http://victoriavandal.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] victoriavandal.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] revolution_fr2009-07-11 10:08 pm

That programme's just been on...

As in" "Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution" BBC2. Review . (I put that word in in the hope a random googler will stumble here...) Let's put it this way: it uses scenes from "Orphans of the Storm' like documentary footage. It intercuts images of Pol Pot, Stalin, Khomeni (oddly, not of Israel, a threatened democracy, surrounded by enemies, that uses violence to protect itself, and of which Simon Schama is a staunch supporter!!!!) with the acted bits. The CSP only seems to have 6 members - no mention of General Security. Carnot is the voice of reason, and Collot the bloodthirty one with a working class accent to denote cruelty (think Danny the Drug Dealer in Withnail and I, or the Cockney Orcs in LOTR) - though of course, Collot's role in Thermidor isn't mentioned: that wouldn't fit with the story the BBC are telling, you know, where Thermidor is the spontaneous overthrow of a cruel dictator (cue death to the tyrant type images from Gance's"Napoleon') - Fouché, Fréron, Tallien, Billaud and co don't even get a mention. Danton is killed because he's nice, Desmoulins is killed for writing vieux Cordelier no3, Herault's killed because he's posh, Fabre for no reason at all, Brissot and co for no reason at all....
And so on.
Contributions were from David Andress, Hilary Mantel, Zizek, Ruth Scurr (briefly), some other chap, some other chapess whose name I know but forget, and of couse old scrotum face Simon Schama, who cackles that he'd love to have been there on 9 Thermidor.
Frankly, if you knew nothing much about the Revolution, you'd end up as confused as you were at the start. And if you do, you'll be shouting "Oy! What about the Hébertistes! You haven't even mentioned ANYTHING about them!" and similar things at the screen all the way through. Like Mark Steel said, it's like saying in 1940 the British blacked their windows out for no apparent reason.

Lots of bedroom scenes with Robespierre and Saint-Just (with earring), though...

[identity profile] trf-chan.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
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Oh God. I need to see this, and yet really, really, really don't want to.

Thank God it probably won't be put online straight away - seeing that immediately after last night's Torchwood might be the death of my soul. But at least Torchwood was quality depression.

[identity profile] trf-chan.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I shall not spoil! But have the tissues ready for the last two. And I was surprised by how much the Beeb showed with Jack...did you see the shot where you can make out peen? I choked back a girlish giggle when I saw that. Um. But back to more...er...elevated discourse...

Well, in a way, I'm glad it was nonsensical. At least that will detract from the number of people it convinces of its views. :/

[identity profile] toi-marguerite.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:00 pm (UTC)(link)
D: The BBC link doesn't work. I managed to find an .avi file for The Supersizers Eat the French Revolution, but I can't figure out how to play it with pictures.

Also, eh? Your summary makes me confused as to what the BBC was trying to say about the Terror, or why they even bothered to bring in experts.

I am a little puzzled as to the Abel Gance comment- the film was silly and did have one of the oddest views of the Committee that I've seen on film (why give Couthon bunnies?) but it wasn't all that much 9-Thermidor=death-of-the-tyrant. It (obviously) had a rather Bonapartist stance, and there was that scene of poor Robespierre reaching for a book on Cromwell, but it wasn't as bad as some other portrayls of Robespierre that I've seen, and since the director cast himself as Saint-Just, the Jacobins get off really lightly. Saint-Just did have that speech in the convention, where the mob watched him with obvious admiration....

stupid!American would like to ask if the Cockney accent=evil thing abounds in British pieces or if it was a not-so-secret display of the director/producer's class issues?

[identity profile] trf-chan.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I managed to find an .avi file for The Supersizers Eat the French Revolution, but I can't figure out how to play it with pictures.

I've had this problem before. What you need to do is download a codec pack. Try the K-Lite Codec Pack (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_lite_codec_pack.htm). I downloaded that on my old computer, and it made the video show up. I used a Vista-specific pack for my laptop, which also works nicely (and I think they have one for XP, too, if that's what you're using. But the K-Lite Codec Pack should work for anything).

[identity profile] pandasmarch.livejournal.com 2009-07-12 11:10 pm (UTC)(link)
VLC should work?

[identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Lots of bedroom scenes with Robespierre and Saint-Just (with earring), though...
Do they exchange the marital dictator rings in said bedroom scenes? Why, of course I had to say that.

And I need to see this. And be sick for a week. And then transfer my rage in my master thesis. How apt and well-timed this all is, really.

[identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)
What, the emo haircut one?? But it makes no sense!!... or almost none!!

[identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:53 pm (UTC)(link)
...oh, God, they can't even be subtle. Already that giving him a non-existing-in-1793-94 emo haircut is not subtle. I will scream.

[identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com 2009-07-12 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
And what "kind" of bedroom scenes were there, if I may ask...? :P

[identity profile] trf-chan.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Didn't you know Saint-Just wore skinny jeans and cut himself?

[identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
And make-up. And inexplicably fagottish effeminate. I'm sure Michelet describes that at one point, along with Saint-Just's fascination with visiting cemetaries and painting his student bedroom all in black and having skulls to decorate it. And, stuff.

