revolutionaries. Instead in this movie Oscar's qualities are transferred onto Andre for some reason, elevating him to a totally different status and playing up the old tired cliche of the man saving the damsel in distress.

Regardless, I can understand that an adaptation is not always meant to be faithful and directors like to focus on specific themes of the original source and such a projected can be appreciated as a stand alone thing. This is where it hits the mark once more. This movie cannot stand alone and make sense or appear well-rounded. As I mentioned earlier the scenes are strung together clumsily and a lot of important stuff is mentioned and glossed over, and to think this movie is two hours. You cannot focus on both Marie Antoinette and Oscar in just two hours unless you do a masterful job of combining both sides, which could work I believe and of course you'd have to cut a big chunk of the manga and alter even more of it than has already been altered, which I would not be opposed to if it guaranteed a movie that could be watched, appreciated and evaluated as a stand alone piece.

Unfortunately though the movie requires you have some understanding of the happenings of the manga/anime that it refuses to spend more time on and its female lead is hardly likeable if you're a fan.

The actors also feel rather miscast, with Oscar appearing in full makeup for some reason and looking positively delicate and Andre looking quite macho despite being much more lithe in appearance and submissive in behavior. Marie Antoinette is also rather young and foolish, but her actress appears a lot older, which might be an informed choice to magnify her impulsiveness and lack of seriousness and understanding of the situation.

I feel like this would have worked a lot more as a theatrical play perhaps than a movie. For me it seems to lack the understanding of what makes the original appealing and especially a character like Oscar who you never see. And even if they decided to focus on themes instead of a character study, I feel like there are a lot more poignant movies out there with similar themes that work a lot better as a movie.

The ending was atrocious.