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- Title
The French Revolution on Film: American and French Perspectives.
- Authors
Harison, Casey
- Abstract
This article considers one manner in which popular impressions of the French Revolution have taken shape in the U.S. by examining interpretations found in four American films, and then comparing these depictions with other, mostly French, movies. The four American films were Orphans of the Storm, directed by D. W. Griffith, Marie Antoinette, directed by W. S. Van Dyke, The Black Book, directed by Anthony Mann and Jefferson in Paris, directed by James Ivory. These movies have been selected because they span the century and because they fit into relatively distinct creative eras. Historians have time and again noted that the U.S. and France are joined by a unique transatlantic history that saw the two nations emerge as the world's first modern republics. Since the 18th century, the revolutions that produced these sister republics have often served as inspiration and sometimes as models for other revolutions. Some of the issues that divide the two countries have to do with genuine policy differences, but in other ways the division may be the product of perceptions and habits of looking at the other. Over the years American films about the French Revolution have contributed to this division. Sections of the films described here offer intriguing views of the French Revolution, and for this reason all could be useful in sparking discussion in the classroom. But a nuanced and even-handed American film about the French Revolution, willing to engage the event at some level of complexity and beyond the usual stereotypes, an American equivalent of Renoir's La Marseillaise still awaits being made.
- Subjects
UNITED States; FRANCE; FRENCH Revolution, 1789-1799; ANGLO-French War, 1793-1802; MOTION pictures; AMERICAN films; ORPHANS of the Storm (Film); MARIE Antoinette (Film : 2006); REIGN of Terror (Film); JEFFERSON in Paris (Film)
- Publication
History Teacher, 2005, Vol 38, Issue 3, p299
- ISSN
0018-2745
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/30037010