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Re: oooh DomA Send a noteboard - 25/01/2011 12:46:30 PM
I wonder whether I haven't seen that film. The older one, that is. Does the king show up with a sun on his head at some point?



That rather sounds like Le Roi Danse, the adaptation of the amazing book Lully, ou le musicien du Soleil (alas horribly expensive, because of all the color reproductions of the surviving ballet programmes, the designs of the costumes or sets, machines etc.) . It's a biography of Lully written by an art/music historian, so it's doubled by an in-depth study of his works, and of the role and use of the Arts by Louis XIV. It's become the reference book on the Arts at Versailles and their role in the reign. The book is a companion to a (still ongoing - they're at volume 13 or so) edition of Lully's complete works. The book I've perused many time in store, but it's just too expensive. I have a few of the CDs - including some of Molière's plays with their full score (it's Hollywoodian use of music before the letter, really.). Another one I love is a CD of excerpts from Les Trois Mousquetaires mixed with the music Lully wrote for their (the real musketeers, not Dumas's novel of course) entrances, parades, charges etc. - there's little at Versailles under Louis XIV's for which a specific musical score wasn't written. Louis XIV would have loved reality TV (as long as he was its only Star and had full creative freedom mind you)!

Le Roi Danse is considered a very average movie (by the director of Farinelli), but I liked that one. It focusses more on Lully's life and how with Molière and Louis XIV they built from the ground up using the Arts the Sun King mythology.

The Molière movie is older than that. It doesn't have the court or the King much in it. Most of the theater scenes are from the period in which Molière's troupe tried to play tragedies (mostly Racine) -with godawful results, and then from the period he resigned himself that he couldn't make a living as a tragedian and the troupe started touring the countryside for years, mounting Italian farces and their own plays modeled on them. In the period in which he began writing his comedies, attracted the interest of one of Louis XIV's cousins and eventually became Versailles's "metteur en scène", the movie focusses a lot more on his private life and the impact being a courtier had on it.

