As you say, there are probably non-vile ways of teaching that course, but it does make you wonder why they bother giving such a privilege to such a trite book. Probably an attempt to be "edgy" and "relevant." A lot of profs seem to be getting unfortunately desperate on that score, imho. Though how the Revolution could ever cease to be relevant on its own is beyond me.
Perhaps the whole Citizens thing made everyone forget that there is supposed to be a difference between history books and historical fiction. Perhaps. Though that difference has only been very recently demarcated even without the existence of Simon Schama. And it's only gotten worse with post-modernism. Because, after all, since we can't "know" what really happened, a novel is just a good as a serious work of scholarship, right?
See also his "Can someone please explain to me why sovereignty only resides in the people that pay more than three working days tax? No? And what's all this silver mark rubbish?" Constituent Assembly: "Okay, the sliver mark is rubbish, I grant you, we'll get rid of it but we'll put up the initial voting qualification to five days tax, deal?" Robespierre: "Which part of you cannot be half-free do you not get?" Exactly.
I have a friend who doesn't drink. When she comes out with me she really bothers people, even though she's very sociable and friendly, there are some people who cannot help getting shifty or seeing it as a judgment, almost to the point of intolerance, when it is just a personal preference. I think Robespierre affects people like that. I think you're right about that. Sad, really.
Robspierre is cat-eyed and blinky. Very blinky. With some jerky hand clenching thrown in. Am I a real oddment or is this slightly hot? No, it's definitely hot. XD; I also think Jean Negroni, out of all the actors who have played Robespierre in movies I've seen, looks the most like him. Or at least the most like the bust in my icon, which for some reason I've always seen as more or less what he "really" looked like. Probably because it's 3D.
True and true for the plant watering scene and Le Bas's culottes. What Saint-Just and Robespierre are saying to each other at the end is incredibly depressing. However, I think maelicia may have transcribed it somewhere, if you want to be incredibly depressed. And it's even more depressing that he never even got to say whatever it was he needed to say to Éléonore. (Though, of course, historically, he very well could have, so that's some comfort.)
I really love those movies to death though. Especially the casting. It's the only film centred on the Revolution that actually manages to find actors who look and act like the personages they're portraying. Take Danton, for example. He's not pretty to look at, but neither was the historical Danton, and he looks much more like portraits of Danton than the Dantons I've seen in other movies. And he has a wig. I know it's part of the whole "Danton = natural and therefore good/Robespierre = unnatural and therefore monstrous" trope that Danton doesn't have a wig in other movies, or that he's constantly taking his wig off, but if you look at his portraits, he's wearing a wig in all of them. Which would kind of tend to suggest that, I don't know, HE WORE A WIG. *sighs* (Although, at the other extreme, the filmmakers of LTeLV seem to have forgotten that wigs can come off. Thus we're treated to the unintentionally hilarious spectacle of Robespierre wearing his wig while sick in bed.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-03-14 04:55 pm (UTC)Probably an attempt to be "edgy" and "relevant." A lot of profs seem to be getting unfortunately desperate on that score, imho. Though how the Revolution could ever cease to be relevant on its own is beyond me.
Perhaps the whole Citizens thing made everyone forget that there is supposed to be a difference between history books and historical fiction.
Perhaps. Though that difference has only been very recently demarcated even without the existence of Simon Schama. And it's only gotten worse with post-modernism. Because, after all, since we can't "know" what really happened, a novel is just a good as a serious work of scholarship, right?
See also his "Can someone please explain to me why sovereignty only resides in the people that pay more than three working days tax? No? And what's all this silver mark rubbish?" Constituent Assembly: "Okay, the sliver mark is rubbish, I grant you, we'll get rid of it but we'll put up the initial voting qualification to five days tax, deal?" Robespierre: "Which part of you cannot be half-free do you not get?"
Exactly.
I have a friend who doesn't drink. When she comes out with me she really bothers people, even though she's very sociable and friendly, there are some people who cannot help getting shifty or seeing it as a judgment, almost to the point of intolerance, when it is just a personal preference. I think Robespierre affects people like that.
I think you're right about that. Sad, really.
Robspierre is cat-eyed and blinky. Very blinky. With some jerky hand clenching thrown in. Am I a real oddment or is this slightly hot?
No, it's definitely hot. XD; I also think Jean Negroni, out of all the actors who have played Robespierre in movies I've seen, looks the most like him. Or at least the most like the bust in my icon, which for some reason I've always seen as more or less what he "really" looked like. Probably because it's 3D.
True and true for the plant watering scene and Le Bas's culottes. What Saint-Just and Robespierre are saying to each other at the end is incredibly depressing. However, I think
I really love those movies to death though. Especially the casting. It's the only film centred on the Revolution that actually manages to find actors who look and act like the personages they're portraying. Take Danton, for example. He's not pretty to look at, but neither was the historical Danton, and he looks much more like portraits of Danton than the Dantons I've seen in other movies. And he has a wig. I know it's part of the whole "Danton = natural and therefore good/Robespierre = unnatural and therefore monstrous" trope that Danton doesn't have a wig in other movies, or that he's constantly taking his wig off, but if you look at his portraits, he's wearing a wig in all of them. Which would kind of tend to suggest that, I don't know, HE WORE A WIG. *sighs* (Although, at the other extreme, the filmmakers of LTeLV seem to have forgotten that wigs can come off. Thus we're treated to the unintentionally hilarious spectacle of Robespierre wearing his wig while sick in bed.)