From Academy Award®-winning screenwriter and Oscar® nominated director Sofia Coppola, comes a youthful and contemporary 21st century movie about an 18th Century legend — MARIE ANTOINETTE.

Often maligned, passionately debated and ultimately a misunderstood young woman, Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst), through Coppola’s vision, emerges neither as staid historical villain nor divine idol — but as a confused and lonely teenage outsider thrust against her will into a decadent and scandal-plagued world on the eve of disaster.

SYNOPSIS

Oscar® winner Sofia Coppola brings to the screen a fresh interpretation of the life of France’s legendary teenage queen MARIE ANTOINETTE. Betrothed to King Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman), the naïve Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) at the age of 14, she is thrown into the opulent French court which is steeped in conspiracy and scandal. Alone, without guidance, and adrift in a dangerous world, the young Marie Antoinette rebels against the isolated atmosphere at Versailles and, in the process, becomes France’s most misunderstood monarch. Kirsten Dunst stars as the youthful princess whose fateful life became the stuff of myth and legend. The story begins when 14-year-old Marie Antoinette is whisked away from her family and friends in Vienna, stripped of all her possessions and deposited in the sophisticated and decadent world of Versailles, the lavish royal court near Paris.

Marie Antoinette is merely a pawn in an arranged marriage meant to solidify the harmony between two nations. Her teenage husband, the Dauphin Louis (Jason Schwartzman), is heir to the French throne. But Marie Antoinette is ill prepared to be the kind of ruler for whom the French populace yearns. Beneath her finery, she’s a sheltered, frightened and confused young woman, surrounded by vicious detractors, insincere flatterers, puppet masters and gossips. Trapped by the conventions of her station in life, Marie Antoinette must find a way to fit into the complex and treacherous world of Versailles.

Adding to her woes is the indifference of her new husband, Louis. Their marriage goes unconsummated for an astonishing seven years. The awkward future king proves to be a disaster as a lover, sparking grave concerns (and relentless gossip) that Marie Antoinette will never produce an heir.

Overwhelmed and distraught, Marie Antoinette seeks refuge in the decadence of the French aristocracy and in a secret love affair with the alluring Swedish Count Fersen (Jamie Dornan). Her indiscretions are soon the talk of France. Whether she is being idealized for her impeccable style or vilified for being unforgivably out of touch with her subjects, reaction to Marie Antoinette is always extreme. Yet, slowly, as she matures, she begins to find her way as a wife, mother and Queen — only to be tragically swept up in a bloody revolution that alters France forever.

Columbia Pictures Presents in Association with Pricel and Tohokushinsha An American Zoetrope Production MARIE ANTOINETTE starring Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Rose Byrne, Asia Argento, Molly Shannon, Shirley Henderson, Danny Huston and Steve Coogan. The film is directed by Sofia Coppola, from a screenplay by Sofia Coppola based on the book Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser. The producers are Ross Katz and Sofia Coppola. The executive producers are Fred Roos and Francis Ford Coppola. The co-producer is Callum Greene. The director of photography is Lance Acord, ASC. The production designer is KK Barrett. The editor is Sarah Flack. The costume designer is Milena Canonero. The music producer is Brian Reitzell.

MARIE ANTOINETTE has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for Sexual Content, Partial Nudity and Innuendo.

MARIE ANTOINETTE will be released by Columbia Pictures in the U.S. on October 20, 2006.

A NEW VIEW OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

MARIE ANTOINETTE marks writer/director Sofia Coppola’s third feature film, and by far her most ambitious. She transforms the misunderstood Marie Antoinette through her refreshingly modern and upbeat approach that’s devoid of conventions of period pieces. In its place, she has created a moving story of adolescent angst and spirit that transcends its time. Coppola’s strikingly personal vision and imaginative visual style re-imagines Marie Antoinette and the entire court of Versailles through the lens of today’s popular culture.

“Everything we did is based on research about the period, but it’s all seen in a contemporary way,” says Coppola. “My biggest fear was making a ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ kind of movie. I didn’t want to make a dry, historical period movie with the distant, cold tableau of shots. It was very important to me to tell the story in my own way. In the same way as I wanted LOST IN TRANSLATION to feel like you had just spent a couple of hours in Tokyo, I wanted this film to let the audience feel what it might be like to be in Versailles during that time and to really get lost in that world.”

Marie Antoinette today conjures up images of a glamorous Queen who lived in luxury and uttered the immortal words — “Let them eat cake” while the French peasant class starved. Ultimately the peasants revolted, and she was sentenced to death for her perceived contempt and indifference. However, recent historical research demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about Marie Antoinette was just a myth – and in fact she never uttered those immortal words she is so famously credited with saying.

