Commentary on "Saint-Just et la force des choses"
I've only watched about half of the second part of "Saint-Just et la force des choses," but I can tell you right now that it really makes me want to spork my eyes out.
Now off to watch the second half... which I admittedly don't have particularly high hopes for.
The actor playing Saint-Just is a terrible orator. He’s also apparently not the only one wearing eyeliner; Hébert is too. The Billaud in this has the same outfit and haircut as the Fouché in LTeLV did. Creepy.
Okay, so they just portrayed Saint-Just, Robespierre, and… Barère as pretty much telling the other members of the CSP what to do. Then they’re the only ones to speak to Fouquier, who seems to think it’s dishonest to try the Hébertistes with Proli, Pereyra, and that bunch. Imagine: Fouquier!
And we’re back to Saint!Danton, planning to have dinner with Robespierre to convince him to go over to the side of the Dantonistes: “Enough. Enough intrigue, enough blood. Let the Republic be loved and respected. He’ll understand.” Which is of course setting us up for his not “understanding,” most likely because he’s “Evil Incarnate.”
I love Collot d’Herbois speaking against Tallien… He really should have kept that up. >___<
Why is everyone in this movie so thin? They all look like they’ve not had a decent meal in months. (Well, except Hébert and Danton. Maybe they stole all the food.)
O.o; Robespierre’s only reaction to being asked to sign the Dantonistes’ arrest is to say “Camille” twice. You would think he’d have said something a *bit* more articulate than that.
And then Desmoulins says, naturally, that Saint-Just is avenging himself for the comment he made about his carrying his head “Like the holy sacrament.” Which, since it’s something Desmoulins would say, isn’t a problem so much as the film’s not offering another compelling reason is.
Okay, first, I did not need to see Danton and his child-bride in bed. Second, why is Louise wearing shimmery eye shadow?!
Woah, did Billaud just coerce Carnot into signing the Dantonistes arrest warrant? I somehow doubt that’s how it happened.
They just changed Lindet’s line into this, for whatever reason: “I’m charged with feeding France, not providing fodder for the scaffold.”
Oh, that was hilarious-I’m sure it didn’t happen like this, but it was hilarious none the less-the other members of the CSP, in particular Billaud, just told Saint-Just there was no way Danton could be present when he read his report to the Convention, and Saint-Just stormed out, throwing the report in the air on his way.
…Their Robespierre does nothing but yell. Even his speeches are yelled. I don’t understand why they think it’s in character for him to be yelling at Legendre. At least they used the historical words from the day after the Dantonistes’ arrest, though they cut all the best parts of Robespierre’s speech. Also… WTF, Saint-Just seems a bit lukewarm with his clapping for Robespierre there. Are they trying to imply he doesn’t really agree but feels forced to applaud? D: And then Legendre just has this look… He looks like a kicked puppy and claims that he doesn’t intend to defend any individual and goes back to his seat. *facepalm*
OMSB, they have the scene from Barras’s memoirs… I so do not want to know how this is going to go. But I’m going to watch it anyway, because I’m a masochist. Okay, so Éléonore just literally *ran* to warn Robespierre, only getting there two seconds before Barras and Fouché do-at which point they shove her out of the way-and then they try to act all polite and friendly, but, as Barras reports it, he ignores them. He seems to be scraping his forehead with something, which is a bit odd. ROTFL, Robespierre just dipped his finger in a glass of wine and started scrubbing his teeth with it and then gargling with it. I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s done… WTF, he totally just spit at them. Not that they don’t deserve it, but I thought Barras’s account was extremely unlikely in the first place, and this just makes it worse. He never says a word to them. He doesn’t even tell them to leave, like he does in LTeLV. I honestly don’t think my brain can handle the WTFery.
There are a lot of shots in this of carriages transporting Saint-Just to and from the armies… And now there’s a random ten seconds or so of Saint-Just dozing in one.
And again, OOC Robespierre throws things and yells at Saint-Just when Saint-Just says he shouldn’t have been recalled from the armies. He says he needs Saint-Just there because some people have tried to assassinate him and refers to the Ladmiral and Cécile Renault affairs. Then he claims he’s not afraid… So his logic in this appears to be that Saint-Just needs to be there because he “feels alone” and thinks he’s going to be assassinated, and yet he doesn’t care if he’s assassinated? *headdesk*
Now he says a few things that are in character, even though the way he says them is not in character at all: he talks about how he recalled the “proconsuls” and how they need to be taken down, and then about how the very people who “voted Danton’s death” are now crying over him. But he says it like the paranoid, twitching, old, inhuman character this movie obviously thinks he was.
Then they have Robespierre say, “My work (oeuvre) is indestructible!” …And he’s still yelling at Saint-Just. And telling him about what would become the Law of 22 Prairial in an entirely improbable way. Obviously, we can only theorize about his object in supporting it, but first, it wasn’t just his idea that he had Couthon introduce, as this film seems to believe, and secondly, I don’t think he meant it as a means of “augmenting the Terror,” as he says here. And then Saint-Just says that ordinary methods will suffice to get rid of the “five or six” future Thermidorians Robespierre has in mind, and they get into a huge argument about this law, along rather predictable lines. You know, Robespierre asks him to make the report, and he refuses. Which Robespierre seems to find funny; apparently, they’re going with the “theory” that Robespierre believed disagreement with himself on anything to be impossible. My brain! ;O;
And then Robespierre says Saint-Just’s “attitude weakens us,” to which Saint-Just replies (yelling, of course) that “this law will weaken us.” And then he says his line about how “strong liqueurs dull the palate; the scaffold soon ceases to have an effect (the word he uses is blaser, which I would normally translate as “dull,” but that doesn’t make sense in this context) on crime “… to Robespierre! And then he starts speechifying about how shame is more powerful than death… And Robespierre laughs at him again. O____o;;; And now, *apparently*, Robespierre *made* Saint-Just write that report against the Dantonistes. Oh really!
And then Saint-Just says that tensions are high and need to be relaxed, not tightened; an idea which Robespierre completely dismisses, saying “I know better than you what needs to be done.” After which Saint-Just says he’s “returning to the armies.” After which Robespierre completely changes his tone and asks why Saint-Just doesn’t stay for the FdlÊS, and Saint-Just says he’s leaving immediately. And then Robespierre starts talking about the FdlÊS in a really, really OOC way, he talks about how he’s going to “lead the cortège”-even the movie “Sade” did a better job of making him in character than this! (As if he hadn’t been OOC enough in this scene, in this movie in general!) And then Saint-Just just says, “I can’t, Maximilien, I regret.” WTF, why???
This is really getting OOC to the point of hilarity. As soon as Saint-Just leaves, Robespierre literally throws his glasses and then has some laudanum. Clearly his laudanum addiction explains his strange behavior. It’s painful to laugh at this, but it’s really just so… WTF.