WAJDA'S 'DANTON,' INSIDE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Danton
NYT
Critic’s Pick
Directed
by Andrzej Wajda
Biography,
Drama, History
PG
2h 16m
By
Vincent Canby
Sept. 28,
1983
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/28/movies/wajda-s-danton-inside-the-french-revolution.html
COMPARED to the massive scale of the
Russian Revolution, the French Revolution of 1789-95 seems almost to have been
a chamber piece. Though armies supporting Louis XVI crossed France's border
seeking to save the Bourbon monarchy, and though all of France eventually
become involved in the bloodshed, the most decisive battles of the Revolution
were fought in Paris, in the political clubs and on the streets.
In Paris,
the Revolution's leaders, with the backing of the angry mobs, set policies that
the rest of the country, left to their own devices, would probably have
disowned, at least initially. The course of the Revolution was shaped by a
small group of extraordinary men, all young, who started out as idealists, then
became comrades and close friends, godfathers to one another's children. Within
four years, they had split into factions as mortal enemies. Men did not
hesitate to send to the guillotine former boon companions, now branded as
traitors to the fatherland.
This
peculiar, dreadful intimacy of a handful of remarkable personalities is vividly
dramatized in ''Danton,'' Andrzej Wajda's fine, comparatively ascetic
historical film that will be shown at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln
Center today at 9:30 P.M. and tomorrow at 6:15 P.M.
Chief
among these personalities are Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre. Danton
is the passionate, vulgar, not entirely honest man of the people, a hugely
popular leader of the Revolutionary left who becomes increasingly moderate as
the Revolution adopts policies of extermination. Robespierre, called ''the
incorruptible,'' is the small, fastidiously dressed, rigorously moral lawyer
from Arras who, being convinced that Danton's moderation is a betrayal of the
Revolution, engineers his trial and execution. ''Robespierre, you will follow
me within three months!'' the furious Danton screams as he is hauled off to the
guillotine and, as things turned out, he was absolutely right.
''Danton,''
a Franco-Polish co-production, was directed in France by Mr. Wajda from a
screenplay by Jean-Claude Carriere, based on a stage play by Stanislawa
Przybyszewska. Gerard Depardieu, who is, of course, a French actor, stars as
the sympathetic Danton. Wojciech Pszoniak, a Polish actor, shares star billing
as the thin-lipped voice of reason, Robespierre. That the Robespierrists, all
of whom are seen as fanatics, some slightly less opportunistic than others,
should be played by Polish actors, while the earthy, hearty, mostly honest
Dantonists are played by French actors, is just one of the possible reasons why
the Polish Government has not yet seen fit to release the film at home.
Without
stretching things too much, I suppose, Mr. Wajda presents us with a Danton who
is the articulate conscience of the Revolution, someone, perhaps, not entirely
unlike Lech Walesa, the popular spokesman of Poland's Solidarity movement. On
the other hand, Robespierre is seen as being completely removed from the
practical needs and real feelings of the people, a stern father-figure of a
dictator, a man who doesn't hesitate to approve the murder of thousands of
people for the fatherland's ultimate good.
In an
interview in Le Monde, Mr. Wajda denies all associations between 18th-century
France and 20th-century Poland, though he does say that Danton represents the
West and Robespierre the East.
Whether
or not these associations hold true are beside the point of the film.
''Danton'' brilliantly illuminates one of the most fascinating periods of the
French Revolution - those early months in 1794 when Danton, having been in
self-imposed retirement in the country, returned to Paris to attempt to stop
the Terror. Louis had been beheaded in January 1793. By October 1793, the
Terror was picking up momentum, with the execution of Marie Antoinette, the
liberal-thinking Duc D'Orleans, the chatty, letter- writing Madame Roland, and
the leaders of the Girondists, the Revolution's moderates. In returning to
Paris instead of fleeing the country, as his friends advised him to do, Danton
knew he was leaving his head exposed to the guillotine.
In
keeping with the chamber-piece nature of this Revolution, ''Danton'' is played
out in a series of mostly small, intimate, beautifully defined confrontations
between the robust, commonsensical Danton and the steely Robespierre. It's to
Mr. Carriere's credit, as the screenwriter, that these scenes should be so
truly dramatic and understandable, even, I suspect, to someone who has no
special knoweldge of or interest in the course of the Revolution.
It's to
Mr. Wajda's credit that though his sympathies are clearly with Danton, played
with all stops out by Mr. Depardieu, it is Robespierre, played with silky
neuroticism by Mr. Pszoniak, who emerges as the film's most arresting, possibly
tragic figure.
