Poor Bitos

[pedrolino.livejournal.com]

Has anyone read Poor Bitos by Jean Anouilh? It's a really interesting play (or at least I thought so) about a revolution-themed costume party, but which ends up going back in time to show several scenes from the months leading up to Thermidor as well. While Robespierre certainly starts off as being villainized, I found it much more ambiguous by the end, especially considering that pretty much everyone else comes off looking like a complete jerk at the end, as well.

Anouilh deals somewhat loosely with the historical specifics-- implications that Robespierre was in love with Lucile Duplessis, etc-- but I still think it's a really interesting piece. Has anyone else read it, and what did you think?

Comments

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

That's funny - I was talking about this with someone last night, after a comment made on the radio about the upcoming 1640's drama. It also seems to be the case looking at the comments under the youtube clips from 'Danton' - some are 'yay Robespierre', others are of the 'jesus, this is scary' POV. I'm very conscious that male writers, historians - hell, probably 'men' in general, like Danton: that comment in Mark Steel from the French MP in 1989 - 'I like a man who screws', and really don't like Robespierre on a quite visceral level - and of course use 'womanish' etc as a term of abuse.

So, yes, I suspect a lot of male viewers, maybe especially in France where political corruption, infedelity and prostitution are more culturally acceptable, may be going 'go Danton!' when he gets pissed and staggers off with a couple of prossies: that's 'manly', that's 'human', that's 'natural'. I don't know how Poles viewed it - I'd imagine with a stronger cultural revulsion against any implied homosexuality, though with more empathy with bread queues and less for Danton's sumptuous corrupt lifestyle. Then again, there seems to be respect for Przbyszewska now (if my brother's Polish ex-girlfriend is in any way representative!). Watching it as a British woman from I suppose a puritan/protestant tradition though, my sympathies were all with Robespierre and the 'realpolitic' of the govt - specially as, as coming from Liverpool, we 've had a number of politicians posing as loud, left wing men of the people who have been corruptly acquiring vast fortunes behind the scenes!

On the CSP, they are portrayed as a bunch of freaks, though I think Wajda credits the viewer with having good historical knowledge, and as such, whilst I think the average British viewer would see them as Robespierre's 'gang', I think the animosity between them does come across. I think that's a crucial point, though, about historical knowledge: I watch this film as yet another artist's 'take' on an idealogical/human struggle, a counter-play to Stani, who in turn did her counter-play to Buchner, much in the same way I would watch Antony and Cleopatra as an artist using historical characters as something to 'riff' from. However, it's now being watched (in schools etc) as 'fact': that's a shame - it would be much better viewed in a class alongside a series of films on revolutions - putting Battleship Potemkin next to Animal Farm, this next to Orphans of the Storm or Napoleon or Carry On Don't Lose Your Head, in a discussion of how artists use history to make political , propaganda or cultural points.

The blurb on the British poster was depressing - something along the lines of France is suffering under Robespierre's Terror - only one man can save them! - that sort of thing, and I doubt even Wajda would have given that line the seal of approval: he's generally a more subtle film-maker than that (though not in the closing scene!). Nevertheless, the film was a surprise in the general run of Revolution films, in which Robespierre is usually just a bizarre cartoon demon from hell - I can really only think of the Terreur et Vertu films when it comes to films that make him even remotely human - and I've read somewhere that that tv series was reportedly axed because it was seen as left-wing.

On a similar theme, really, there's a tv series starting tomorrow on the radical left of the 1640's, and the reporting on that has been interesting - I posted a couple of days ago about the way the various papers of various political bents have reported it. What is very telling is that it is a period that has been criminally - deliberately - neglected: this series took 14 years to get made - the BBC suddenly changed their mind on it, funny, that! Someone reviewing it on the radio, complained 'I didn't like it, because I didn't know who to support' , and there was something of that in the 'Cromwell' film of the 1960's - I thought it was basically pro-Cromwell, but I've read reviews that bleat on about Alec Guiness's lovely gentle human king Charles and Cromwell's repellant puritanism. Well, now we have a £7 million series in which the heroes are reportedly the hardcore puritan left - it'll be interesting to see the public reaction! (it'll probably be 'poor king charles' all over again)

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

As an aside, I always find it funny that they assume because Robespierre never married and was discreet about his personal life, he never had sex. The argument being that there's no "proof"--but when is there ever positive proof, unless a man has children (and even the then the children must resemble him)? It seems a bit ridiculous. What kind of proof are they looking for?... Perhaps a better way of phrasing that comment would be, "I like a man who screws publically," though I've never personally understood why that would be desirable.

