The Lady and the Duke

Lady Grace Eliot is a closet Royalist and her best friend the Duke of Orleans is a leftist; that friendship is tested by the events of the Revolution, nonethelss the two remain loyal to each other despite their political differences. This friendship provides an example of how basic human values like decency should take precedence over abstract political ideals.

The Duke is not an extremist. He is a man who believes the King has betrayed the people and he wants to effect changes in France so that the people are better served by a more just government but along the way the Duke gets swept up in events that he no longer has any control over and instead of leading he finds himself being led by an ever more extreme faction of revolutionaries. As the revolution spins out of his control he finds himself in a position of having to vote with the masses and against his conscience just to keep himself above reproach from his fellow revolutionaries. The deciding moment for him comes when he must cast his vote as to what the Kings fate will be.

Being a dedicated Royalist Grace Eliot is disgusted by the Dukes actions and yet she never allows herself to become blind with rage. She maintains a sense of proportion and propriety that everyone else lacks. The paintings which provide the backdrops are like Grace Eliot herself, they are classical and balanced. Despite the fact that a mob rules France and that the mob listens only to inhuman extremists like Marat and Robespierre, Grace Eliot continues to hold her head high. She makes her decisions based on principles not on passions and she never comprises her principles. She is loyal to those that she knows and she knows the Royals. But she also knows the Duke. Even though he is forced to do something that she finds utterly loathesome she also understands what made him do it and she forgives him -- showing him a mercy that is all too rare in these perilous times.

Grace Eliot has no obscure political objectives, she belives only in decency. She shows what she is made of several times throughout the film. In one very memorable scene (perhaps the most memorable of the film) she hides a wounded Royalist who she does not even like in her bed to save his life while soldiers search her house. If they find him it will mean certain death for the both of them. When the soldiers have left she examines her motives out loud and she is as fascinated by her actions as we are.

Grace Eliot sees the revoltion close-up and from far away as she keeps a house in Paris and one in the countryside where she can glimpse Paris through a telescope. It is this geographic distance as well as her English origin which allows her to see what is happening without being swept away by the events. And it is this lucidity and grace under pressure which Rohmer celebrates.

By the time the lights came back up, we were lucky still to be conscious. Never have I seen the French Revolution rendered in such a tedious fashion. I almost envied the victims of the guillotine; after all, they had died quick deaths, not the slow agonizing death of watching this leaden film slog across the screen.

While some people found the technique of using painted backgrounds to be innovative and illuminating, I found that they gave the movie an almost cartoon-like quality, as the humans moved weirdly & artificially across the landscape. It became more of a distraction than anything else as the movie progressed.

More than anything else, the film's pace ultimately detracts from the impact of its conclusion. After all of the lumbering along, we felt more than anything else a sense of relief that the movie was finally coming to an end.

Given the tremendously high price, the consumer would be very well-advised indeed to rent the movie first before committing such a sum of money to a purchase.

I think that in order to build, we mustn't destroy... That's why, politically, I'm a reformist rather than a revolutionary.
-Eric Rohmer, 1983 interview with Jean Narboni

The first of the several pleasures in this terrific film is its great beauty and unique look, which Mr. Rohmer described in an interview (-INTERVIEW: with
Eric Rohmer (Aurelien Ferenzi, Senses of Cinema)):

AF: How did you have the scenic backgrounds made?

ER: They were painted by Jean-Baptiste Marot. We designed them together in the appropriate period style and according to the
requirements of the mise en sc?ne. Herv? Grandsart did the preliminary documentary research. We worked from pictures and engravings, but
also from street maps of the period. The interiors are not real locations. They were all built in an adjoining studio by the set designer, Antoine
Fontaine, and the rigger, J?r?me Pouvaret. To me, this work was not just a matter of being meticulous it was about striving for an authenticity
that underpins the whole film. At heart, I wasn't especially intent on making a film about the Revolution. I don't much like being pegged as an
18th century buff! Even though I've sometimes been compared to Marivaux, it isn't my favourite century.

AF: Was your approach comparable to the way you made Perceval: using pictures from the period to depict the period itself?

ER: Yes. I don't much care for photographic reality. In this film, I depict the Revolution as people would have seen it at the time. And I try to
make the characters more like the reality you find in paintings. The opening scenes of the film are pictures, and I'd be pleased if the
uninformed spectator thought they were period paintings and was surprised when they suddenly come to life.

The Wife and I, being "uninformed spectators", were completely fooled by this opening, which is almost magical, with the characters seeming to spring to life.

The story that follows is nearly as unique, a magisterial dismissal of the French Revolution, all the more surprising for having been directed by a leading light of the French cinema, Eric Rohmer. Grace
Dalrymple Elliott--whose memoir, Journal of My Life During the French Revolution, Mr. Renoir stumbled upon--was an upper class British woman, former mistress of the Prince of Wales, who left
England for France and became the lover of the Duke of Orleans, cousin of Louis XVI. By the start of the film their liaison has ended, but they remain friends. In the background are the early stirrings
of the Revolution. The Lady (Lucy Russell) is fiercely loyal to the King and Queen, but the Duke (Jean-Claude Dreyfus), for reasons, mostly, of jealousy and hurt feelings, is no more than ambivalent.

As the pace of events quickens--though not the pace of the film, which, be warned, is rather stately--the interests and passions of the two begin to diverge. The Lady remains loyal to King and
Queen, despite the dangers from increasingly unruly revolutionaries, while the Duke imagines that he can use the Revolution to rise to power, and that he can control its path. Tensions between them
flare when the Lady takes in a wanted man, the Marquis de Champcenetz, and expects the Duke to help him escape Paris. The Duke, whose royal origins make him suspect anyway, fears being
caught and only reluctantly agrees to help.

The true break between them comes when the fate of the King is being decided. Grace secures a grudging pledge from the Duke that he will not vote for death at the King's trial. He agrees that
though he can not vote with the King and still maintain his own political viability, he will arrange to be absent from the vote on punishment. However, as Grace and friends are gathered together, with
messengers bringing them news of the proceedings, the Duke proceeds not only to betray his promise but is the deciding vote in favor of regicide.

France proceeds to descend into terror, claiming many of Grace's friends and the Duke, who she reconciles with when it's clear he's doomed, as the Revolution eats its own. There's one frightening
episode where she's discovered to be in possession of correspondence between a British officer and the politician Charles Fox, so she's suspected of spying. But she first shames the committee
interrogating her by her refusal to read a letter not intended for her and then when they try to read it but realize they've no translator, they have to turn to her, and the letter contains nothing but
(misguided) praise for the Revolution, leaving her accusers further dishonored.

The Lady obviously survived to write her memoir which in turn captured the attention of Mr. Rohmer. Here he's told the story entirely from her perspective and the result--whether entirely accurate
or not--is a portrayal of her as embodying all of the best traits that were supposed to be associated with nobility--she's loyal, brave, generous, and devoted to God. Meanwhile, the revolutionaries
are no more than a destructive rabble, with no redeeming qualities. Between them are a few soldiers who, though sympathetic to the Revolution, try to behave decently. And, of course, the Duke, who
comes off worst of all--he debases himself and abandons the ideals of his class in the mistaken belief that revolution can be a restorative for a sick society. Instead, as it must, the Revolution destroys
mindlessly.

The cumulative effect of the film is like walking through an exhibition hall, and studying the unraveling catastrophe of the French Revolution in a series of beautiful but eventually grim paintings. Some
may find it lacks action, but it certainly has drama--the human drama of one woman who kept the faith. And the aptly-named Grace emerges as a genuine counter-revolutionary heroine, of film
and history.