Marie Antoinette

After being summarily tried, convicted, and sentenced for treason, Marie Antoinette—the 37-year-old ex-queen of France—mounted the steps of a Parisian guillotine on October 16, 1793 and, after excusing herself for inadvertently stepping on the executioner's toe, entered the annals of history as licentious harlot, indifferent conspicuous consumer, or media victim: in truth, the labels have changed often over the past 200-plus years. Perfectly timed to coincide with the theatrical release of Sofia Coppola's biopic starring Kirsten Dunst, filmmaker David Grubin's excellent biographical documentary serves up a fascinating portrait of the Austrian archduchess thrust into a political marriage at the age of 14, who became queen in 1774 at the age of 19 alongside her 20-year-old husband Louis XVI (who would not consummate the marriage for seven years). A stranger in a strange land, Marie admitted that my “tastes do not accord with the king's,” and she readily embraced the nightlife of opera, theater, masked balls, and profligate gambling to the point where she earned the nickname “Madame Deficit” at a time when France was not only deep in debt but also committing funds to the American Revolution. Unquestionably indifferent to the plight of poor French peasants, Marie Antionette nevertheless has suffered something of a bad rap: both mercilessly assaulted in underground cartoons (viewers will see several fairly graphic illustrations of the queen engaging in various forms of sex with multiple partners of both genders) and unfairly tarnished for her role as the unwitting dupe of a high-profile diamond necklace scam, the supposedly cold-blooded queen never actually uttered the words for which she's most famous (“let them eat cake”), and she did finally temper her excesses (although too late for effective damage control). Narrated by Blair Brown, the PBS-aired Marie Antoniette masterfully interweaves dramatic reconstructions, on location footage shot at Versailles, and commentary from a number of scholars—including noted biographer Antonia Fraser—to present an absorbing profile of a controversial figure caught in the jaws of massive historical forces that she could neither understand nor shape. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)