Marie Antoinette

This was a very human account of the lives and deaths of Marie Antoinette and Louis the XVI focusing primarily on Marie. It is an account of their lives from birth to death and the circumstances leading to the downfall of the French monarchy. It is done with actors and many painted images of the King and Queen. It tells of the great incompetence of the monarchy both from the King and the Queen and the public rage that built to a crescendo. It tells how Marie was tried, convicted, and scapegoated in the public eye by the press of that time. This documentary leaves you with the feeling that a great injustice was done to Marie and her family. Although she was not by any means portrayed as an angel, she probably did not deserve the punishments forced upon her. A very enjoyable well done documentary, especially for people who are interested in history.

This is a really beautifully produced bio of Marie Antoinette. I saw it when it aired on PBS and rented it later to view again.

Blair Brown does a wonderful narration, and the direction of images and information is marvelous. One quibble is that the French historians are only translated in subtitle, not audio; so this might bother some folks.

This is infinitely better than the slap-dash Bio: Marie Antoinette, Queen of Versailles; BUT that one has lovely, lingering shots of Marie's Shepherdess village which is only shown here at a distance here. Since that village has really fascinating, fanciful architecture (like early Disney or OZ), that (otherwise lousy) bio is worth seeing, too.

Get them both, watch the bad one first, then settle in to watch this one, for a really complete, interesting, top notch bio pic from PBS.