This movie covers the last few years of Georges Jacques Danton's life, from the era of the Tennis Court Oath to his death by guillotine five years later.
The film offers the viewer alternate scenes of spectacle, with crowds of hundreds shouting and waving liberty caps, varied with scenes of Lucie Mannheim clinging to Fritz Kortner in desperation. Gustaf Gründgens offers a performance as Robespierre as an egotist whose mania has consumed him, like a certain ex-president furious that when the FBI executed a warrant on his home, that they didn't take off their shoes in the bedroom. I would call it a Highlights Of History version of the story, but it ignores the forces that led to the revolution, and by ignoring them, turns it into a meaningless exercise. While I don't agree absolutely with Mark Twain that
"There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves",
nonetheless, there's a truth in it, expressed better than I could. By ignoring it, this film makes the Revolution a meaningless coup. Perhaps that was the film makers' intent.
