tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post5554453763931091626..comments2024-03-01T04:41:27.615-08:00Comments on Rodama: a blog of 18th-century & Revolutionary France: A people and its King..... (Jean-Clément Martin)Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-34456008684864336172018-11-18T19:12:22.468-08:002018-11-18T19:12:22.468-08:00Thank you for posting this. I very much want to se...Thank you for posting this. I very much want to see the film, but have not yet (I was recently in London, and the Institut français was showing it the day after I had to leave (SIGH!). So--my comments are in this context.<br /><br />Generally, I seems to me to be counter-productive to take any cultural text (film, fiction, history books, paintings and engravings and so on), and say it doesn't represent accurately. We only have access to history through texts, so how are we judging accuracy? In the still of the Jacobin deputies (the one with Marat and Saint-Just, they don't look "bewigged" and the certainly were not "impotent, so I am not sure what Martin's point is. <br /><br />With a film, it's useful to look at the symbolism in images. An isolated Louis with all his decorations may be suggesting the tension between his "power" as king (all the decorations) and his inability to actualize that power (he could not convince the aristocrats to pay any taxes). Even though he theoretically held immense power, as a would-be reforming king, he was isolated in a court that did not support him, or his many finance ministers. <br /><br />Alcide Carton is a historian with a different point of view on the film. He says that we should see it and discuss it, and he likes the way the people are at the centre of it. There's an English translation on the website.<br />http://www.amis-robespierre.org/Pourquoi-le-president-de-l-ARBR-se<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13413134411885444875noreply@blogger.com