The real Marie Antoinette was a naïve and lost teenager who was unprepared to take her place as a major player in the turbulent history of late 18th century France. The Austrian-born princess was shipped off to Versailles at 14, where she was shocked by the rigid etiquette, brutal family infighting and merciless gossip of the French royal court. Trapped in a passionless marriage and forced to live in the unforgiving glare of the public spotlight, Marie Antoinette found her escape in the only refuge allowed her — the sensual pleasures of youth. But her frivolity unwittingly made her the object of scandal, a target for political propaganda and a convenient scapegoat for a poverty-stricken society on the verge of revolution. In the end, she faced her enemies and accepted her fate with dignity and courage.

The true story of Marie Antoinette’s misunderstood life came to widespread attention in 2002 with the publication of Antonia Fraser’s highly readable biography Marie Antoinette: The Journey. The book immediately garnered acclaim for its meticulous research, which offered a completely new and compelling view of the much-maligned monarch. Fraser painted a picture not of an imperious Queen oblivious to suffering but rather of a fanciful, lively teenager who was warm and empathic by nature, yet unprepared for the demands of her highly visible life in the French royal court of Versailles and the intrigues of political power.

The irony was that, despite being surrounded by thousands of onlookers and attendants, Marie Antoinette felt utterly secluded and alone – a young girl trapped in a fantasy world that left her precious little freedom.

It was this unusual and surprising take on Marie Antoinette that caught the attention of writer/director Sofia Coppola. Like most of us, Coppola was familiar only with the standard myths about the world’s most infamous Queen. Through Fraser’s biography, a more sympathetic and believably human young woman emerged. Here was a Marie Antoinette who was vibrantly youthful and strikingly contemporary in her struggles — with loneliness, gossip, desire, love and coming of age — except that the consequences of her journey unfolded on an enormous historical stage.

“I had heard the usual clichés about Marie Antoinette and her decadent lifestyle,” comments Coppola. “But I had never realized before how young she and Louis XVI really were. They were basically teenagers in charge of running France during a very volatile period and from within an incredibly extravagant setting, the royal court of Versailles. That’s what first interested me: The idea that these young kids were placed in that position and trying to find out what they went through trying to grow up in such an extreme situation.”

The more she learned about her, the more Coppola became fascinated by Marie Antoinette’s inner experience. She was intrigued by the story of how Marie Antoinette was completely uprooted in the middle of adolescence, married off to a royal figure who offered her no warmth or affection, subjected to severe scrutiny, arbitrary rules and public ridicule — and at the same time given license to satisfy her every whim. Coppola wondered how a modern teenager would have handled such a completely surreal situation.

“I became interested in the things Marie Antoinette went through that were relatable on a human level,” Coppola continues. “She was basically regarded as an outsider in France and had to deal with in-laws who didn’t approve of her, a husband who wasn’t interested in her and this entire court, which was highly critical of her. She was like the new kid in school — but in a very alien environment. I could imagine her going off to her private room with her friends to escape the severe rules of court etiquette. I began to imagine what it would be like to be in that situation. Throughout history she’s been portrayed as a villain, but as I read about her, the more she seemed quite sweet, a little naïve or sheltered, but mostly a good-hearted, creative person who was unaware of the world outside of Versailles.”

Coppola was also interested in Marie Antoinette as a struggling young wife, desperate to please her husband but incapable of making him happy. “I was taken by the idea that, because she was so unhappy in her marriage, she started shopping and going to parties as a distraction — like a contemporary rich wife in a loveless marriage. She really didn’t want to go home to this guy who was always rejecting her, so she found other ways to distract herself,” Coppola observes.

In order to convey all these ideas, Coppola reasoned, she would have to write Marie Antoinette’s story in a completely different way. Instead of the typical sweeping costume epic, she wanted to tell a more intimate tale, invested with all the energy and angst of a young woman’s coming of age. Her Marie Antoinette was to be a flawed woman, ultimately redeemed by the grace she displays under fire.

A FRESH APPROACH

“My main objective was to not make a big, historical epic,” says Coppola of her original approach to MARIE ANTOINETTE. “Her life is a huge historical chronicle, and while I was respectful of that, I wanted to tell a much more impressionistic story from Marie Antoinette’s point of view as we watch her grow and mature. Most of the stories we know about her come from other people’s perceptions of her. I was much less interested in the political and historical views of her and more in her personal experience. Rather than a stuffy, formal portrait, I wanted to reveal the way people must have behaved when they were behind closed doors.”

Right from the start, Coppola focused on an iconoclastic approach, not only in the story, but in its presentation, involving a distinctly modern, graphic style, hoping to turn a historical subject into one that was more immediate, emotional and visceral. “The idea was to capture in the design the way in which I imagined the essence of Marie Antoinette’s spirit,” Coppola explains. “So the film’s candy colors, its atmosphere and the teenaged music all reflect and are meant to evoke how I saw that world from Marie Antoinette’s perspective. She was in a total silk and cake world. It was a complete bubble right up until the very end.”

