Jefferson em Paris

I watched this movie last night. Unbelievably, Channel 4 (tv channel here in the UK) scheduled it at 2.15am - right in the middle of the night! Who on earth is likely to watch it at that time? I just hope some people decided to record it & watch it later.

I think its a great film. I couldn't stop watching it. It gives you an insight into Thomas Jefferson and his personal life, and into the French society of the time. The film is also visually great.

But, as with any movie, it has its flaws. My main criticism is that it was too much like an historical documentary. It didn't have the courage to speculate more about the relationship between Jefferson and Sally (the black slave girl). Jefferson must - in real life - have displayed more emotion with the slave girl than is depicted in this film, especially behind closed doors. Yet we don't see it. We see Jefferson being more affectionate with his daughter (Jefferson hugs her at one point in the film), than with Sally the slave girl, and yet he is supposed to have been passionately involved with Sally & fathered her children. Therefore it has a documentary feel to it, without any fictional element, which leaves the viewer somewhat detached & disconnected.

But credit to the maker's for tackling the subject, and it's certainly made me interested in learning more about the man.

It is documented that John Adams, second President to the United States, loathed Parisian excess and found the endless gossip, parading, and parties to be a bore. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, it is reported, liked Paris much better, and had a reputation of being more of a dandy than is portrayed in this film. Not only is 35% or more of the movie's dialogue in untranslated French, that is, without subtitle either, but the endless tedium of the suffocating excesses of 17th century France are too accutely conveyed. I found Nick Nolte uncompelling and Gwynneth Paltrow's performance doesn't seem like it was fully captured, somehow. The costuming is beautiful and particular attention seems to have been invested in hair and wig styling history. As far as the story goes, though, I kept wondering what Jefferson saw in either his European love interest, or in Sally Hemmings that drove him into the arms of either of them. The accents of all the actors just don't work for me. I didn't buy it that Sally Hemmings would have such a pronounced country accent after living exclusively with Jefferson and his immediate family for such a time, if anything, she would have picked up a French lilt to her speech.

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.

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.

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.