La nobildonna e il duca

This film from Eric Rohmer is very, very unusual. While it's not unusual to use matte paintings to create effects (such as to paint in buildings in the background to cover up modern skyscrapers for period films), here Rohmer uses another technique--one I have never seen before in a full-length film. The movie makes no attempt to blend in what is real and what isn't. Instead, in many scenes, you have folks walking within giant paintings which appear to have been painted during the 18th century--when the film was to have occurred. It is VERY striking and very unusual--and you can't help but notice it.

The story is an essentially true story about a woman named Grace Elliott--a very, very interesting lady. She was the mistress of the future King George IV of Britain and after giving birth to an illegitimate child, she left to live in France. There she became the mistress of the King of France's cousin, the Duke of Orleans. However, the timing for all this was very poor. That's because a few years later, the French Revolution arrived--and her now ex-lover, the Duke, begs her to leave the country. She insists she's safe and time passes. And, as time passes, the country becomes more paranoid and more self-destructive--killing off aristocrats and foreigners in the wake of a now insane revolution.

At this point in time, the Duke and Elliott have changed. Now, the liberal-minded Duke has embraced the Revolution and is an official in its new government. She, on the other hand, is a die-hard royalist who really should keep her opinions to herself. Yet, despite their different paths, they remained friends--though there was a lot of tension between them, as the Duke eventually consented to the execution of the King--something Elliott had a hard time forgiving. What's next for this unusual lady? See for yourself in this excellent film.

The film was based in part on the autobiography of Elliott--which was published after her death. Earlier I said the story is ESSENTIALLY true because I did some reading and found that she had a tendency to sometimes 'embellish' the facts, though what's in the film is what occurred. Overall, a fascinating look into the insanity of the French Revolution and at a particularly unusual woman. Well worth seeing.

I found this film quite fascinating apart from the fact that it is a well acted, structured story. Set in revolutionary France it tells the struggles of a Scottish emigre royalist and her life during the revolution and her somewhat complicated relationship with a former lover a aristocratic Duke with revolutionary sympathies. Despite being a revolutionary politician the Duke is eventually consumed too by the revolution.

The film is fascinating on several levels. The relationship between the Lady and the Duke is at some levels a doomed love story. They are interestingly former not current lovers but continue to have fond (if not strong) regard for each other despite differing political viewpoints and comprimised actions during the ups and downs of the revolution & I found it interesting watching the strains placed on this relationship by the buffeting of historical events. I think this relationship is at the core of the film. Though I did enjoy the political side of the film. It is somewhat refreshing to see a historical epic from the side of the losers (the despised aristocracy). Rohmer resists the obvious counter point in the film of the film in showing a side/viewpoint of the poor majority. Maybe he assumed that most film goers would be aware of the social/political/economic conditions that lead to the revolution. Whatever the reason I think the film is stronger for it because we see the events through the eyes of the Lady and the fear and terror of the Royalists (and moderate revolutionaries ultimately consumed by the more extreme fires of radicalism). The victims are shown as human beings and not some carictures.

Having said that I enjoyed some of the ambiguities of the film. The aristocrat the lady helps is someone she held no particular high regard for in the Royalist days, and indeed first helps him only out of a sense of duty. Even Robiespierre, the radical, is shown briefly in the film. Instead of some frothing of the mouth caricture he is shown as a focused almost reasonable type. He stops one of his underlings arresting the Lady at a revolutionary tribunal saying the revolution has more important things to worry about. I think possibly these interesting ambiguities arise from the fact the story is based on the actual experiences of the Scottish Lady who transcribed them after her eventual escape to Britain after the revolution.

Finally a commendation to the two actors (the Lady and the Duke) who I really enjoyed. The Duke was particulary good,he was the right mixture of idealist,charmer and self important but endearing pomposity and you can see why despite all his faults the Lady was still hung up on him.