Coppola approached historical biographer Antonia Fraser about adapting her book into a highly stylized film. Fraser was both surprised and pleased by the director’s singular approach toward shattering the myths surrounding Marie Antoinette. “I was very attracted by Sofia’s enthusiasm,” says Fraser. “We come from very different angles but she had her own vision of Marie Antoinette and a wonderful intensity.”

“Sofia understood that the things that happened to Marie Antoinette were absolutely extraordinary,” says Fraser. “First, she was essentially sold into slavery to become a French princess. Then she was supposed to support Austria at the age of 14. Then she’s got into this weird, unconsummated marriage but was supposed to produce a child. Sofia shows very sympathetically how Marie Antoinette tried to cope with this remarkable situation. All the shopping, extravagance and decadence were a reaction to all of the terrible things that happened to her yet were not of her making. I liked that approach very much.”

As she came at the story in her own way, Coppola found inspiration from other modern sources as well – especially the New Romantic pop music movement of the 1980s — which was itself heavily influenced by 18th century ideals of extravagance. New Romantic artists such as Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant celebrated glamour, luxurious fashion and hedonistic fun during that period as a kind of counterpoint to both the boredom of classic rock and the primal anger of punk music. Coppola saw the music as a modern lens through which to view Marie Antoinette – and songs such as Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” seemed to serve as a perfect, modern expression of Marie Antoinette’s impulses to find fulfillment through pleasure.

“I really wanted to bring a little of the New Romantic spirit into it because I felt it had such a similar mix of youthfulness, color and decadence,” says Coppola. “This is a more playful version of history that reflects teenagers in a decadent time. At the same time, there is always a sense that while they’re partying into oblivion the revolution is right around the corner.”

SECURING THE KEYS TO VERSAILLES

Though Sofia Coppola always had her own original vision for the look of MARIE ANTOINETTE she hoped from the start to marry that with authentic locations. Her wish was granted when the French government gave her special permission to film in the Palace of Versailles, literally offering her the giant iron keys to the palace’s most off-limit rooms — from Marie Antoinette’s bedroom to the legendary Hall of Mirrors where Marie Antoinette once heard a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart perform. Due to the Palace Director’s appreciation of Coppola’s work, she became the first filmmaker to ever gain widespread access to the vast historical monument. “I was given more access to Versailles than I was to the Park Hyatt in Tokyo for LOST IN TRANSLATION,” Coppola remarks.

One of the world’s most famous historical monuments, and an enduring symbol of wealth, royalty and luxury, the Château de Versailles was originally commissioned by King Louis XIV — who brought in the talented architect Jules Hardouin Monsart to create the largest palace in Europe on the site of his father’s old hunting lodge. The grand complex was surrounded by lavish gardens designed by André Le Nôtre, while the interiors were decorated by the celebrated painter Charles Brun. The walls were lined with the masterworks of French artists. The result, completed in the early 1680s, was a truly massive, gilded compound, capable of housing 20,000 – so large that historians note that by the 18th Century a significant portion of France’s faltering income was spent simply to maintain the palace.

With more than 700 rooms, 2,000 windows, 1,250 fireplaces, 67 staircases and some 1,800 acres of parkland lined with fountains, statues and formal gardens, Versailles provided an inimitable location for filming. “It was thrilling to shoot in the place where many of these events actually took place,” says Coppola. “And they gave us remarkable freedom. They actually let us park our trucks right in front of the palace and keep our camera equipment in Marie Antoinette’s bedroom.”

She continues: “We were able to shoot Marie Antoinette’s wedding in the real cathedral where she was married and, at the end of the film, we were able to shoot the scene where she goes out onto a balcony with the mob below where it actually happened. To be able to recreate these remarkable moments in the real places where they happened was a very spooky and unique experience.”

Yet the challenges were also very real. Production designer KK Barrett quickly realized that Versailles would be as tricky a location as it was inspirational. “When I heard that we would have unprecedented access to Versailles, I was very excited. Considering the scale of it and the wealth that was represented it would have been nearly impossible to replicate,” he says. “But the reality is that Versailles is a museum, a sort of frozen representation of how things were, and we had to find a way to somehow depict it as completely alive. Little by little, we were allowed to come in and embellish the rooms and bring in food and props and draperies to make it feel as if thousands of people were living there.”

For preservation’s sake, there were also numerous rules that had to be followed. “In some rooms, we couldn’t open the blinds because just exposure to sun could destroy the color in the fabric and or cause it to start to disintegrate,” Barrett explains. “We also couldn’t use any of the furniture in Versailles, which we immediately respected, but it meant we had the task of finding and bringing in our own furniture that would be competitive with the scale of what was already on the walls, which was pretty daunting.”

