Vaguely similar things (concerning the impossibility of treating them either as historiography or as pure fiction) go for Stanisława Przybyszewska's two An II plays: they are too historical for casual readers, too full of little details and with too many necessary back stories, and too unhistorical for historians, too speculative, too unfocused. They do less damage, though, because they are less widely read (especially outside of Poland), or at least less widely cited, and those who take an interest in them nowadays usually know their history already. But Przybyszewska is doubly difficult to judge in that she did actually believe she had 'understood' Robespierre and drew what she considered an accurate portrait that only just so happened to take on some traits she herself believed or wished to have - whereas Büchner consciously picked Danton (whose situation struck him as appropriate - and after all, the 'last days of a man condemned to death' model has served hundreds of writers as a similar outlet for philosophical reflections) as a vessel (ha!) for his own thoughts on man's inability to shape history, to control the current of events and bring order/peace/justice into a chaotic/barbaric/haphazard world ... there are a dozen other points that come up, but this I believe to be the main one. In that he is not so like Rolland, though they have much in common otherwise (even in the clichés they repeat: both have Dantons that are so overconfident, vulgar and animalic they are actually repulsive rather than charismatic - or perhaps that's just prim old me - and Robespierres that are shown to themselves be at the mercy of the machinations of the revolution, not in control of them; this is popularly ignored in Büchner - I recall reading Hilary Mantel describe his portrayal of Danton as that of 'the world-weary philosopher done to death by a Robespierre machine', which couldn't be further from the aforementioned 'main point' B. makes). They both include the popular juxtaposition of Robespierre the high-minded idealist (and neither is inherently dismissive of his ideals! Büchner never renounced the ideals of the Revolution - much rather, in my [biased] opinion, he vents his frustration with the broad masses' incapability of being infected and transformed by them, which he considers confirmed once and for all by the course of events from 1794 onwards) and the masses, who are too occupied struggling to fulfill base human needs to work for a distant utopia. Both Büchner and Rolland have their Dantons point this out to Robespierre; both these Dantons consider themselves to be the ones who truly understand human nature, know what the people need/s, etc. (Interestingly, some lines said by B.'s Danton in this context - about the poor having no leisure for virtue and the like - turn up again almost verbatim in his "Woyzeck".) Both these Dantons, however, are shown up as deluded in their own right; firstly they are decadent slobs without an ounce of self-control in their gluttonous bodies, who would never actually (as they go around proclaiming they could if it came to that) get up and Take The Reins From That Sissy for sheer laziness alone; secondly, it becomes quite evident that the masses are nowhere near as loyal to them as they like to believe. Both these Dantons fancy themselves heroes of 'the people'; both find 'the people' to be no less indifferent to their fates in the long run than they are to higher causes. This disturbs me especially in Wajda's film: his Danton exhibits all those same delusions about understanding 'la rue' and having its support, but he is not sufficiently proven wrong! Büchner and Rolland at least make it clear to the open-eyed viewer that their Danton is not the solution, nor indeed is their Robespierre the problem - which he definitely is in (Wajda's) "Danton".
![[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: 2009-09-06 12:19 pm (UTC)In that he is not so like Rolland, though they have much in common otherwise (even in the clichés they repeat: both have Dantons that are so overconfident, vulgar and animalic they are actually repulsive rather than charismatic - or perhaps that's just prim old me - and Robespierres that are shown to themselves be at the mercy of the machinations of the revolution, not in control of them; this is popularly ignored in Büchner - I recall reading Hilary Mantel describe his portrayal of Danton as that of 'the world-weary philosopher done to death by a Robespierre machine', which couldn't be further from the aforementioned 'main point' B. makes). They both include the popular juxtaposition of Robespierre the high-minded idealist (and neither is inherently dismissive of his ideals! Büchner never renounced the ideals of the Revolution - much rather, in my [biased] opinion, he vents his frustration with the broad masses' incapability of being infected and transformed by them, which he considers confirmed once and for all by the course of events from 1794 onwards) and the masses, who are too occupied struggling to fulfill base human needs to work for a distant utopia. Both Büchner and Rolland have their Dantons point this out to Robespierre; both these Dantons consider themselves to be the ones who truly understand human nature, know what the people need/s, etc. (Interestingly, some lines said by B.'s Danton in this context - about the poor having no leisure for virtue and the like - turn up again almost verbatim in his "Woyzeck".) Both these Dantons, however, are shown up as deluded in their own right; firstly they are decadent slobs without an ounce of self-control in their gluttonous bodies, who would never actually (as they go around proclaiming they could if it came to that) get up and Take The Reins From That Sissy for sheer laziness alone; secondly, it becomes quite evident that the masses are nowhere near as loyal to them as they like to believe. Both these Dantons fancy themselves heroes of 'the people'; both find 'the people' to be no less indifferent to their fates in the long run than they are to higher causes.
This disturbs me especially in Wajda's film: his Danton exhibits all those same delusions about understanding 'la rue' and having its support, but he is not sufficiently proven wrong! Büchner and Rolland at least make it clear to the open-eyed viewer that their Danton is not the solution, nor indeed is their Robespierre the problem - which he definitely is in (Wajda's) "Danton".