"MARIE ANTOINETTE"


I had no strong preconceptions of this film, but there are large areas of coincidence between my daughter's tastes and mine, so off we went, 150 kms. to the nearest large town where we could find it playing. Utterly unexpectedly, I spent the next 118 minutes in tears or close to it. Nor was I just having an emotional day. The next three viewings produced the same result - the experiment was reproducible.

It's not much consolation for the makers that one day this film will be taught in film school. There is a correlation though for its patchy public, and critical, reception – anybody doing anything important or wonderful these days, is on their own. Maybe it's always been like that. Whether it's the Effect of Forest Clearance on Rainfall, or the Music of Fela Kuti, you are the only person in the whole Solar System peddling it, and your audience will stare at you like a dog that's just been shown a card trick, as Bill Hicks puts it. So, there was a big difference of opinions about “Marie Antoinette”. Either ten stars or one, and not many of the ten. It's not your standard plot-driven film, and I think this takes care of some of the one-stars. Some people would no doubt have been pointed the wrong way, looking at the side wall for 2 hours perhaps - heavens, in a mass society, intelligent people can be as stupid as anyone else. Who knows. The Dog & Card-Trick is definitely one of the Weird Phenomena of our times.

To appreciate the film, it would be a help to have experienced a good rock concert at least once in your life. It would also be a big help to appreciate paintings, architecture, trees, dress. I'm not making excuses for the one-stars - but a taste for van Damme is not a big help here. And so the first time I saw it, I was in tears for most of the time, not because of the inevitable historical ending, which I found I was able to forget about, but because the thing was so beautiful - every square centimetre of every shot, and there's a lot of shots. This is extraordinary even amongst 'painterly' film makers, but Sofia Coppola using Versailles was one of the tremendous features of the story and film - Doing the Obvious Thing being one of the symptoms of genius.

There is drama through the entire film, but it's the perfectly sustained drama of a great rock and roll concert where all the pieces - moments, moves, dress, lighting, poses, music - float with perfect and equal poise, knit together by what ? Style, energy, the 'moment' - something that may not even have a name. That's fine and right too – it's music, it's film; a lot of it escapes the net of words. There are dramatic moments in the film, but they are optical - the opening of a flower in a cup of tea, a fish on a platter, a spreading tree, a facade suffused by the setting sun, an elephant, fireworks. The film moves like a river, until, in what seems like three awful steps, it goes over the falls, leaving us with the blinding reflection of the sun off the lake, for all that Once Was Beautiful.

The intensity of those times in recent cultural history where fun and innocence have held sway – the 60's, or more recent party seasons – have often made for great music, but only very occasionally unforgettable films. “24 Hour Party People” in part, and then you have to go to “Yellow Submarine” - or something. Generally the moods that were the '60's, or the ecstasy generation, have spawned almost nothing except music, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, and bits of movies - which usually turn sour in the end. One of the most potent of social upheavals is not reproduceable in the literate media, and so leaves a strange lack of trace. Sofia Coppola is one of the very few to nail it, with one of those things that rock is great at – the swan-song.

Kirsten Dunst's sweet and wry is one of the faces of today's and tomorrow's parties. It's a good face, and take on the world. It knows about the bad stuff, but will be delighted with the good nevertheless. Her artless acting is a key to the tone of the whole film - the artless singing of Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow, in “Fools Rush In”, the artless carelessness of accents – which makes impossible the blunders of continuity or characterisation of dogged, 'serious' acting. (It helps mind you, that these artless actors are very good actors.) The much-criticised 'unreflective' attitude is precisely the point of the film. Studied is often Contrived, Unreflective is often Grace, even - paradoxically - at the Petit Trianon.

It helps the seamlessness of the film that the director seems to have telepathic communication with a phenomenal, largely French, Art Department. The entrance of Marie Antoinette, stepping out of the French side of the tent, in the pale blue dress with the off-centre hat, is just the first moment of visual, rock and roll drama. You almost expect her to break into “Sweet Jane”. At this point it should have been obvious to everybody that this film was going to demand of us a different set of responses than the standard historical or plot-driven movie.

Le Petit Trianon is the state of grace of the Party Season. The delightfully flippant wit - “I love your hairdo – what's going on there ?” / “Oh the chickens are out – fabulous !” may not have endeared the film to the “serious” critics. It's wonderfully ironic that these negative critics are also themselves demographically First-World - affluent, shop-a-holic, middle-class, self-indulgent and 'me-generation'. We never like our faults in others. Many of them, oddly, knocked the film for not being a historical narrative, which its body language never promised for a second, although it probably got a lot of the atmospherics perfectly. You might as well knock it for not being a documentary on penguins. Even those that liked it, seemed to miss the point at just about every opportunity. Can these people find no other work ?

The distorted grimaces of the Court, turned into those of the movie-industry Court at Cannes, whose weird features morphed further - into the faces of the mob calling for the head of Sofia Coppola. Great art affects external reality, plays with synchronicity, mirrors the times. Again, a demonstration that we sail on a Ship of Fools, and of course the good cliché – as so many are - that major work is rarely well received in its time.

