It does make sense for the perfectionist historian to get quibbly over all the little things It's not the little things about this movie that I mind; if they got little things wrong it wouldn't matter as much to me, but since the filmmakers misrepresent the ideologies and personalities of just about every character they touch on, with the possible semi-exceptions of Danton and Desmoulins, I can hardly recommend it. In fact I would consider that Danton makes the historian's task of deconstructing myths that much harder because it reinforces those very myths. Danton is a good film, and a good critique of the situation in Poland at the time it was made, but it's poor history.
I'm not one of those people who is actually a fan of the Revolution as it turned out Could you explain what you mean by that? If you're referring to the Terror, it wasn't as if the Revolutionaries got up one morning and decided to chop off a lot of people's heads as is commonly believed; the Terror was motivated by unforeseeable circumstances, and without it France could very well have been carved up like Poland, considering they had no allies but the far-away and impotent infant US and all of Europe was leagued against them. Add to this the civil war in the Vendée and other parts of France, and what should the Revolutionaries have done? The Terror was not of their choosing; they had to make the best of a bad situation. Besides, it wasn't as if the Terror was unique and horrible; compared with certain other incidents in the history of France alone (St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, La Semaine Sanglante, etc.) it was incredibly mild. According to Thompson, a historian whom I would not term as particularly fond of the Revolution, the Terror was no more repressive a government than that leading France during WWI. On the other hand, if you're referring to the Thermidorian reaction, the Directoire, and Bonaparte's dictatorship, well: nobody wanted those things, and you can hardly blame (most of) the Montagnards for any of those happenings.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:46 am (UTC)It's not the little things about this movie that I mind; if they got little things wrong it wouldn't matter as much to me, but since the filmmakers misrepresent the ideologies and personalities of just about every character they touch on, with the possible semi-exceptions of Danton and Desmoulins, I can hardly recommend it. In fact I would consider that Danton makes the historian's task of deconstructing myths that much harder because it reinforces those very myths. Danton is a good film, and a good critique of the situation in Poland at the time it was made, but it's poor history.
I'm not one of those people who is actually a fan of the Revolution as it turned out
Could you explain what you mean by that? If you're referring to the Terror, it wasn't as if the Revolutionaries got up one morning and decided to chop off a lot of people's heads as is commonly believed; the Terror was motivated by unforeseeable circumstances, and without it France could very well have been carved up like Poland, considering they had no allies but the far-away and impotent infant US and all of Europe was leagued against them. Add to this the civil war in the Vendée and other parts of France, and what should the Revolutionaries have done? The Terror was not of their choosing; they had to make the best of a bad situation.
Besides, it wasn't as if the Terror was unique and horrible; compared with certain other incidents in the history of France alone (St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, La Semaine Sanglante, etc.) it was incredibly mild. According to Thompson, a historian whom I would not term as particularly fond of the Revolution, the Terror was no more repressive a government than that leading France during WWI.
On the other hand, if you're referring to the Thermidorian reaction, the Directoire, and Bonaparte's dictatorship, well: nobody wanted those things, and you can hardly blame (most of) the Montagnards for any of those happenings.