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Still from 'Marie Antoinette' (2006)

The great movie scenes: Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette

What makes a film a classic? In this column, film scholar Bruce Isaacs looks at a classic film and analyses its brilliance.


Marie Antoinette, 2006.

Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette divided both critics and audience alike with its playful depiction of historical events. Many critics felt that by choosing to depict history on film, Coppola had a responsibility to be faithful to that history.


Read more: Sofia Coppola emerges from her father's shadow with Cannes triumph for The Beguiled


While some of the harshest critics accused the film of abusing historical facts, Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is a sophisticated recreation of the past through the impressionistic lens of the present. The film has a lot to say about how we experience the past, and how that past is relevant to us today.


See also:

The great movie scenes: Hitchcock’s Vertigo
The great movie scenes: Antonioni’s The Passenger
The great movie scenes: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The great movie scenes: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws
The great movie scenes: Hitchcock’s Psycho
The great movie scenes: The Godfather
The great movie scenes: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

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