Word: danton
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Danton the latest film by Andrzej Wajda (Man of Iron), sees the upheaval from the moderate perspective. Wajda retells the familiar story of Georges Danton, a popular Parisian killed by the revolution he helped create. Danton's attempt to slow down the ruthless waging of the revolution threatened Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, who engineered his execution. But as Danton predicted, the Committee's end was also imminent...
What stands out on the film's surface is the irreconcilable contrast between the characters of Danton and Robespierre. The enormous, energetic, during Danton (Gerard Depardieu) stands worlds apart from the small meticulous, cautious Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak). Danton likes to drink and carouse; Robespierre is an asexual puritan. Yet more important than their personality quirts is what each man represents. Danton stands for mitigation, for human goals over abstractions. He controls for the moment public opinion. Robespierre ironically speaks for entrenched power for Spartan obedience to the revolution. He wields the machinery of the Terror. When these two Titans clash...
...year's The Return of Martin Guerre brings vitality and commanding presence to his character standing both figuratively and liberally above the Phrygian bone tied revolution Aries who surround him. His gruff manner endears, while Pszonisk's formality chills. One sees easily why crowds would flock to the moderate Danton. Still, Wajda makes clear the appeal of authority; Robespierre offers an ideal worth living and dying for and losses into the deal the coercive force of the guillotine...
Pszonisk creates a character as compelling as Depardieu's. His Robespierre is racked by doubts from the start jealous of Danton's popularity and power, yet willing to sacrifice all for the revolution. Pszonisk's careful acting and studied manmannarisms, as well as his fully convincing feverish fits of illness and anguish add wonderful dimensions to Robespierre. We are fully prepared for his pathetic final scene of self discovery as he realizes he has forsaken the goals of the revolution, and the words of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen echo in his head...
Wajda constructs the contest of the duel between these two remarkable men with admirable skill. He sticks closely to historical detail, even mentioning Robespierre's illness in the month prior to Danton's return to Paris and using Robespierre's actual words in the deruncistory speech he delivers before the Convention. Only rarely does his scene setting tend toward excess or degenerate into same dropping as in Robespierre's visit to the studio of Jacques Louis David, where the great artist is finishing his famous "Death of Marat...