Eric Rohmer seems to have wanted to produce a docudrama, and has made a very interesting go of it. As film fiction, it's not very good, and not even the camera work is engaging. However, many of the film's qualities are worth considering. That gritty, antique, and "real" Paris we crave is by now a cliché. However, Rohmer's computer-enhanced tableaux of revolutionary Paris, by contrast, effectively evoke period art. Indeed they are filmed engravings. Do they "work"? Perhaps not as any sort of realism; however, they remind us that this film is history and philosophy, not just drama. I felt that their deliberate alienation was interesting. The growing terror of the revolution is Rohmer's chief concern. In this film, it is palpable and fearsome, and evokes some of the totalitarianisms of the 20th century. There is certainly a story arc and as much dramatic tension as anyone could ask for. The trial scene is both exciting and intimate. The actor Dreyfus gives a luminous performance -- passionate, thoughtful, riveting. Although this film takes a long time to get itself unwound, one might even be captivated -- de-captivated! -- by the end.

"The Lady and the Duke" is based on a true story and taken directly from the memoirs of Grace Elliott, a well-to-do Scottish woman who lived in France during the French Revolution. The film concentrates on her months in Paris during the later years of the revolution (1793-1794), better known as the Reign of Terror. Director Eric Rohmer took the unusual and odd step of filming his actors superimposed over 18th Century scenic paintings. Perhaps it was his intention to contrast these inanimate objects with the real-life pain and utter misery of his subjects' existence. Lucy Russell is elegant and believable as Grace Elliott, a woman torn between loyalties to an old lover and her former aristocratic way of life. As the Revolution becomes more horrific, she sees all her friends who haven't been wise enough to leave France annihilated, and begins to wish she had left the country herself. Jean-Claude Dreyfus is also excellent as the Duke of Orleans, Grace's former lover who still remains a close friend. Although a royal himself, he makes the ruinous decision to vote for the King's death which has disastrous results for both himself and his country. Grace and the Duke's relationship are the centerpiece of the movie juxtaposed against the changing times and the coming doom and radical phase of the Terror. Director Rohmer's movie is both exquisitely mounted and historically knowledgeable. He has taken one of history's more volatile times and brought the audience into all the suffering and injustices of that period. Although one might need to know a bit of history regarding the French Revolution beforehand, this movie can still be viewed by anyone who has sympathy for the human condition. Man's inhumanity to Man is well on display in "The Lady and the Duke".

This is quite an amazing film to watch. Using digital technology, the director, Rohmer, has literally encrusted his living actors into painted backdrops. Most of the time this works brilliantly, especially at the start where the film is like a pop up story book come to life. It is less successful in a few scenes, where it limits camera angles (they had not painted the side of some of the buildings for example) but it is a very interesting way to film a historical film which is as much about our own misconceptions and limited views of history as History itself. It is narrated using the memoirs of the Duc d'Orleans' ex- mistress, Grace Elliott. So, an event usually claimed as one of their own by Marxist historians, especially in France, is here told from the point of view of a female aristocratic foreigner. Inevitably a different point of view emerges -there can be no objective representation. The use of the memoirs device does give the film a rather episodic quality. Personally, I found the story line around the King's death the most interesting. A staunch Royalist she is shocked when the Duc votes for the King's death (a basic knowledge of the French Revolution is probably helpful to follow the dialogue between Grace and the Duc here. He was Louis's cousin and had himself elected to the Assembly, where he promptly changed his name to Philip Equality). The filming of Louis's death is masterly. Grace and her maidservant are in Meudon, out of Paris, watching from a hill with a telescope. We do not see the execution, we only hear the maid's commentary, like Grace. The most dramatic event of the Revolution happens off screen. Grace cannot bear to watch her king be killed. Her view is that of an aristocrat. Any justification of Louis's death is literally beyond her vision. This is powerful, keenly intelligent film making. The love story between the duc and Grace is insinuated, never told, and is powerfully moving (tho the Duc does seem a bit of a pompous fool at times; what does she see in him? No accounting for taste). The undercurrents of madness (simply existing being enough to be a suspect) that sweep individuals along in a time such as the Revolution are illustrated as Grace's life is turned upside down, her house is searched daily, yet she still orders her servants to cook her food and is incapable of dressing herself! If you have any interest at all in a subtle, well told film, making clever use of new technology to tell an old tale, or the representation of a pivotal moment in Europe's history narrated by an aristocratic foreign woman, its ultimate outsider, then this is well worth your time. It is a little slow in places but your patience is amply rewarded.