Conference bookie::movies

913.0. "D'Artagnan's Daughter" by RNDHSE::WALL (Show me, don't tell me) Mon Aug 21 1995 12:19

    So I'm standing on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, rather touristed out,
    and resigned to passing some time viewing Batman Forever.  However, it
    doesn't start for quite a while, so I have to kill some time before
    they'll let me in.
    
    Just along a side street is the Glasgow Film Theater, and among that
    afternoon's attractions is a recent French import called D'Artagnan's
    Daughter.  1) I am the biggest sucker for anything connected to the
    Three Musketeers you ever saw.  2) The film is directed by Bernard
    Tavernier, whose name rings a bell, and stars Sophie Marceau, who
    Americans will recognize as playing the fictionalized Princess of Wales
    in Braveheart, and who makes my heart go pitter-pat.  3) It starts a
    lot sooner, and will be half the price.
    
    Capsule Review:  One of the five best movies I've ever seen.  Liked it
    so much I went to see it again in Edinburgh.
    
    It's hard to resist trying to follow up something that went as big as
    The Three Musketeers.  Dumas yielded to the temptation and gave us the
    somewhat melancholy Twenty Years After and more distantly the Viscomte
    de Bragelonne.  Various filmmakers have spoofed or rearranged the
    familiar elements.  Despite its violations of what might be called the
    canon, D'Artagnan's Daughter is the most legitmate heir to the original
    story.
    
    The film speculates that there was enough time between the events of
    the two big plot threads in The Three Musketeers (The Queen's Diamonds
    and Milady's Revenge) for D'Artagnan to marry Constance Bonacieux and
    sire a daughter, Eloise, before Constance met her untimely death. 
    D'Artagnan reasons that a men getting sent off to war by Louis XIII
    every spring might not be able to raise a daughter, and renders her
    into the care of some nuns at a convent near the estates of one Clovis,
    Duc de Jussac.
    
    The film traces the adventures of Eloise, whose peaceful but boring
    existence is one night interrupted by the arrival of a runaway slave. 
    From there we get what William Goldman called "all the good stuff" in
    his introduction to The Princess Bride.  Fencing, Fighting, Torture,
    Murder, Chases, Escapes, Conspiracies, True Love, all with a liberal
    dose of Humor.  It's done in French, of course, with English subtitles,
    and if it comes over here I hope nobody takes it into their heads to
    dub it, because the subtitles are brilliantly executed and render the
    French understandable without stepping all over it.
    
    All the Musketeers come back into it (eventually) and the portrayal of
    them is top-notch.  Richelieu is gone, but Mazarin is here, counseling
    the adolescent Louis XIV.  The Italian actor who portrayed Richelieu's
    less able successor was particular brilliant among the supporting cast. 
    There are in-jokes that aren't too far in, wonderfully droll asides, a
    bit of slapstick, it's just terrific.  And of course, terrific
    swordfights and stunts, with just the right kinds of banter.  The
    deftness of the farce approaches that of P.G. Wodehouse's most
    complicated plots.
    
    I hope somebody is smart enough to bring it over here, and I hope it
    makes it into mainstream theaters, because it really deserves it.
    
    Ou est la soliel?  Imbecile!
    
    DFW

    I hope it comes to America too; sounds like a must see. BTW, there were
    a total of five Dumas books in the series starting with the Three
    Musketeers. Fourth book's title escapes me, but it was the name of the
    woman whom the Viscomte wanted to marry. The last was the Man in the
    Iron Mask.
    			Jim

    The fourth book is "Louise De La Valliere". I have read all the
    volumes, two of them in the original French and I did not particularly
    care for Vicomte de Bragelonne and Louise De La Valliere. They lacked
    some of the excitement and danger that is sensed in the other books,
    where the major scenes are described with almost a cinematic quality.
    
    Dumas is great for any filmmaker and there's tons of plots and sub
    plots in every book for a good film to be made on. I hope they release
    this film soon in the U.S. It seems to be a good one and judging by
    Bertrand Tavernier's past record, should be great viewing. BTW, I agree
    with the comment about sub titling. Dubbing foreign language films is
    a joke, a farce which destroys a movie completely. I remember seeing a
    dubbed version of one of Truffaut's masterpieces once, "Les Quatre
    Cent Coups", which is the "The Four Hundred Blows" and it was just
    awful, believe me. I had to walk away from the theater in the middle of
    the film.
    
    Bertrand Tavernier is a well known director in France and has made many
    good movies, quite a few of them based on historical themes. However,
    I don't remember many of the titles as I had seen them in the late 70's
    when they had been just released. It's surprizing to realize that he's
    still around, making movies.
    
    			Krish