Despite the film’s intimacy, Versailles also gave Barrett a chance to indulge in a bit of wild ostentation. “There was a pattern of wealth and indulgence and decadence at Versailles that we took to heart and elaborated upon, while at the same time maintaining that kind of reckless innocence and naïveté that characterized Marie Antoinette,” he says. “It’s not the Old World of France that we see. Instead, everything is viewed through our Marie Antoinette’s rosecolored glasses.”

Once the cast arrived at Versailles, they too found themselves caught up in the grandeur of the place. “We were taken around and shown secret apartments and secret staircases and all these little rooms and buildings no one else is allowed to go into and it was truly amazing to have so much access to the past,” says Schwartzman. “One thing that I found so incredible was just the scale of it. Now when I go to London and see Buckingham Palace I think, ‘It’s so tiny.’”

Complicating matters throughout the shoot was the fact that Versailles is also a major tourist attraction, which remained largely open to the public during production. At one point, Schwartzman was walking in the gardens of Versailles in his full Louis XVI costume trying to get into character for an upcoming scene when a group of tourists came around the bend and surprised him. Comments Coppola: “He said he never broke character so I wonder if there were any reported Louis ghost sightings that day.”

I WANT CANDY:
THE “CANDY AND CAKE” WORLD OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

Despite shooting at Versailles and other atmospherically rich historical French locations, Sofia Coppola set out to bring her own distinctively contemporary style to the storytelling. She always had a very strong vision of how she wanted the film to look and feel – inspired by the sensual delights of the mouth-watering colors and decadent fashions that brought Marie Antoinette solace. Long before production began, she created collage books that reflected the core of the film’s aesthetic.

“I definitely didn’t want your standard, generic, period look with the standard rented costumes,” she explains. “I really wanted to do this my own way with hair, makeup and costumes that feel completely unique to this movie.”

In collaboration with cinematographer Lance Acord, production designer KK Barrett and costume designer Milena Canonero, Coppola developed a palette that defies the usual gloomy, hazy look of the past – and instead bursts with bright, light, sherbet-like colors and downright mod photography. As Marie Antoinette grows up, becomes a mother and heads to her artistic retreat at Le Petit Trianon, the style shifts into more naturalistic colors and lighting, only growing a bit darker and more austere in the final chapter of Marie Antoinette’s life at Versailles, as the revolution looms and Marie Antoinette finds the courage of adulthood.

Coppola says of her overall concept: “It was very much a girlish fantasy – every frame was filled with beautiful flowers, enormous cakes, silk and tassels.” Antonia Fraser, who spent years researching Marie Antoinette’s life, was astonished by the completeness of Coppola’s vision. “I adore the look of the film,” she says. “I thought it was magically beautiful. It’s something film can do that I could never do. I can write page after page about the beauty of Versailles and the grace of Marie Antoinette, but on film it’s so much stronger.“

Reuniting with Coppola after LOST IN TRANSLATION, cinematographer Lance Acord was drawn to the challenge of doing something new and innovative with a usually staid genre. “Sofia and I talked a lot about how you can make a period movie without falling into the conventions of period films,” he says. “From our earliest discussions, Sofia and I agreed that we wanted to avoid making paintings but instead create a very imaginative, personal, alive story inside a real historical past.”

“We embraced a bright, high key, approach to the lighting,” he continues. “So often in period films the locations, furnishings, and costumes are distressed and the mood is dark, cold, and dreary. Marie Antoinette lived in a world of luxury goods. Everything from her furniture, to her wardrobe and bedding was to be fresh and new. The color palette was inspired by Ladurée macaroons. We were excited by the idea that we could open this world up, make it brighter, more ‘Pop.’”

Acord and Coppola, who have developed their own special communication when they collaborate, continued to evolve their partnership on MARIE ANTOINETTE. “We’ve never really worked from storyboards. Usually the actors would rehearse and then we would take into account the emotion in the script, location, lighting, and decide how to shoot the scene,” says Acord. “It’s a more intuitive process of observation and discovering things as they present themselves to you. Sofia, in her own quiet way, has a very clear and artful understanding of what she wants and she really trusted me to help create that.”

Meanwhile, production designer Barrett, who also collaborated with Coppola and Acord on LOST IN TRANSLATION, saw his role as creating a kind of infinite pastel bubble of surface beauty around Marie Antoinette. He too was excited by Coppola’s fresh vision of recreating history. “It was clear right from the start that Sofia was going to take a very impressionistic approach,” he says. “The focus isn’t on what the people around her thought about Marie Antoinette but on how she personally absorbed the world around her and that’s what the audience experiences. In a sense, it’s a very tightly focused, personal story just like THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and LOST IN TRANSLATION.”

From the start, Coppola had Barrett thinking in terms of a “candy and cake world.” “She put together a reference book that was filled with macaroon colors, with mint greens and magentas and canary yellows instead of the royal blues and burgundies you’d expect,” recalls Barrett. “We made a decision to stay away from all browns and beiges, to avoid the cliché of sepia that says ‘You’re in another time.’ We wanted it to feel like we were photographing in Marie Antoinette’s world, that we happened to be able to document it before it all faded with time. The idea is that you’re really there — with an immediacy and a youthful vitality.”

