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bettylabamba.livejournal.comThe Black Book/Reign of Terror has to be the campiest fucking movie ever made about the French Revolution. Start the Revolution Without Me comes close, but that movie was intentionally hilarious. The current discussion reminded me that I had an essay just rotting away on my hard drive about the production of B.B/R.o.T. This should clear up exactly why this movie was so bad it's bad/so bad it's good. Don't ask me were I found it, because I don't remember. Please excuse the formatting errors; I just copied and pasted the entire gawdamn thing from a word doc.
You can view the movie here for free if you've never seen it (and have an hour and change to waste). Oh, and please do refrain from kicking the nearest kitten. Thanks.
Hollywood History and the French Revolution: From The Bastille to The Black Book
by LEGER GRINDON
For through this blessed July night, there is clangour, confusion very great . . .
-- Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution
FROM THE INITIAL CONCEPT TO THE PREmiere screening, a Hollywood film goes through a process influenced by financial pressures, social forces, and personal wills in which the shifts from cooperation to conflict constitute a drama often more revealing than the film itself. Though commanding figures such as Charles Chaplin, David O. Selznick, or John Ford have, at times, displayed the authority of an author, many films fail to express a unified and coherent view that can be attributed to a particular filmmaker. In such a case, understanding may be fostered not by looking to a single guiding presence but to the tensions that arose during the production. These difficulties may illustrate the social nature of Hollywood filmmaking and bear witness to forces at work within the industry and in society at large. The production of Reign of Terror ( 1949 ) is such a case. In the summers of 1794 and 1948 the fall of Robespierre was contemplated, first in Paris and later in Hollywood. Little seems to link the events, though if we can trust Carlyle, both periods were marked by confusion and uncertainty. Upon examination there should be little doubt that Hollywood's meditation upon Robespierre reveals more about its own time than about the course of the French Revolution.
( Read more... )
You can view the movie here for free if you've never seen it (and have an hour and change to waste). Oh, and please do refrain from kicking the nearest kitten. Thanks.
Hollywood History and the French Revolution: From The Bastille to The Black Book
by LEGER GRINDON
For through this blessed July night, there is clangour, confusion very great . . .
-- Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution
FROM THE INITIAL CONCEPT TO THE PREmiere screening, a Hollywood film goes through a process influenced by financial pressures, social forces, and personal wills in which the shifts from cooperation to conflict constitute a drama often more revealing than the film itself. Though commanding figures such as Charles Chaplin, David O. Selznick, or John Ford have, at times, displayed the authority of an author, many films fail to express a unified and coherent view that can be attributed to a particular filmmaker. In such a case, understanding may be fostered not by looking to a single guiding presence but to the tensions that arose during the production. These difficulties may illustrate the social nature of Hollywood filmmaking and bear witness to forces at work within the industry and in society at large. The production of Reign of Terror ( 1949 ) is such a case. In the summers of 1794 and 1948 the fall of Robespierre was contemplated, first in Paris and later in Hollywood. Little seems to link the events, though if we can trust Carlyle, both periods were marked by confusion and uncertainty. Upon examination there should be little doubt that Hollywood's meditation upon Robespierre reveals more about its own time than about the course of the French Revolution.
( Read more... )
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