Word: danton
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...DANTON directed by Andrzej Wajda; Screenplay by Jean-Claude Carriere...
Alas, these minor revelations-and two marvelously vigorous films from old masters, Italy's Ermanno Olmi (Camminacammina) and Poland's Andrzej Wajda (Danton)-were not enough to keep businessmen and journalists from grousing, as they lolled for a fortnight in one of the world's lushest garden spots. Nor will a disappointing festival keep these congenital optimists from returning next year to this bunker on the Côte d'Azur. - By Richard Corliss
...interviews in France. But in a formal statement, he did say, "The message of my films these past 25 years has been the need to prevent [Poland] from falling into the state it has found itself." The message of his new movie could be even stronger. To be called Danton, it is based on the life of the fiery, outspoken French revolutionary champion of democratic rule...
...ascendence of the man who will realize the fate of the nation. The Revolution is the "forge" France must pass through. The shadows of dozens of pikes parade across a wall in Napoleon's room. Robespierre and Saint-Just chat about whom to execute during the Terror. A florid Danton pours forth impassioned speeches, while Marat, played by Antonin Artaud, looks as if he has walked out of David's painting complete with a towel around his head. In these types of scenes the depth of Gance's vision is most evident. It is comic, for instance, when the clerk...
...painless decapitation as a way to put people to death, the guillotine, designed by others, has served as a uniquely French form of capital punishment. During the French Revolution hundreds of heads were lopped off, and the crowds came early to get a good view of such victims as Danton and Robespierre. In all, the guillotine was used some 4,600 times. Public executions were banned in 1939. In the past decade, the blade fell only six times, the most recent in Sept. 1977 when Hamida Djandoubi was dispatched for murder...