When writer/director Sofia Coppola met with the LA press to discuss Marie Antoinette, the Oscar-winning filmmaker was seven months pregnant with her first child. Coppola is expecting a baby girl with boyfriend Thomas Mars from the French rock group Phoenix and after she wraps up doing for publicity for Marie Antoinette, she plans on taking a little time to relax and focus on the baby. Coppola also plans on getting back to writing and maybe directing something on a much smaller scale than this $40 million production.
The Appeal of Marie Antoinette: “When I was reading the [Antonia Fraser] book I thought it would be interesting. There hadn’t been a film about Marie Antoinette since the late 30s and it’s such a visually interesting world I think to create in a film. I like to see a movie where you get lost in another world and 18th century France with the wigs and the costumes is so different than our daily life, I thought it would be interesting to show that. So just when I was reading the book, I thought about it as a film. And also for me it was a challenge personally. How do I make a period film that isn’t in the genre of period films but in my own style? That was a challenge for me.”
Coppola continued, “I was more interested in seeing what we could relate to about it and just on the human level. That, ‘Oh, people still go through these things.’ I know what it’s like to go into a new family after you’ve been married, whatever, just on a human level. But then I think it’s interesting to look at how differently they lived and how at that time, all the rituals that went into their lifestyle. That, to me, is interesting also. I tried to show the differences and some similarities just to be relatable. I think it’s interesting to look at both.”
Shooting in Versailles: Coppola was granted the opportunity to film on location after a meeting with the director of Versailles. “I explained my approach for the film,” said Coppola. “I think he read the script. They were very positive and encouraging. He liked that I was attempting to tell the story from her point of view and really opened Versailles to us, so I feel lucky. I thought it would be more difficult but the people that worked at Versailles were very open to our production.
I always like going on location and you get immersed in another world and culture. I feel like being in the real Versailles affected everyone working on it and the actors. I just think there’s more authenticity than if we built it. I mean, even the fact that you were seeing the real gardens outside the windows I think feels less artificial than if you built everything. It would have been really difficult to recreate the hall of mirrors and all these real places.”
Working Around Existing Structures: There were restrictions on where cameras and lighting could be placed, but nothing Coppola couldn’t handle. “The hall of mirrors was actually under construction half of it so we had to cheat, reverses and things like that, but I think what we got in return was the chateau Versailles becomes a character in the movie. I think it would have been really hard to [recreate it]. We couldn’t have recreated it on that level. It would have been more fragmented. I’d seen a little bit of the movie with Norma Shearer, Marie Antoinette, which has a very kind of Hollywood/artificial feeling to it. I wanted this one to feel as naturalistic and authentic as possible.”
Coppola confessed that she didn’t have a backup plan. “Someone asked me the other day what our Plan B was and I thought, ‘I never have a Plan B.’ I always have something in mind and then you’re just determined to convince people to let you do it, so I’m not sure. We weren’t able to shoot there every day because it’s open as a museum, so on the days we couldn’t, we got chateaus that were of that same period and dressed them. I guess we could have done more of that.”
Page 2: The Music, the Dialogue, and Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette
