Buena Vista Home Video Queen Margot

I had seen this movie several times in the past, but having just read a copy of Nancy Goldstone’s wonderful book, “The Rival Queens: Catherine de' Medici, Her Daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal that Ignited a Kingdom,” I had to purchase a copy of the movie.I watched it once while reading the book and again after finishing the book.It is a beautiful movie, very beautifully filmed and acted. Isabelle Adjani is breathtaking as Marguerite de Valois, more commonly called Margot. Margot was a French princess, roughly contemporary with Elizabeth I of England, who lived an extraordinary life, full of danger and adventure.This movie is based on a different book, a novel, Le Reine Margot, by Alexandre Dumas. I have never read that book, so I cannot speak to any comparison between it and the movie. The movie only covers a very small part of Margot’s life.I highly recommend this movie, despite the fact that I now know how much of it is fictionalized (well, that’s not a surprise, is it?). The movie has Margot posing as a streetwalker to pick up guys for sex. (Oh, come on.) She also met her lover, La Mole, under very different circumstances. The real Charles IX also died of natural causes.The sad part about people who only see the movie is that they will never realize how incredible a person Margot really was. I highly recommend the Nancy Goldstone book, which is very entertaining as well as informative, to learn about the real Margot.The first time I saw the movie, I was a little confused as to who was who, not being all that familiar with the characters. The main things you need to know to enjoy the movie is that the treacherous Catherine de’ Medici was ruling France through her son, Charles IX. Catherine adored her younger son, Henri, and favored him over her other children, especially Margot, to whom she was very cruel. Charles protected Margot but never hesitated to use her to his own advantage; her life was always in danger as he was weak and inconsistent in his protection. Margot was a devout Catholic, but she was forced (literally) to marry the leader of the Huguenots (French Protestants), Henry of Navarre (the king of a small kingdom dependent upon France), at a time when Protestants and Catholics were bitter enemies and often at war. Part of the reason Catherine set up the marriage was to arrange an assassination of an enemy. That plan went very, very wrong, and the consequences were horrendous. Henry of Navarre never trusted Margot, despite her bravery and kindness, and avoided her. Margot found someone else to love and to love her. Two other characters, Margot’s friend and that friend’s lover, also are prominent characters, and they share a similar fate.Watch the movie and then read the Nancy Goldstone book to find out what really happened, and more importantly, what happened with Margot afterward -- and, trust me, a whole lot happened.

This very beautiful, lush and dark movie concerning the circumstances surrounding the marriage of Queen Margot with Henri de Navarre is set during one of the darkest events in French history. Many of the facts surrounding the St Bartholomew's Day massacre in France (how many were killed, who really instigated it, and such) are still being debated, but there are facts that are an integral part of this movie. The massacre did happen, the queen seems to have manipulated the whole thing through her influence and the results were devastating.Charles IX, the son of Henri II of France and Catherine de Medicis is king in name but is controlled by his conniving and powerful mother who has her own agenda on how to control France. Moving her children around like chess pieces on the board of Europe, she positions each to obtain maximum advantage for not only herself, but the Catholic Church and the French throne (and particularly for her favourite child, Henri duc d'Anjou who becomes Henri III). All this and the simmering tensions surrounding Marguerite's (Margot's) marriage to the Protestant Henri de Navarre are the basis for this beautiful and violent movie.The ethereally beautiful Isabelle Adjani perfectly portrays the amoral Margot (yet a lioness to protect others when it counts), and Vincent Perez ably portrays the protestant Joseph de la Mole, but it is Jean Hughes Anglade a marvel in his portrayal of the physically weak and high-strung Charles IX, Daniel Auteuil's nuanced and excellent interpretation of Henri de Navarre who is forced to marry the daughter of the alleged poisoner of his mother, and especially Virna Lisi as Queen Catherine de Medici, who dominate the screen. Lisi's interpretation is subtle and yet ferocious, she barely raises her voice but her poisonous words poured into the ears of her sons move them to murder thousands.This adaptation of historical figures takes a bit of license with a few facts, yet the real-life Margot was allegedly a beautiful and sensual woman, the lover of the powerful men (including the power-hungry de Guise) who indulged herself shamelessly. Surviving all her brothers, the childless Margot was the last of the House of Valois, perhaps ironic as her mother had tried so hard to justify all her power plays for the Valois sons and their progeny throughout her life. Historians still debate that Margot was a victim of incest by her brothers from an early age, an insignificant female pawn in the family, yet taken as fact in this movie.Other great performances are Miguel Bose as the viciously obsequious de Guise, Dominique Blanc as the pleasure-seeking Henriette de Nevers, and Pascal Greggory as the reptilian and amoral future Henri III. Perhaps one scene demonstrating the morals of the French court is Henriette's stroll through the streets of Paris filled with dead and dying Protestants. She picks her way delicately through bloody bodies, her bell-like laugh as brittle as she is, casting amorous glances of promise at a blood-covered Marc-Hannibal de Coconnas whose eyes never leave hers as he slaughters a hapless Protestant offering at his feet.

Really good period movie, although I found the sex stuff hard to believe, especially for the time period.