Barrett especially enjoyed creating Marie Antoinette’s private world at her retreat, Le Petit Trianon. “Her world there was lighter, more colorful, more natural, fanciful and relaxed — and much less imposed upon by the weight of history and protocol. Back in the King’s world of Versailles, we see the stiffness, the gilding, the mythic proportions.”

Because there were so many restrictions to shooting at Versailles and Le Petit Trianon, the production also utilized several other chateaus from the period to recreate the King and Queen’s bedrooms, and also Marie Antoinette’s pastoral, pond-side hamlet, known as the “Hameau,” that she built at Le Petit Trianon. “We found some châteaux that had wonderful period details but were in a good deal of disrepair,” explains Barrett. “So we were able to incorporate items and surfaces they had but also bring in new walls to embellish or manipulate, close off windows, add windows, build fireplaces, curve ceilings – we could do quite a lot. But no matter what, there was always a mind-set for us not to get too settled, to continually think of keeping it very alive rather than stiff and sedate.”

Of all the senses stimulated by MARIE ANTOINETTE, taste is among the strongest – and one of the most unusual for a motion picture. Throughout the film’s design, the gustatory delights of 18th Century France are on lavish display. The creation of the towering plates of food for Marie Antoinette and Louis to dine on was a favorite for Coppola.

“One of the ways that working in France brought so much to the movie is that we were able to find people who actually specialize in 18th Century food preparation,” she says. “There’s all this tradition to the way the food was made at that time. It was all so elaborate, so over the top. It was really fun as a director to have an entire ‘Cake Department’ devoted to creating macaroons and all these ridiculously cute pink pastries that we used as set dressings. The whole palette of the movie was a ‘cake and cookie’ kind of thing.”

A 21st CENTURY TAKE ON 18Th CENTURY FASHION

With her exuberant youth and pale-skinned beauty, Marie Antoinette continues to be remembered as one of the most stylish and trend-setting women in European history. She arrived in France at a time of extreme fashion extravagance among the aristocracy – when bigger was always better – and she indulged in the massive hoop dresses and long-trained gowns from the most famous fashion houses of Paris. It was also the era of the “Belle Poule” – the infamous hairstyle that was piled mile-high on the head and lined with fruit, toys and feathers – which Marie Antoinette cultivated to an extreme degree. Yet later, Marie Antoinette also ushered in a major fashion shift, turning France towards a period of simpler, more free-flowing and natural dress that presaged a time of tremendous change.

For Coppola, the costumes for MARIE ANTOINETTE were always a central part of her bold vision for the film’s design. She knew she would need a designer who possessed both an historical understanding of 18th Century styles – and the unbridled creativity to give them a distinctly modern flair.

That person was clearly Milena Canonero. A two-time Academy Award® winner for CHARIOTS OF FIRE and BARRY LYNDON as well the recipient of five additional nominations, Canonero is one of today’s most sought after costume designers. She quickly developed a deep affinity for what Coppola was trying to do with this unconventional take on a film about the past. “Sofia is a bit like me in that she is most interested in the feelings that a costume gives to the audience,” says Canonero. “So some of our work in MARIE ANTOINETTE is symbolic, some of it is stylish and some of it is psychological. There is always a reason for a particular texture or color.”

As soon as she came aboard, Coppola presented Canonero with a strong basis for her work. “When I first met with Sofia, she had already been doing several months of research in France and she told me about her ideas about the macaroon colors – the bolds pinks, the gold yellows, the pistachio greens,” recalls Canonero. “So we started with that as an inspiration and then we moved into more graphic stripes and florals.”

She continues: “Sofia didn’t want the film to have the expected look of the period. This is not a classic vision of Marie Antoinette but Sofia’s personal vision of her. The film is a very modern look at her inner experience and therefore the clothes had to respect that kind of language. We took the essence of how things were and stylized them. We wanted more warmth and humanity to come through, so the clothes had to have at the same time a kind of richness and a simplicity – a contemporary vision.”

“So many of our costumes were in the framework of the song ‘I Want Candy,’” says Canonero. “We chose colors and textures that remind you of things you would want to eat. We go from very pale and soft to more shocking. You can say we were very influenced by the period but we don’t present a classical vision. It’s more of a fashion statement. At times, it was very rock and roll.”

Canonero used a mixture of authentic period pieces and original designs, importing yards of tulle, organza, taffeta and silk from specialty houses in Italy and England, as well as thousands of plumed feathers, to create a rainbow array of royal costumes. She brought in milliners to put together hundreds of hats and spent endless hours embroidering buttons. “Buttons are absolutely key to the 18th century look,” she notes.