Not so
effective are those scenes that attempt to place the personal- political drama
in the context of a city and a nation in rebellion. There is something as
perfunctory as there is obligatory about the crowd scenes. They remind me, in
fact, of those Hollywood mobs, led by Blanche Yurka as Madame Defarge, that
were out to get Charles Darnay in the 1935 ''A Tale of Two Cities.'' It also
doesn't help that the French dialogue of the Polish actors, including Mr.
Pszoniak, has not been especially well post-synchronized with the movements of
the actors' lips.
Mr. Wajda
and Mr. Carriere haven't exactly cleaned up Danton's reputation, but the bad
things remain offscreen. There are references to the taking of bribes, to his
love of women and property, and he himself asks forgiveness for having formed
the notorious Committee of Public Safety, the body through which Robespierre
came to control the country. Not emphasized at all is Danton's part in the
September 1793 massacre in which mobs were encouraged to ransack Paris prisons
and, without discrimination, murder everyone they could lay hands on as agents
of the feared monarchist counterrevolution. Danton was not as clean as a
hound's tooth.
What the
film does most effectively is dramatize his later conviction that the
Revolution's fury was itself a betrayal of the Revolution, as he says so
eloquently in the trial that is the film's climax.
In
addition to Mr. Depardieu and Mr. Pszoniak, the excellent cast includes Patrice
Chereau as Danton's journalist-friend, Camille Desmoulins; Angela Winkler as
Lucille Desmoulins, Camille's wife who followed him to the scaffold; Boguslaw
Linda, as Saint Just, and Roger Planchon, who is partciuarly good as Fourquier
Tinville, who prosecuted Danton and his associates in a rigged trial.
''Danton''
is a major work from this major film maker. Ah, Those French! DANTON, directed
by Andrzej Wajda; screenplay (French with English subtitles) by Jean- Claude
Carriere, based on ''L'Affaire Danton'' by Stanislawa Przybyszewska with the
collaboration of Mr. Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, Boleslaw Michalek and Jacek
Gasiorowski; photography by Igor Luther; edited by Halina Prugar- Ketling;
music by Jean Prodromides; produced by Margaret Menegoz/Les Films du Losange in
collaboration with Production Group X of Warsaw Barbara Pec-Slesicka; a Triumph
Films Release. In Alice Tully Hall, as part of the 21st New York Film Festival;
presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in cooperation with the Motion
Picture Association of America. Running time: 136 minutes. This film has no
rating. Danton, Gerard Depardieu Robespierre, Wojciech Pszoniak Eleonore
Duplay, Anne Alvaro Lacroix, Roland Blanche Camille Desmoulins, Patrice Chereau
Louison Danton, Emmanuelle Debever Amar, Krzysztof Globisz Herman, Ronald Guttman
Tallien, Gerard Hardy Couthon, Tadeusz Huk Panis, Stephane Jobert Lindet,
Marian Kociniak Barere de Vieuzac, Marek Kondrat Saint Just, Boguslaw Linda
Heron, Alain Mace Legendre, Bernard Maitre Fabre d'Eglantine, Lucine Melki
Philippeaux, Serge Merlin Collot d'Herbois, Erwin Nowiaszack Carnot, Leonard
Pietraszak Fouquier Tinville, Roger Planchon Frere d'Eleonore, Angel Sedgwick
Bourdon, Andrzej Seweryn David, Franciszek Starowieyski Billaud-Varenne, Jerzy
Trela Chanteuse boulangerie, Anne-Marie Vennel Westermann, Jacques Villeret
Lucile Desmoulins, Angela Winkler Herault de Sechelles, Jean-Loup Wolff Vadier,
Czeslaw Wollejko Chef des gardes, Wladimir Yordanoff Servante des Duplay,
Matgorzata Zajaczkowska Lebas, Szymon Zaleski
Corrected
on
Oct. 13,
1983
:
Thursday,
Late City Final Edition
We
acknowledge mistakes in our reporting with corrections. If you spot an error,
please let us know at corrections@nytimes.com.Learn
more.
Danton
NYT
Critic’s Pick
Director
Andrzej
Wajda
Stars
Gérard
Depardieu, Wojciech Pszoniak, Anne Alvaro, Roland Blanche, Patrice Chéreau
Rating
PG
Running
Time
2h 16m
Genres
Biography,
Drama,
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