Ignorance is bliss

I went to see Sophia Copolla's Marie Antoinette a couple of nights ago.

It was literally beautiful. Every camera shot was thought of: from where the actors stood, to how the camera moved, to where the light was coming from. And it was as if she wanted you to know that. The movie was purposefully beautiful. That was part of the whole theme. Everything was deliberate. Nothing was in its natural state.

Props to Milena Canonero for costume design. The gowns were exquisite though doubtfully historically accurate.

The writing was uneven, and so was the plot, but the direction and the costume design more than made up for it.

But this post isn't really about the movie. It's more about my complete ignorance about Marie Antoinette. Sure I knew she was Queen of France. She got married off from somewhere (Austria, I was to find out). That she was known for her excesses and that while the starving citizens of France were rioting in the streets, she supposedly said that they should all go eat mamon.

Oh, and she was beheaded. I knew that too.

But that's about all I knew about Queen Toni coming into the movie. I did not know that it took her 7 years to conceive, that there was much ado about the late pregnancy, that she lost a child, that she took lovers, that she has this little "private village" Louis the XVI built her.

Now I hate not knowing things, but being ignorant actually makes watching movies with historical plotlines more enjoyable. You don't know how it ends, so you literally are glued to the screen and want to know what happens next. Even if what happened next has actually been recorded by countless historians since 1750.

Imagine watching Titanic and not knowing the ending ("But I thought they said it was unsinkable!"). Or the 7 Last Words ("I can't wait to find out what he says next!")