As for footwear, one of Marie Antoinette’s obsessions, Canonero utilized the designs of today’s trend-setting designer Manohlo Blahnik to create stylized versions of 18th Century shoes. “They’re not 100% period, yet they have that kind of feeling,” she says.

In dressing Dunst, Canonero collaborated closely with Coppola. “Sofia wanted a richness and a freshness for Marie Antoinette, and the clothes needed to show her evolution from a very young girl to a sophisticated woman,” she says. “You see through her dresses how she gains more confidence and even her décolletage becomes more emphasized.”

Although many women wore wigs during the time of Marie Antoinette, Canonero and Coppola chose a more natural look for Dunst, often using powder on her hair in the 18th century manner but also allowing her blonde hair to remain natural.

“The hair is a departure from what we often associate with Marie Antoinette, but we looked for what would suit Kirsten best in these more intimate moments,” notes Canonero.

Dunst’s makeup – while extreme – was very much in keeping with the 18th Century fascination with heavy rouge. “If anything, the real look of the times was even more bold,” explains Canonero.

While the gowns for Marie Antoinette could have occupied her team for months by themselves, Canonero simultaneously was designing a broad array of costumes for Mare Antoinette’s court – with each character getting his or her own unique look.

In addition to Marie Antoinette, two of Canonero’s favorite female characters are the Comtesse de Noialles, portrayed by Judy Davis, and Madame Du Barry, played by Asia Argento. “They are unique women,” says Canonero. “For the Comtesse de Noailles, the look was very elegant and striking – she wears lots of yellow, citron and lime to represent her acidic qualities. Madame Du Barry, however, is like an exotic bird, almost like a parrot. She’s a little over the top, full of jewelry, turbans and feathers.”

When it came to Schwartzman’s Louis XVI, Canonero again moved away from the standard clichés. “I didn’t want to cover him in embroidery the way you always see him in paintings, so we tried for a bit more simplicity,” she explains. “This was the height of French decadence but we wanted to emphasize that Louis XVI was from a new generation and his clothes show a movement forward. We used a very tailored look, strikingly graphic, with rich materials and a lighter embroidery. But he does wear a lot of Louis XVI’s favorite colors – soft blues and grays.”

Schwartzman found that when it came to going back in time, the clothes indeed helped to make the man. “The costumes were a big help to me because there’s something about putting on these kinds of outfits that just changes you physically. Layer by layer, you start to travel back in time. You stand in a different way. Your back goes up, your shoulders are tighter, and you walk and sit differently, too. It’s very transporting,” he says.

Throughout the extensive process, Canonero’s team worked both day and night shifts to keep the film’s entire cast of court members in fresh and spirited outfits. Canonero was constantly presenting Coppola with choices, to assure that their visions were in sync.

Coppola was thrilled by Canonero’s contribution to the film. “It was amazing to see what she did and how she saw the big picture, because we would look at the individual costumes separately in her studio. But when all the actors came together on the set, you could see how all the different colors and incredible details each worked together to create something very rich and beautiful,” she says. “It was very exciting to watch that happen, to see what we had imagined come to life.”

VERSAILLES’ EXTREME ETIQUETTE

Marie Antoinette once wrote to her mother: “I put on my rouge and wash my hands in front of the whole world.” She was barely exaggerating. Far from a cozy home for the King and Queen of France, Versailles was a complicated universe unto itself, where thousands of royals and their servants lived — and watched in rapt attention over the every move — no matter how trivial — the monarchs made.

It is hard to imagine in the 21st Century, but Marie Antoinette’s life, body and activities were not perceived as belonging to her but rather to the nation of France and the entire royal apparatus. She was dressed by others, groomed by others, had to eat her meals in full public view and every word she uttered was supposed to be in accordance with the royal codes of behavior. Privacy was impossible. Even on their wedding night, Marie Antoinette and Louis were far from alone. Their nuptial bed had to be publicly blessed and as they climbed into it for the first time, they were surrounded by a considerable crowd. Later, Marie Antoinette even had to go through her entire child labor in front of curious onlookers.

It was Louis XIV who first established many of Versailles’ outrageously elaborate rules of etiquette in an attempt to keep better control over infighting among the nobles. The protocol covered just about every aspect of behavior and dress and involved stark definitions of who was superior to whom. When it came to Marie Antoinette, the protocol was particularly intense, beginning each morning when she faced elaborate dressing and grooming rituals. Highly specific rules covered who could hand Marie Antoinette her underwear, who could give her a bar of soap, who could apply her rouge, all the way down to who could have the privilege of touching her skin in the bath. Meanwhile, every detail of her existence, from the mundane to the embarrassing, from her sex life to her menstrual cycle, was recorded for all to know.

It was all incredibly complicated and the remarkable scene in MARIE ANTOINETTE in which a naked Marie Antoinette sits shivering while various visitors pass along the right of handing the Dauphine her underwear is drawn directly from Antoina Fraser’s research. The irony is that despite being surrounded by thousands of onlookers and attendants, Marie Antoinette felt utterly secluded and alone – a young girl trapped in a fantasy world that left her precious little freedom.