His plays are what survived, but they were a small part of his role at Versailles as a "conceptual director" of Louis XIV public life we might say today. Interestingly, that part of his work is probably his larger contribution to French culture too, contributing far more to establishing the cultural dominance of France. His theatre itself has nothing of the cultural impact Shakespeare has in English culture (there's really no "national playwright" like that in France, and if there were one it would be Racine, not Molière).
This message last edited by DomA on 25/01/2011 at 12:49:24 PM
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A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out. - 22/01/2011 11:48:21 PM 1543 Views
This month is just making me hate classics. - 23/01/2011 12:06:08 AM 1362 Views
Aw. That's a shame. - 23/01/2011 12:21:10 AM 1295 Views
Re: Aw. That's a shame. - 23/01/2011 12:55:44 PM 1386 Views
Hrm... a high fantasy classic... - 23/01/2011 01:15:05 PM 1167 Views
Yeah? Okay... *NM* - 23/01/2011 01:16:15 PM 603 Views
Yes. - 23/01/2011 01:17:18 PM 1310 Views
Dunsany is good. And Grimm, but - 23/01/2011 01:25:40 PM 1186 Views
There's really only one high fantasy classic, no? Or two, if you count the Silm separately. *NM* - 23/01/2011 01:35:03 PM 604 Views
Perhaps Gormenghast? - 23/01/2011 01:58:50 PM 1343 Views
Perhaps, haven't read either Dunsany or Peake. - 23/01/2011 02:02:51 PM 1295 Views
Re: Perhaps, haven't read either Dunsany or Peake. - 23/01/2011 02:05:31 PM 1469 Views
Maybe Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? *NM* - 23/01/2011 02:20:49 PM 613 Views
Re: Dunsany is good. And Grimm, but - 23/01/2011 01:37:56 PM 1221 Views
Re: Dunsany is good. And Grimm, but - 23/01/2011 01:59:18 PM 1338 Views
H. Rider Haggard. - 23/01/2011 01:24:01 PM 1308 Views
Sounds interesting. - 23/01/2011 01:34:45 PM 1321 Views
Re: Sounds interesting. - 23/01/2011 01:39:34 PM 1390 Views
King Solomon's Mines is also awesome. - 23/01/2011 03:52:04 PM 1148 Views
You can't love all of the classics, but it's not like it's a genre of its own that you can dislike. - 23/01/2011 12:32:01 AM 1358 Views
Precisely - 23/01/2011 09:40:26 AM 1580 Views
True true... - 23/01/2011 12:58:42 PM 1322 Views
Fortunately, that's precisely what this site aims to do! *NM* - 23/01/2011 01:34:16 PM 627 Views
You just aren't reading the right books (and reviews), it seems - 23/01/2011 12:41:07 AM 1382 Views
The Swiss Family Robinson is hardly a "classic", unless by "classic" you mean "old". - 23/01/2011 06:55:30 AM 1182 Views
Fine then. - 23/01/2011 01:02:48 PM 1239 Views
Re: This month is just making me hate classics. - 23/01/2011 09:05:52 AM 1364 Views
A lot of "classics" need proper context to be appreciated - 23/01/2011 12:22:44 PM 1535 Views
Well said. - 23/01/2011 12:46:35 PM 1366 Views
Re: Well said. - 24/01/2011 02:33:10 AM 1426 Views
Very true - 23/01/2011 01:04:56 PM 1296 Views
Speaking of Dumas... - 24/01/2011 02:45:02 AM 1157 Views
ooooh - 24/01/2011 08:51:46 AM 1477 Views
The Molière movie is called... wait for it... - 24/01/2011 10:21:48 PM 1307 Views
oooh - 24/01/2011 10:24:19 PM 1345 Views
Re: oooh - 24/01/2011 10:29:23 PM 1204 Views
Re: oooh - 25/01/2011 01:15:39 AM 1303 Views
I really should watch that movie. - 25/01/2011 09:43:35 PM 1258 Views
Re: I really should watch that movie. - 25/01/2011 11:15:10 PM 1406 Views
Re: oooh - 25/01/2011 01:50:04 AM 1237 Views
Re: oooh - 25/01/2011 10:22:21 AM 1386 Views
Re: oooh - 25/01/2011 12:46:30 PM 1415 Views
That's it! - 25/01/2011 12:50:18 PM 1426 Views
Re: A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out. - 23/01/2011 06:25:50 AM 1323 Views
The big problem with Dracula is that it's an epistolary novel. - 23/01/2011 06:58:25 AM 1305 Views
Yeah, agreed. - 23/01/2011 09:46:57 AM 1266 Views
But Frankenstein doesn't even have good writing to recommend it. - 23/01/2011 10:09:58 AM 1253 Views
The challenge is making me wish I hadn't already read Frankenstein - 23/01/2011 07:38:49 AM 1952 Views
Really? - 23/01/2011 07:52:24 AM 1219 Views
I didn't mind The Importance of Being Earnest too much - 23/01/2011 08:38:14 AM 1922 Views
Frankenstein - 23/01/2011 09:05:10 AM 1341 Views
... - 23/01/2011 09:08:03 AM 1182 Views
Thank you. *NM* - 23/01/2011 10:10:34 AM 593 Views
For, as usual, being my wonderful, divine self and bringing light to the world? *NM* - 23/01/2011 10:12:30 AM 624 Views
Something like that. *NM* - 23/01/2011 10:15:37 AM 547 Views
There's a reason why they include Wilde among the "decadents". - 23/01/2011 10:16:33 AM 1261 Views
Re: A few thoughts on my Classic challenge book. Well, books, as it turns out. - 23/01/2011 08:53:01 AM 1289 Views
Yes. - 23/01/2011 10:15:04 AM 1270 Views
Re: Yes. - 23/01/2011 10:18:02 AM 1266 Views
I just read A Christmas Carol as well. It's very short, alright. - 02/02/2011 08:46:16 PM 1322 Views

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