Playing in the Spotlight section of the New York Film Festival, the fly-on-the-wall doc is compiled from 80 hours of footage that Eleanor shot during the film’s busy production on location at the Palace of Versailles, capturing a young filmmaker coming into her own before our very eyes (as well as plenty of hijinks from stars Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman, who plays King Louis XVI and also happens to be Sofia’s cousin). During the film’s post-premiere Q&A at NYFF, Sofia revealed that the Coppola family were all gathered at their family home in Napa Valley when they decided to revisit Eleanor’s footage for the first time, and it brought back a rush of memories from her time making “Marie Antoinette.” “It’s embarrassing for me,” Sofia said after the film. Eleanor envisioned an observational film in the vein of Frederick Wiseman, and the doc is narrated by actress Diane Lane, a longtime Coppola family collaborator, who reads Eleanor’s contemporaneous diary entries from twenty years ago.
Although there was some drama. We see Sofia and her team on “Marie Antoinette” overwhelmed at times by the amount of extras and just how long it took cast members to get their hair, makeup and costuming done (the hair, especially). In addition to a monument to Sofia, “Making Marie Antoinette” is also a celebration of the work of Milena Canonero, the film’s costume designer.
Canonero created over 70 original dresses for Dunst’s Marie Antoinette alone, and eventually won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design. The most compelling scenes in “Making Marie Antoinette,” scheduled to be released Oct. 23 on Mubi, concern Sofia butting heads with her cinematographer, Lance Acord, who wanted more shots showing the perspective of King Louis XVI instead of centering the POV of Marie Antoinette. It’s stirring to see Sofia, who was 34 at the time, push back on Acord’s demands and stay true to her vision.
Oh, and we also see Thomas Mars, the lead singer of Phoenix and Coppola’s then-boyfriend, be introduced to Eleanor for the first time (Sofia and Thomas are now married with two children). But mostly we bear witness to Sofia executing her vision with precision and grace. It’s a sight to behold, as is this love letter from mother to daughter (and vice versa).
Extract — continue reading at the source.