MUSICAL INSPIRATION

When she was writing the script for MARIE ANTOINETTE, Coppola turned to music supervisor Brian Reitzell (with whom she had worked on her two previous films) to discuss music in the tone she was thinking of while writing. Reitzell mixed “Versailles CDs” that included such artists as Bow Wow Wow, New Order, Adam Ant, “and other post-punk romantic music,” says Reitzell. “It gave us a place to jump off from.”

In preparation for the film, Reitzell also immersed himself in opera. “We decided early on that our approach would be a collage of different kinds of music,” says Reitzell. “The soundtrack is a double disc, a post-punk-pre-new-romantic-rock- opera odyssey with some 18th century music and some very new contemporary music.”

The eclectic blend of sounds, Reitzell maintains, “makes it a lot easier to put yourself in the movie. The music resonates because it shows how these people really were. For most of the movie, Marie Antoinette is an adolescent and it would have been a lot harder to get across her teen angst with a “Masterpiece Theater” type of soundtrack.

There was nothing happenstance or frivolous about the musical selections Reitzell and Coppola settled on for the film, he adds. “The thing about the music in this film is that there were no rules and no other movies we used as a role model,” says Reitzell. “We didn’t do anything for the sake of putting a song in. We always did what felt right to us.”

“It was all very organic,” he continues. “The story dictated the music, which follows the dramatic arc. We set it all up in the opening credits with the Gang of Four song “Natural’s Not in It” — which prepares you musically and lyrically for what’s going to happen. Later, there is an Aphex Twin piece, "Jynweythek Ylow,” which is played when Marie Antoinette first enters Versailles, which actually sounds like that place. What I love about it is that you can’t tell if it’s a harpsichord or string instrument that’s playing.”

The score was broken down into three parts to complement the film’s dramatic progression. “It starts with an innocent period,” says Reitzell. “The middle section is the more decadent period with the energy of more modern music. The end is the decline, and there are only one or two music cues.”

MARIE ANTOINETTE: A TIMELINE

1755 The Archduchess is born in Vienna on November 2, the child of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Teresa.

1765 Emperor Francis I dies, leaving the tough-minded and highly political Maria Teresa in charge of the Hapsburg Empire. She begins a campaign to marry off her daughters to the crown heads of Europe. The 15th child of Emperor Francis, Marie Antoinette is low on the list, until the death of her older sister Johanna Gabriella put her in position to marry the future King of France.

1769 Louis XV requests the hand of the 14-year-old Marie Antoinette to marry his heir, Louis Auguste, the teenager who will be the future King Louis XVI.

1770 Marie Antoinette must leave behind her friends, family, all her possessions, and even her clothes, as she makes the journey across the border to France. She will never see her home country again.

1770 The teenaged couple of Louis and Marie Antoinette are wedded in a lavish ceremony at Versailles.

However, their marriage goes unconsummated for another seven years.

1774 Following the sudden death of Louis XV from smallpox, Louis and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen at the ages of 20 and 18 respectively, famously proclaiming: “Protect us Lord for we are too young to reign.”

1774 Marie Antoinette meets the notoriously handsome and sophisticated Swedish Count Hans Axel de Fersen, with whom she will begin a brief but passionate affair. He will remain devoted to her for the rest of her life.

1777 The first physical intimacy between Marie Antoinette and her husband is recorded.

1778 Marie Antoinette gives birth to her first child, a daughter, Marie Thérèse Charlotte.

1780 Marie Antoinette makes her first appearance on the stage at the Theatre of the Trianon, fulfilling her dream of becoming an actress.

1780 Marie Antoinette’s mother, the Empress of Austria, passes away.

1781 The first son of Marie Antoinette is born: The Dauphin Louis-Joseph.

1785 Marie Antoinette bears a second son, Louis Charles de France.

1786 Marie Antoinette gives birth to a daughter, Sophie Béatrix, who doesn’t live to see her first birthday.

Marie Antoinette is branded with the nickname “Madame Deficit” for her uninhibited spending, becoming a scapegoat for France’s massive economic crisis.

1789 Tragedy strikes as the first Dauphin, Louis Joseph, dies at the age of seven after a battle with tuberculosis.

1789 Storming of the Bastille takes place on the 14th of July and the French Revolution begins.

1790 An angry mob storms the Royal Palace, killing the Queen’s guards, but Marie Antoinette courageously goes out onto a balcony to address them.

1792 Now living in Paris at the Tuileries, the royals are once again descended upon by a mob. Marie Antoinette is given opportunities to escape but refuses, saying she must stay by her husband’s side. The royal guards are massacred and all royal authority is suspended. Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI are accused of treason.

