Marie Antoinette

Sofia Coppola worked from Antonia Fraser’s biography Marie Antoinette: The Journey, having first considered Évelyne Lever’s. The shoot had unusual access to Versailles, using the palace and grounds, the Petit Trianon and the Hameau de la Reine, plus Vaux-le-Vicomte and the Château de Chantilly. The costume work is the most concrete thing here. Wardrobe alone needed a crew of 60, seven transport drivers and ten rented houses nearby. Milena Canonero and Coppola kept cuts and silhouettes close to the period while choosing fabrics and colours that deliberately are not; the Converse sneaker in the pile of court shoes is the extreme case. The music does the same: Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order, The Cure and Bow Wow Wow set against Vivaldi and Rameau. Canonero won the Academy Award for it, and costume was the film’s only Oscar nomination. Three BAFTA nominations followed, for costume, makeup and hair, and production design, all lost. It competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and American opening audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a C. A good fit if you would rather watch the daily boredom of court life than a plot, and read the anachronistic music as method. Not for a viewer who wants the causes of the revolution, or any France outside the gates; the camera barely leaves the courtyard.