The representations of Saint-Just have amazingly improved since Christopher Thompson.

Let us toast with champagne before toasting with blood!

[identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)
They freaking asked for that caption:

Image


I just keep on shouting: WTFWITHTHEWINE??? It's so over the damn top and the costumes look so cheap! (Look at Saint-Just's -- it's Saint-Just, isn't it? Impossible that it's not, he's almost snuggling Robespierre -- boots!) It's like some kind of very bad small theatre production!

Finally though, who is emo!guy?

Re: Let us toast with champagne before toasting with blood!

[identity profile] missweirdness.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I think it is Barère, the emo guy anyhow...at least i wanna think he is..

Re: Let us toast with champagne before toasting with blood!

[identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:51 pm (UTC)(link)
...They can't even cast actors that make sense. Or give them hairdos that make sense. And I am so confused with this red sash! Which really doesn't fit Carnot either.

And, aww, no dictator!rings then. I am so disappointed. Unless it just means that Robespierre was jealous of Hérault's then. (Wtfwtfwtfwtf...)

Re: Let us toast with champagne before toasting with blood!

[identity profile] missweirdness.livejournal.com 2009-07-12 12:07 am (UTC)(link)
Nothing make sense....unfortunately. They just want to keep ruining everything about the french revolution. How much further can they kill it? They should of LEAST, gotta the CPS right! GEEZ!

Re: Let us toast with champagne before toasting with blood!

[identity profile] toi-marguerite.livejournal.com 2009-07-12 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
lol, I love your subject line. <3

Re: Let us toast with champagne before toasting with blood!

[identity profile] estellacat.livejournal.com 2009-07-12 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
They apparently didn't get the memo on Robespierre's thoughts on champagne, either. I'm surprised, really--from their perspective that would have been such a good opportunity to portray him as abnormal.

[identity profile] missweirdness.livejournal.com 2009-07-11 11:37 pm (UTC)(link)
OMSB

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I need to watch that too! Too bad i'm not living in the UK, god..that's gonna make me depressed if i watch that. But i have to.

>.> i just want to watch how horrible it is.

>.<
and think bad thoughts about Robespierre and St. Just in that bedroom together..*sighs*

(Anonymous) 2009-07-12 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
Stalin, Pol-Pot, Khomeini? Oh god...Would they put them to a docudrama on Cromwell? By the way, is it htese people who then make idealizing movies on a man who executed a couple of his own wives and of humanist philosophers?
Some serious beheading should be done :-) Sibylla

[identity profile] maelicia.livejournal.com 2009-07-12 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
By the way, is it htese people who then make idealizing movies on a man who executed a couple of his own wives and of humanist philosophers?
Seconded.

(Anonymous) 2009-07-12 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
You are SO right about Thomas More. As for Henry VIII, taking to consideration how highly "problematic" figure he was, it is really surprising how tolerant, or even positive his film descriptions of him generally are, and it's not only The Tudors, there is a long tradition of an "understanding" approach to his person in the fiction. S.

(Anonymous) 2009-07-12 11:07 am (UTC)(link)
I am not so convinced by the Weberian protestantism-driving force behind global development thesis, but it is probably out of place to discuss it here. Anyway, I also find the early protestantism interesting, but I actually prefer people like Luther to opportunists like Henry VIII :-)

(Anonymous) 2009-07-12 11:11 am (UTC)(link)
At least Cromwell has his Cromwell Roads in his country. Moreover, the French do not indulge at spreading fiction and historiography which would depict him as reptile-impotent-bloodthirsty-monster around the world. (i think it's clear who I am comparing him to)

(Anonymous) 2009-07-12 01:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, it's true. Why do you think they are mentionned together so often? Do you think Cromwell as a historical figure is closer to Napoleon than to Robespierre?
It is also interesting how the image of Napoleon has always been quite positive, it seems that the blood shed on a battlefield is ok with the historians and general public :-)

[identity profile] estellacat.livejournal.com 2009-07-12 05:54 am (UTC)(link)
Congratulations, BBC, you've just officially done worse than the History Channel. I must say, I didn't think that was possible, but it sounds like they've made it their business to prove me wrong.

[identity profile] missweirdness.livejournal.com 2009-07-12 11:07 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah seriously. My host Phillop (British and the in the UK) referenced that program to me. I nearly SCREAMED bloody murder to him.

no..

no..

wait..

I did scream.

Luckily no one heard me.

The History Channel was okay..they didn't try to PURPOSELY KILL the revolution..BBC has done it, drove a stake through it. >.> I'm gonna go eat an apple now.

[identity profile] lucilla-1789.livejournal.com 2009-07-13 12:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Why does everyone think Danton was nice?
Also, maybe Fabre was killed for messing with the calendar and giving people longer weeks.
I must see this!

(Anonymous) 2009-07-14 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I just want to say that I deeply appreciate all the Schama bashing. He's such a glib, shallow asshole! For a while we in the U.S. were stuck with him as art critic for the New Yorker, for which reason I always refer to him as "Simon Fucking Schama." Mercifully he wore out his welcome and the unfortunate Brits now have to endure him. Can we send Christopher Hitchens back, too, please?