1792 France is declared a Republic on September 21 and Louis XVI is soon put on trial.

1792 France declares war on Austria, making Marie Antoinette a foreign enemy.

1793 Louis XVI is guillotined on January 21st.

1793 Her children taken from her, a disconsolate Marie Antoinette is tried before a revolutionary tribunal. She is found guilty on all counts and guillotined on October 16th at the age of 37.

Some of the Music Used in MARIE ANTOINETTE:

"Natural's Not In It"
Written by Dave Allen, Hugo Burnham, Andy Gill & Jon King
Performed by Gang of Four
Courtesy of Warner Music Group & EMI Records
"Opus 17"
Written & Performed by Dustin O'Halloran

"The Melody Of A Fallen Tree"
Written by Jason McNeely and Dan Matz
Performed by Windsor for the Derby
Courtesy of Secretly Canadian & Zync Music Inc.

"I Don't Like it Like This"
Written by Johan Duncanson
Performed by The Radio Dept.
Courtesy of Labrador Records

"Jynweythek Ylow"
Written by Richard D. James
Performed by Aphex Twin
Courtesy of Warner Music Group, Warp Records & Sire Records

"1st Menuet Pour Les Guirries et les Amazones, 2nd Menuet"
Written by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Conducted by William Christie
Performed by Les Arts Florissants
Courtesy of Harmonia Mundi France (P) 1991

"Pulling Our Weight"
Written by Johan Duncanson & Martin Larsson
Performed by The Radio Dept.
Courtesy of Labrador Records

"Il Secondo Giorno Instrumental"
Written by Jean-Benoît Dunckel & Nicolas Godin
Performed by Air
Courtesy of Aircheology

"Keen On Boys"
Written by Johan Duncanson & Martin Larsson
Performed by The Radio Dept.
Courtesy of Labrador Records & XL Recordings Ltd.

"Aux languets d'Apollon"
(from the opera-ballet "Platée")
Written by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Performed by Carolyn Sampson & Ex Cathedra
Conducted by Jeffrey Skidmore
Courtesy of Hyperion Records, Ltd.

"Opus 23"
Written & Performed by Dustin O'Halloran

"I Want Candy (Kevin Shields Remix)"
Written by Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, Richard Gottehrer & Bert Berns
Performed by Bow Wow Wow & Kevin Shields
Courtesy of RCA Records & Sony BMG Music Entertainment

"Hong Kong Garden"
Written by Susan Ballion, Steven John Bailey, John Gareth McKay & Kenneth
Morris
Performed by Siouxsie and the Banshees
Courtesy of Polydor Ltd. (UK) & Universal Music Enterprises

"Aphrodisiac"
Written by Matthew Ashman, Dave Barbarossa, Leigh Gorman, Annabella Lwin &
Malcolm McLaren
Performed by Bow Wow Wow
Courtesy of RCA Records & Sony BMG Music Entertainment

"Fools Rush In (Kevin Shields Remix)"
Written by Johnny Mercer & Rube Bloom
Performed by Bow Wow Wow & Kevin Shields
Courtesy of EMI Records, Film & Television

"Plainsong"
Written by Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Boris Williams, Roger O'Donnell &
Laurence Tolhurst
Performed by The Cure
Courtesy of Fiction Records Limited, Polydor Ltd. UK, Universal Music
Enterprises, Elektra Entertainment Group & Warner Music Group Film & TV
Licensing

"Ceremony"
Written by Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Peter Hook & Stephen Morris
Performed by New Order
Courtesy of Warner Music Group & London-Sire Records Ltd.

"Tommib Help Buss"
Written by Tom Jenkinson
Performed by Squarepusher
Courtesy of Warp Records

"Ou Boivent Les Loups"
Written & Performed by Phoenix
"Kings of the Wild Frontier"
Written by Marco Pirroni & Adam Ant
Performed by Adam Ant & The Ants
Courtesy of Epic Records & Sony BMG Music Entertainment (UK), LTD.

"Avril 14th"
Written by Richard D. James
Performed by Aphex Twin
Courtesy of Warner Music Group, Warp Records & Sire Records

"What Ever Happened?"
Written by Julian Casablancas
Performed by The Strokes
Courtesy of RCA Records & Sony BMG Music Entertainment

"Tristes apprêts, pâles flambeaux"
(from the Tragédie lyrique "Castor & Pollux")
Written by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Performed by Agnès Mellon and Les Arts Florissants
Conducted by William Christie
Courtesy of Harmonia Mundi S.A. (P) 1993

"Opus 36"
Written & Performed by Dustin O'Halloran

"All Cats are Grey"
Written by Robert Smith, Simon Gallup & Laurence Tolhurst
Performed by The Cure
Courtesy of Fiction Records Limited, Polydor Ltd. UK, Universal Music
Enterprises, Elektra Entertainment Group & Warner Music Group Film & TV
Licensing

"Les barricades mystérieuses"
Written by François Couperin