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Re: oooh DomA Send a noteboard - 25/01/2011 12:46:30 PM
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
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A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out. - 22/01/2011 11:48:21 PM 1487 Views
This month is just making me hate classics. - 23/01/2011 12:06:08 AM 1317 Views
Aw. That's a shame. - 23/01/2011 12:21:10 AM 1233 Views
Re: Aw. That's a shame. - 23/01/2011 12:55:44 PM 1342 Views
Hrm... a high fantasy classic... - 23/01/2011 01:15:05 PM 1118 Views
Yeah? Okay... *NM* - 23/01/2011 01:16:15 PM 586 Views
Yes. - 23/01/2011 01:17:18 PM 1269 Views
Dunsany is good. And Grimm, but - 23/01/2011 01:25:40 PM 1142 Views
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 586 Views
Perhaps Gormenghast? - 23/01/2011 01:58:50 PM 1299 Views
Perhaps, haven't read either Dunsany or Peake. - 23/01/2011 02:02:51 PM 1253 Views
Re: Perhaps, haven't read either Dunsany or Peake. - 23/01/2011 02:05:31 PM 1414 Views
Maybe Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? *NM* - 23/01/2011 02:20:49 PM 592 Views
Re: Dunsany is good. And Grimm, but - 23/01/2011 01:37:56 PM 1173 Views
Re: Dunsany is good. And Grimm, but - 23/01/2011 01:59:18 PM 1301 Views
H. Rider Haggard. - 23/01/2011 01:24:01 PM 1250 Views
Sounds interesting. - 23/01/2011 01:34:45 PM 1279 Views
Re: Sounds interesting. - 23/01/2011 01:39:34 PM 1338 Views
King Solomon's Mines is also awesome. - 23/01/2011 03:52:04 PM 1098 Views
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 1317 Views
Precisely - 23/01/2011 09:40:26 AM 1523 Views
True true... - 23/01/2011 12:58:42 PM 1268 Views
Fortunately, that's precisely what this site aims to do! *NM* - 23/01/2011 01:34:16 PM 606 Views
You just aren't reading the right books (and reviews), it seems - 23/01/2011 12:41:07 AM 1331 Views
The Swiss Family Robinson is hardly a "classic", unless by "classic" you mean "old". - 23/01/2011 06:55:30 AM 1128 Views
Fine then. - 23/01/2011 01:02:48 PM 1198 Views
Re: This month is just making me hate classics. - 23/01/2011 09:05:52 AM 1313 Views
A lot of "classics" need proper context to be appreciated - 23/01/2011 12:22:44 PM 1491 Views
Well said. - 23/01/2011 12:46:35 PM 1316 Views
Re: Well said. - 24/01/2011 02:33:10 AM 1376 Views
Very true - 23/01/2011 01:04:56 PM 1250 Views
Speaking of Dumas... - 24/01/2011 02:45:02 AM 1116 Views
ooooh - 24/01/2011 08:51:46 AM 1426 Views
The Molière movie is called... wait for it... - 24/01/2011 10:21:48 PM 1256 Views
oooh - 24/01/2011 10:24:19 PM 1303 Views
Re: oooh - 24/01/2011 10:29:23 PM 1161 Views
Re: oooh - 25/01/2011 01:15:39 AM 1252 Views
I really should watch that movie. - 25/01/2011 09:43:35 PM 1207 Views
Re: I really should watch that movie. - 25/01/2011 11:15:10 PM 1357 Views
Re: oooh - 25/01/2011 01:50:04 AM 1179 Views
Re: oooh - 25/01/2011 10:22:21 AM 1336 Views
Re: oooh - 25/01/2011 12:46:30 PM 1360 Views
That's it! - 25/01/2011 12:50:18 PM 1380 Views
Re: A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out. - 23/01/2011 06:25:50 AM 1270 Views
The big problem with Dracula is that it's an epistolary novel. - 23/01/2011 06:58:25 AM 1269 Views
Yeah, agreed. - 23/01/2011 09:46:57 AM 1214 Views
But Frankenstein doesn't even have good writing to recommend it. - 23/01/2011 10:09:58 AM 1201 Views
The challenge is making me wish I hadn't already read Frankenstein - 23/01/2011 07:38:49 AM 1896 Views
Really? - 23/01/2011 07:52:24 AM 1170 Views
I didn't mind The Importance of Being Earnest too much - 23/01/2011 08:38:14 AM 1870 Views
Frankenstein - 23/01/2011 09:05:10 AM 1300 Views
... - 23/01/2011 09:08:03 AM 1144 Views
Thank you. *NM* - 23/01/2011 10:10:34 AM 574 Views
For, as usual, being my wonderful, divine self and bringing light to the world? *NM* - 23/01/2011 10:12:30 AM 605 Views
Something like that. *NM* - 23/01/2011 10:15:37 AM 530 Views
There's a reason why they include Wilde among the "decadents". - 23/01/2011 10:16:33 AM 1211 Views
Re: A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out. - 23/01/2011 08:53:01 AM 1234 Views
Yes. - 23/01/2011 10:15:04 AM 1221 Views
Re: Yes. - 23/01/2011 10:18:02 AM 1220 Views
I just read A Christmas Carol as well. It's very short, alright. - 02/02/2011 08:46:16 PM 1277 Views

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