2023-07-20 12:20:00
On July 20, the film “Jeanne Dubarry” starring Johnny Depp was released to Russian cinemas with the support of Russian World Vision. Kanobu editor Karina Nazarova talks about the problems of the film and how Johnny Depp coped with the role of the scandalous king.
This year, the Cannes Film Festival was opened by a new film by the actress and director Maivenn – “Jeanne Dubarry”. In 2016, Maiwenn left the Côte d’Azur, taking with her the jury prize for the film “My King” with Vincent Cassel in the title role, this time the public took the picture of the Frenchwoman cooler, despite the warmth of its content and the hotness of the tabloids that print about the return of Johnny Depp on scene and role in French.
This costume drama centers on the tender love story of sex worker Jeanne Becu (Maiwenn) and King Louis XV (Johnny Depp) of France. The scandalous ascent of a girl without an outstanding pedigree up the social ladder – from the bottom to the chambers of the king.
In Maiwenn’s eyes, the path of Jeanne Becu is not shameful, but in places even dreamily fabulous. The film begins with a voice-over, Disney-style introducing us to the girl Jeanne, the daughter of the seamstress Anna. Growing up, Jeanne passes the test of beauty – her appearance begins to disturb women and delight the minds of the surrounding men. She decides to use her gift and get out of poverty. Having settled in a brothel, Jeanne meets Count Dubarry (Melville Poupot), whom she will later marry, and he introduces her to Marshal Richelieu (Pierre Richard), who is looking for a new favorite for the loving king in the shady places of Paris. By that time, Jeanne’s beauty was already legendary and for good reason. Once inside the walls of Versailles, she falls in love with Louis XV on the first night. The king and the sex worker defy the conservative subjects with their sinful alliance and destroy relations within the royal family.
Directors can address historical figures in different ways, but it is best not to be cautious, but to act revisionist. Yorgos Lanthimos shot the expressive “Favorite”, showing through the poignant performance of Olivia Colman and Emma Stone the insanity, spoiledness, loss and weakness of the English Queen Anne, the cruelty and greed of her court. Marie Kreutzer in the film “Corsage” turned to the figure of Elisabeth of Bavaria (Sisi) in order to get from the image constructed by historians to a real woman, squeezed into a corset of conservative rules, tightened with threads of loneliness. Or Sofia Coppola, who presented in the cult film “Marie Antoinette” not exactly the true story of the life of the queen in pre-revolutionary France, but girlish melancholy, the excitement of youth and the transformation of a modest princess.
Many directors and directors, filming historical narratives, try to draw parallels with the present. Whether it’s conditional converses that got into the frame, modern manners (Coppola), feminist optics on past events (Kreuzer) or de-aestheticization of royal, colonial luxury (Lantimos), but Maivenn bypasses all these ready-made visionary solutions.
Instead of a modernized historical drama that speaks to the viewer about his own era, Maiwenn naively plunges into a varnished and brilliant past, beautiful and alluring.
Settling the filming process in Versailles, Meiwenn uses every frame to captivate the viewer with the splendor of architecture and decoration, but behind this aesthetic there is a void, and behind the aestheticization – uselessness.
The pomp and meticulous stylization doesn’t really support the main idea of the film. Obviously, Maiwenn wanted to talk about the problems of a woman, but the entire film discusses misogyny with undisguised resentment, pardoning all men for any misdeeds and not forgiving women even one stinging look. Maiwenn very manneredly contrasts the main character with all the women of the royal court, drawing the latter as arrogant misers, as if descended from an encyclopedia of Disney villains. In one of the interviews she sharedthat this movie is partly about envy, which is strange, because the problem of the “envious” ultimately boils down to banality: envious people are villains, because only evil does not appreciate true beauty.
Trying to make a feminist movie with a critical message, the director nevertheless objectifies her heroine, apparently she can. Due to the confusion with the motive and message of the film Maiwenn, in the bottom line from her own performance and action, there are no essential memories left. In the same “Pretty Woman”, with which the film is rightly compared by film critics, there was an anguish, scrapping, traumatic circumstances, but “Jeanne Dubarry” lacks the speed and strength to disperse the drama to its limits, introduce at least one event of a transforming scale into history, make meaningful criticism. The tragedies that befell the life of Jeanne Becu dissolve in a dull play of grief, insults to the world are immediately forgiven with joy, exile remains in the shadows, and the walls of Versailles do not turn into a gloomy dungeon, but could.
Maiwenn calculates from history only convenient facts, beautiful and elegant, forgetting to fit the figure of Jeanne into the context of the pre-revolutionary moods of France.
The woman from the bottom, who became the king’s mistress, was guillotined and betrayed by her closest friend who joined the revolutionaries – Maiwenn leaves this behind the scenes, pronouncing the final biography of the king’s favorite in a lifeless voice, apparently hoping that the story already shown will be enough.
An important embellishment and even counterpoint of the film is Johnny Depp. The role of Louis XV was an opportunity for the actor to return to big cinema after a long lawsuit with ex-wife Amber Heard. Depp decided to draw a line after a scandalous few years with the role of a scandalous monarch, but there is nothing reprehensible in his game. He is very restrained, Maiwenn carefully excludes any vulgar touches from the frame, very competently and gently veils the proximity of the characters, which becomes the key advantage of the film. The director leaves her character and Depp’s character in the frame without unnecessary interactions, they both look like tourists from the future who accidentally ended up in the palace.
Depp in the lens of Maivenn stubbornly plays himself – a gothic romantic with facial expressions and physics of a theater actor.
He deliberately speaks little, even in the most intense scenes he diligently preserves his voice, transferring the center of gravity of words to the body and physiology of his game. Royal gait, manners, restraint Depp, of course, go to the face, but unfortunately in his image it is easy to consider all the past filmography, the past, and not freshness.
Depp managed to play an atypical king in the context of a historical drama: loving in a modern and healthy way, by no means idle, but busy with state affairs, a grieving and depressed king, broken and gradually moving towards the sunset of his days, but able to smile even in moments of despair . Nevertheless, the general poverty of the script does not allow one to confuse a passing role with a triumph and acting victory.
Gardens, magnificent costumes that you can’t take your eyes off, comical cuts into the representation of royal life and playfulness make Jeanne Dubarry a very nice movie, in which, if you really, really wish, you can see glimpses of modernity. Jeanne dresses in a man’s suit, kisses in front of everyone and looks the king in the eye, does whatever she wants and, even being in royal submission, remains an enviably free woman, incredibly loving, caring and kind-hearted. In “Marie Antoinette” by Coppola, the figure of Jeanne Dubarry, played by Asia Argento, appeared differently – more relaxed and vulgar, less cordial and touching. Apparently, the idea of the film Maiwenn was to declare war on this image, in an attempt to cure the unfortunate mistress of Louis XV from the condemning evil eye. To some extent, she succeeded.
After a long scolding at the end of the film, I want to rather gently praise. At least for the fact that despite the expensive scenery of Versailles, the luxury of human ties and love, which is not accessible to everyone, comes to the fore here.
Love that ennobles and gives hope. It is strange, but a melodrama suddenly grew out of a movie about a dramatic historical figure, albeit with an unhappy ending, but with an extremely happy content – maybe this is revisionism? After all, no one shoots like that anymore.
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