I don't know if they'd necessarily be saying "Go Danton!" but those aren't the kind of faults a lot of men - and certainly not just in France - would blame him for either, unfortunately. In any case, one's point of view is bound to be radically different if one knows anything about the period, whatever country one is from. You can't put too much weight on cultural assumptions there. Moreover, the French left (and I think they were quite right in this) thought much less of the film than even you do, and they can hardly be accused of being raised in a Puritan tradition.

There are many members of the CSP I don't like, but even the worst of them don't deserve the kind of treatment they get in Danton. Whether they're portrayed as Robespierre's friends or enemies is immaterial--even as enemies they would make more worthy adversaries if they were portrayed more accurately.

I agree that Danton should never be used in any classroom except in the context of discussion of the use of history as propaganda. The trouble is, such a class would probably use portrayals of the Revolution that were trying to be as accurate as possible (La Marseillaise, LTeLV) as an example of counter-propaganda just because they're left-wing, when they really shouldn't be put in the same category at all. I mean, it really doesn't matter what the message is: there's no comparing a film where the filmmakers are doing their utmost to make good use of primary sources and a film where the filmmakers are deliberately making things up and distorting the sources they do use to make their point.

The British view of the Revolution is so completely unrelated to anything even slightly historical that Danton was bound to look good in comparison. Those posters just prove my point. That doesn't mean anything from an objective viewpoint though. I guess it wouldn't piss me off so much if the left had enough funding to make a rebuttal on more than a 20:1 basis--because, as I'm sure you've noticed, the right can easily make at least 20 films for every film the left can make. I should clarify for the benefit of anyone out there reading this that I don't want Danton censored--I'm for free speech, *real* free speech, not free speech for those with money and effective censorship for those without.

But there--and you won't find this surprising--I'm with Robespierre, and "like Cromwell no better than Charles I," though even with my relatively limited knowledge of British history I'm sick of portrayals of evil Puritans vs. glamorous royalists. But then, I'm sick of any portrayals of royalists as heroes or innocent victims just generally.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've read some of the pieces by French leftists on the film: most of the criticism was valid, though (and again, maybe it's the 'male' thing!) some seemed to think 'Danton' was portrayed as whiter-than-white, whch I really don't feel was the case. Also, I remember one objecting to Saint-Just's earring! A few years later, and if anything the film looked more dubious in its Polish/French casting, because there was (well, seemed to me to be) an effort to prevent the bicentennial being used as a rallying point for the left, and coupled with the use of a Polish pope to drive a wedge into the communist bloc - he acually beatified 99 Vendée 'martyrs', according to History Today (writing in 1989) - which does look incredibly suspicious!

On Cromwell, what's great about the upcoming Tv Series is that it is centering on the radical left - the Levellers, Diggers and Ranters, and attacking Cromwell from the left for betraying them. Nevertheless, I can't help feeling the French Revolutionaries were reared on a somewhat'Thermidorian' view of British history here, because, oppressor though he became, the Cromwell regime for much of its existence was still more radical than anything else of the period, and he's still hated by the right. Most film and tv series have the cavaliers as the goodies: the 1960's Cromwell film, historical travesty though it was, nevertheless had the cavaliers as a bunch of nasty, treacherous upper class twits.

I suppose, basically, my expectations are so low when it comes to seeing revolutionaries - of any era - portrayed on screen I'm happy with half a loaf, even a quarter of a loaf! If a writer as well respected as peter Flannery took 14 years to get his Levellers project off the ground, and Lord - as I think he now is - Attenborough, national treasure, has been sitting on his pet project, a Tom Paine script, for 20 years (no, Robespierre doesn't come out well in it!) - then I don't hold out much hope for anything that gives the Jacobins a fair crack of the whip. Who knows, though, the world political situation is changing daily!