A film some people hated when it premiered at Cannes but which many others (those of us with excellent taste) adored from the moment they saw it in 2006, Marie Antoinette is aging exceptionally well. It’s like one of those gawky kids who, by the time they get to university, turns out to be both a beauty and a brainiac. And given one of its sub-themes is parenthood, and mother-daughter relationships in particular, it’s moving to see Sofia Coppola‘s third feature finally whelping a making-of documentary long after the fact, made by Sofia’s own mother Eleanor Coppola, who shot 80 hours of behind-the-scenes footage back in ’06.
Admittedly, the final product may not have the heft of Eleanor’s best-known doc, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1993), her deeply insightful account of her husband (and Sofia’s father) Francis Ford Coppola filming Apocalypse Now. But Hearts of Darkness didn’t have anywhere as many macarons, pugs or frothy silk-satin gowns as Making Marie Antoinette does, so who knows which one future generations will watch more?
Making Marie Antoinette
The Bottom Line
As delicious as a skillfully made macaron.
