May 25, 2006
Cannes Spotlight: Marie Antoinette
Director Sofia Coppola and stars Steve Coogan and Kirsten Dunst discuss the making of the radical period biopic.

By Karl Rozemeyer

Kirsten Dunst (center) is pretty in pink in Marie Antoinette.

"I think it is better to get a reaction that people really like it or really don't like it. I think it is better than a mediocre response," said Coppola at the film's press conference. "So hopefully, some people will enjoy it . [But] it's not for everybody."

Steve Coogan, who plays a court advisor to the Austrian-born Daufine, concurs. "When you write something very personal and specific," Coogan said, "It's inevitable that there will be some naysayers and it is better than to have a bland uniform kind of response to something. So I think it shows that Sofia is being true to her voice."

The film is brave in its wild-card casting (Kirstin Dunst as Marie Antoinette, Jason Schwartzmann, Marianne Faithful, Asia Argento, Rip Torn), its vibrant color palette ("macaroon colors for the young part of her life and the fabrics…that she liked, turquoise and pink" Coppola explains) and its Mod-Punk soundtrack ("I wanted to use a mixture of 18th-century music and contemporary music just to use the music in each scene that had the emotional quality that I felt)". Even the lettering of the film's poster —a pink homage to the Sex Pistol's Never Mind the Bollocks album cover—is a clue to the film's soft rebellion against established type.

Coppola wanted her movie to be fresh and have a resonance for today, something all the actors strove to achieve. "I wasn't consciously acting modern or anything else but the part that Sofia had written. Approaching the role, I had to do all the research as we all did and know the etiquette of the court of Versailles," says Jason Schwatzmann, who plays a emotionally distant King Louis with a curious obsession with keys and locks, "But once the frame of him was established - the clothes, the time, the movements - the things that I think one might think of as modern to me are simply the emotions of a human being…that carry through time."

Dunst who had previously worked with Sofia Coppola on The Virgin Suicides, explains that, "for me it was about finding about what me inside myself connects to Marie Antoinette. You could read so many history books. There are so many different opinions. For me it was really finding what her essence was…it became about a very sensual experience. We didn't have dialogue explaining everything, it was very much coming from within me playing the character. Everything to me was very visceral so it was very important to me to take every element of what I had in front of me as opposed to thinking about the past."