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THE LADY AND THE DUKE Send This Review to a Friend
One of the classiest films at the 2001 New York Film Festival was veteran filmmaker Eric Rohmer's "The Lady and the Duke," now in commercial release. Rohmer's work sparkles with an impressive, award-caliber performance by Lucy Rusell as Grace Elliott, a British woman who lived in France at the time of the French revolution, held Royalist sympathies and found herself in trouble as heads rolled and retribution was demanded in an atmosphere of hysteria. Jean-Claude Dreyfus also excels as her friend The Duke. The film, which was also showcased at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival, was inspired by Elliott's memoirs.
(I sat next to Russell at a luncheon in Toronto on September 11th and got a lift from her generous and heartfelt sympathy and anger at what Americans were going through on that awful day.)
Russell, who is British, is especially skillful in speaking French as a British woman of the time might have, getting the right accent and intonations, while delivering a complex emotional performance. Rohmer, an icon of the French New Wave, imbues the film with a striking artistic conception, using painted sets and 18th century paintings as background instead of trying to recreate a realistic setting. The film is extremely conversational and presented with such clarity as to make following the dialogue fascinating.
Although Rohmer is 82, with this film he has ventured into burgeoning digital technology. The film was shot on digital video, and the painted backdrops for the sets and were inserted into the film digitally. The overall effect is a kind of you-are-there impression, which stresses the intimacy of the relationships and the intense conversation.
The story itself is absorbing. Philippe, Duke of Orleans, is in favor of the revolutionary ideas sweeping France even though he is a cousin of King Louis XVI. He is caught in the middle, as the Lady prevails upon her friendship to persuade the Duke to shelter a hunted man. It is a risky business; one's life is at peril. Political complications deepen and ultimately the Duke is faced with a crisis of conscience. Should he vote for the execution of the king?
Rohmer picks up the revolutionary fervor and the crudeness of some revolutionaries who hold people's lives in their hands. But mainly the film works because of the sophisticated level of the acting and the genius of Rohmer, who stamps quality on everything he touches. "The Lady and the Duke" enhances his reputation yet again. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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