In the final act, like the hero of a formal tragedy, Marie Antoinette grows up. She faces her duty. Much like the account of these events in “An Adventure” - a real ghost story - the light-and-shade contrast disappears, the colours fade, the cast thins out, then darkness, with a final flash of glorious light. Et In Arcadia Ego.

If the decade produces another film as affecting, it will have exceeded its contractual obligation.

“MARIE ANTOINETTE”  I had no strong preconceptions of this film, but there are large areas of coincidence between my daughter's tastes and mine, so off we went, 150 kms. to the nearest large town where we could find it playing. Utterly unexpectedly, I spent the next 118 minutes in tears or close to it. Nor was I just having an emotional day. The next three viewings produced the same result - the experiment was reproducible. It's not much consolation for the makers that one day this film will be taught in film school. There is a correlation though for its patchy public, and critical, reception – anybody doing anything important or wonderful these days, is on their own. Maybe it's always been like that. Whether it's the Effect of Forest Clearance on Rainfall, or the Music of Fela Kuti, you are the only person in the whole Solar System peddling it, and your audience will stare at you like a dog that's just been shown a card trick, as Bill Hicks puts it. So, there was a big difference of opinions about “Marie Antoinette”. Either ten stars or one, and not many of the ten. It's not your standard plot-driven film, and I think this takes care of some of the one-stars. Some people would no doubt have been pointed the wrong way, looking at the side wall for 2 hours perhaps - heavens, in a mass society, intelligent people can be as stupid as anyone else. Who knows. The Dog & Card-Trick is definitely one of the Weird Phenomena of our times.  To appreciate the film, it would be a help to have experienced a good rock concert at least once in your life. It would also be a big help to appreciate paintings, architecture, trees, dress. I'm not making excuses for the one-stars - but a taste for van Damme is not a big help here. And so the first time I saw it, I was in tears for most of the time, not because of the inevitable historical ending, which I found I was able to forget about, but because the thing was so beautiful - every square centimetre of every shot, and there's a lot of shots. This is extraordinary even amongst 'painterly' film makers, but Sofia Coppola using Versailles was one of the tremendous features of the story and film - Doing the Obvious Thing being one of the symptoms of genius.  There is drama through the entire film, but it's the perfectly sustained drama of a great rock and roll concert where all the pieces - moments, moves, dress, lighting, poses, music - float with perfect and equal poise, knit together by what ? Style, energy, the 'moment' - something that may not even have a name. That's fine and right too – it's music, it's film; a lot of it escapes the net of words. There are dramatic moments in the film, but they are optical - the opening of a flower in a cup of tea, a fish on a platter, a spreading tree, a facade suffused by the setting sun, an elephant, fireworks. The film moves like a river, until, in what seems like three awful steps, it goes over the falls, leaving us with the blinding reflection of the sun off the lake, for all that Once Was Beautiful. The intensity of those times in recent cultural history where fun and innocence have held sway – the 60's, or more recent party seasons – have often made for great music, but only very occasionally unforgettable films. “24 Hour Party People” in part, and then you have to go to “Yellow Submarine” - or something. Generally the moods that were the '60's, or the ecstasy generation, have spawned almost nothing except music, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, and bits of movies - which usually turn sour in the end. One of the most potent of social upheavals is not reproduceable in the literate media, and so leaves a strange lack of trace. Sofia Coppola is one of the very few to nail it, with one of those things that rock is great at – the swan-song.  Kirsten Dunst's sweet and wry is one of the faces of today's and tomorrow's parties. It's a good face, and take on the world. It knows about the bad stuff, but will be delighted with the good nevertheless. Her artless acting is a key to the tone of the whole film - the artless singing of Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow, in “Fools Rush In”, the artless carelessness of accents – which makes impossible the blunders of continuity or characterisation of dogged, 'serious' acting. (It helps mind you, that these artless actors are very good actors.) The much-criticised 'unreflective' attitude is precisely the point of the film. Studied is often Contrived, Unreflective is often Grace, even - paradoxically - at the Petit Trianon. It helps the seamlessness of the film that the director seems to have telepathic communication with a phenomenal, largely French, Art Department. The entrance of Marie Antoinette, stepping out of the French side of the tent, in the pale blue dress with the off-centre hat, is just the first moment of visual, rock and roll drama. You almost expect her to break into “Sweet Jane”. At this point it should have been obvious to everybody that this film was going to demand of us a different set of responses than the standard historical or plot-driven movie.  Le Petit Trianon is the state of grace of the Party Season. The delightfully flippant wit - “I love your hairdo – what's going on there ?” / “Oh the chickens are out – fabulous !” may not have endeared the film to the “serious” critics. It's wonderfully ironic that these negative critics are also themselves demographically First-World - affluent, shop-a-holic, middle-class, self-indulgent and 'me-generation'. We never like our faults in others. Many of them, oddly, knocked the film for not being a historical narrative, which its body language never promised for a second, although it probably got a lot of the atmospherics perfectly. You might as well knock it for not being a documentary on penguins. Even those that liked it, seemed to miss the point at just about every opportunity. Can these people find no other work ? The distorted grimaces of the Court, turned into those of the movie-industry Court at Cannes, whose weird features morphed further - into the faces of the mob calling for the head of Sofia Coppola. Great art affects external reality, plays with synchronicity, mirrors the times. Again, a demonstration that we sail on a Ship of Fools, and of course the good cliché – as so many are - that major work is rarely well received in its time. In the final act, like the hero of a formal tragedy, Marie Antoinette grows up. She faces her duty. Much like the account of these events in “An Adventure” - a real ghost story - the light-and-shade contrast disappears, the colours fade, the cast thins out, then darkness, with a final flash of glorious light. Et In Arcadia Ego.  If the decade produces another film as affecting, it will have exceeded its contractual obligation.

