I wonder whether I haven't seen that film. The older one, that is. Does the king show up with a sun on his head at some point?
That rather sounds like Le Roi Danse, the adaptation of the amazing book Lully, ou le musicien du Soleil (alas horribly expensive, because of all the color reproductions of the surviving ballet programmes, the designs of the costumes or sets, machines etc.) . It's a biography of Lully written by an art/music historian, so it's doubled by an in-depth study of his works, and of the role and use of the Arts by Louis XIV. It's become the reference book on the Arts at Versailles and their role in the reign. The book is a companion to a (still ongoing - they're at volume 13 or so) edition of Lully's complete works. The book I've perused many time in store, but it's just too expensive. I have a few of the CDs - including some of Molière's plays with their full score (it's Hollywoodian use of music before the letter, really.). Another one I love is a CD of excerpts from Les Trois Mousquetaires mixed with the music Lully wrote for their (the real musketeers, not Dumas's novel of course) entrances, parades, charges etc. - there's little at Versailles under Louis XIV's for which a specific musical score wasn't written. Louis XIV would have loved reality TV (as long as he was its only Star and had full creative freedom mind you)!
Le Roi Danse is considered a very average movie (by the director of Farinelli), but I liked that one. It focusses more on Lully's life and how with Molière and Louis XIV they built from the ground up using the Arts the Sun King mythology.
The Molière movie is older than that. It doesn't have the court or the King much in it. Most of the theater scenes are from the period in which Molière's troupe tried to play tragedies (mostly Racine) -with godawful results, and then from the period he resigned himself that he couldn't make a living as a tragedian and the troupe started touring the countryside for years, mounting Italian farces and their own plays modeled on them. In the period in which he began writing his comedies, attracted the interest of one of Louis XIV's cousins and eventually became Versailles's "metteur en scène", the movie focusses a lot more on his private life and the impact being a courtier had on it.
His plays are what survived, but they were a small part of his role at Versailles as a "conceptual director" of Louis XIV public life we might say today. Interestingly, that part of his work is probably his larger contribution to French culture too, contributing far more to establishing the cultural dominance of France. His theatre itself has nothing of the cultural impact Shakespeare has in English culture (there's really no "national playwright" like that in France, and if there were one it would be Racine, not Molière).
This message last edited by DomA on 25/01/2011 at 12:49:24 PM
A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out.
22/01/2011 11:48:21 PM
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This month is just making me hate classics.
23/01/2011 12:06:08 AM
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Aw. That's a shame.
23/01/2011 12:21:10 AM
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Re: Aw. That's a shame.
23/01/2011 12:55:44 PM
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Hrm... a high fantasy classic...
23/01/2011 01:15:05 PM
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Yes.
23/01/2011 01:17:18 PM
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Dunsany is good. And Grimm, but
23/01/2011 01:25:40 PM
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There's really only one high fantasy classic, no? Or two, if you count the Silm separately. *NM*
23/01/2011 01:35:03 PM
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Perhaps Gormenghast?
23/01/2011 01:58:50 PM
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H. Rider Haggard.
23/01/2011 01:24:01 PM
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You can't love all of the classics, but it's not like it's a genre of its own that you can dislike.
23/01/2011 12:32:01 AM
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The Swiss Family Robinson is hardly a "classic", unless by "classic" you mean "old".
23/01/2011 06:55:30 AM
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A lot of "classics" need proper context to be appreciated
23/01/2011 12:22:44 PM
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Well said.
23/01/2011 12:46:35 PM
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Re: Well said.
24/01/2011 02:33:10 AM
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That reminds me I need to get back to the Mémoires of Marguerite de Valois.
24/01/2011 10:17:17 PM
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Very true
23/01/2011 01:04:56 PM
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Speaking of Dumas...
24/01/2011 02:45:02 AM
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ooooh
24/01/2011 08:51:46 AM
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The Molière movie is called... wait for it...
24/01/2011 10:21:48 PM
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oooh
24/01/2011 10:24:19 PM
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Re: oooh
24/01/2011 10:29:23 PM
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Re: oooh
25/01/2011 01:15:39 AM
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I really should watch that movie.
25/01/2011 09:43:35 PM
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Re: I really should watch that movie.
25/01/2011 11:15:10 PM
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Why not? We liked Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain and Les Invasions Barbares. *NM*
26/01/2011 06:45:26 PM
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Re: Why not? We liked Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain and Les Invasions Barbares.
27/01/2011 12:26:48 PM
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Re: A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out.
23/01/2011 06:25:50 AM
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The big problem with Dracula is that it's an epistolary novel.
23/01/2011 06:58:25 AM
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Dracula is the book I hope to review (properly) today. I love it. So very much.
23/01/2011 10:08:34 AM
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The challenge is making me wish I hadn't already read Frankenstein
23/01/2011 07:38:49 AM
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Really?
23/01/2011 07:52:24 AM
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...
23/01/2011 09:08:03 AM
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Thank you. *NM*
23/01/2011 10:10:34 AM
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For, as usual, being my wonderful, divine self and bringing light to the world? *NM*
23/01/2011 10:12:30 AM
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Re: A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out.
23/01/2011 08:53:01 AM
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I just read A Christmas Carol as well. It's very short, alright.
02/02/2011 08:46:16 PM
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