Another old one, still remarkably fresh ...!
LOBBYISTS



Your left activist lobbyist has to assume that we live in a rational world run by rational people – that if they explain things to Government, Govt. will say “Oh silly me” and run and put it right. Which pretty much precludes your average lobbyist from being taken seriously. When Wilson Tuckey was put in charge of trees in Australia, this particular mob was being told to buzz off, that they were no longer funny.

The Green Left, even the smarter ones, could not afford to believe the evidence of their senses. The country is full of people mowing their lawns in a despairing effort to keep at bay depression born of inactivity, and both born of meaninglessness. Your lobbying activist however, has a meaning to life, something that gets him/her out of bed in the morning. They are due at a meeting with the Department of Primary Industries at the gentlemanly hour of 9 that morning. They ignore that these professional lobbyist-meeters-and-greeters all have faces like bottom-feeding fish, and are kept in dung-coloured broom closets - our Concerned Person has an identity that allows them to think well of themselves, and, perhaps, as a fringe benefit, ill of others. And Heavens, when 50% of all Internet users are playing with themselves in front of their screens, why shouldn’t they feel a little superior ?

Lobbying can work, don’t get me wrong - if you are BHP. However if you are not, it’s worth a mention to those who don’t pay attention to the Wider World, that we live in the era of Globalisation. This is the old game, Writ Large, of “Capitalism always tends towards Monopoly” as Charlie Marx was so fond of pointing out after a couple of drinks. This used to take place in different countries in a fairly unsynchronised way. Krupp supplied the weapons to both sides on the Russian Front of WW1; the biggest US corporations did business with Hitler all through WW2. And so on. Little known, like many facts the size of Mt. Rushmore, but there we are.

Anyway. There were always plenty of geographical pockets outside this game, where people traded salt for skins and feathers; you got lemons for next to nothing because they grew just down the road; lamb chops ditto. No more. And this is the point – there are to be no exceptions any more. It is a World Order. No nooks & crannies, Nowhere to Hide, as they are so fond of saying, not even Libya or Cuba.

Obviously, under Globalisation, as in any World Order old or new, there is a script, the Thing is centrally choreographed. There is no break in the logic here. The steps in consciousness may be enormous, but the steps in logic, they are little ones, and lead inevitably from one to the other. There is a central agenda, and it is detailed. Each next step is obligatory - as long as the powers that run the agenda remain in control.

These powers are the Corporations, long warned about by William Cobbett, William Jefferson, Karl Marx and indeed, Dwight D. Eisenhower. They are the Vested Interests, represented by the military and economic superpower of the US at the moment, but quite willing and able to switch to the European Union, or play both, as circumstances demand. These corporations are known as the Transnationals, since they owe no fundamental allegiance to any country, only to their own bottom line. They only roost in countries where they pay no tax, like the Cayman Islands, or little tax, such as the US, or indeed Australia.

The idea that Governments, the area-managers for this Corporate Theme Park, can be talked out of the script, by a small roomful of well-meaning people with a Spotted Quoll, is unreasonable, tragic and deluded. This blindness to the Great Wide World can only be maintained by the lobbyist’s need to maintain their self-image – self-image being the basis for many an odd perception of the world.

The economic polity is as alien to their understanding as if you had blindfolded them and dumped them in South Central Los Angeles, or Baghdad. If it wasn’t for the Bottom-Feeding-Fish-People, equally lost in the outside world, and their job-description of endless Sensible Talking, the penny might in some cases drop. Governments however place a great deal of importance on the Fig-Leaf, and your Lobbyist plays an essential part in hiding some rather Unpleasant-Looking Organs. Governments are elected, and they must maintain the fiction, within what they privately refer to as the “chattering classes”, that they are reasonable and responsible, or the Fig Leaf drops.
And if it has not dropped in the reign of Bush, Blair and Howard, then, Heaven help us, I guess it never will.