The Film

Time was when the French Revolution was considered “a good thing,” a giant step toward modern participatory government, equality before the law, and other fundamental freedoms. In recent years, however, a very vocal group of revisionist historians have persuaded many that the Revolution was more of “a bad thing” than earlier generations of historians as well as the political left were willing to admit. Some revisionists tell us that the Revolution was “a tragedy,” overfull with excessive violence, full of sound and fury signifying little but unfulfilled grand illusions. Historians of this persuasion will typically dwell at gruesome length on “The Terror of 1793-4,” evoking scenes of mass drownings in the Loire River, the bloody repression at Lyon, and the spiraling executions in Paris during the Great Terror of spring 1794. Such excesses and violence, some emphasize, was the unavoidable outcome of the unforeseen intervention of “the people” in the revolutionary process. Liberal elites were on the road to peaceful reform but the force of popular violence blew the Revolution off course. François Furet, the most prominent French revisionist until his death in 1997, did not go this far but held, nonetheless, that The Terror was built into the Revolution from it’s beginning in 1789 once the “absolute rule” of the King was replaced by “absolute rule” of the people. The Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution is a collective work by Furet and his (mainly) French colleagues. Published in the bicentennial year 1989, it represents a summary of French revisionism.

The revisionists in France and elsewhere have not convinced everyone, and there are numerous historians contest the “tragic view” of recent vintage. Robert Darnton is a leading example of Anglo-American scholars who take up the pen and keyboard in defense of a more positive appraisal of the French Revolution. And so it is that the debates over the meaning and significance of the Revolution continue.

That the history of the Revolution remains contested ground is borne out in films as well. One of the acknowledged classics is “La Marseillaise,” a film made by the great director Jean Renoir in 1938. At a time when France was plagued with domestic struggles and the threat of German expansionism under Hitler, the film recalls the unity and courage of the French people who rallied to save the Revolution and repel the invading armies of Austria and Prussia in 1792. The closing frames show the volunteers from Marseilles defeating the Austrians and Prussians at the battle of Valmy.

The film Danton tells a different story. The people are not to be seen except in a bread line grumbling about Robespierre and the Revolutionary government until a government spy strolls by and the discontent falls silent. Nor do we see the triumphs of popular struggle and military valor. Instead, the film looks closely at two months during Terror—March and April 1794—and the bitter struggle between Danton and Robespierre over the future course of the Revolution. Danton claims he speaks for the people in calling an end to the Terror, the machinery of which he helped construct. Robespierre, convinced that Terror is still needed, sees Danton as threat to the Revolution and decides, reluctantly, that his rival must die. The film ends with Danton at the guillotine.

Made in 1982 by the Polish director, Andrzej Wadja, the film is based on a Polish play of 1931 called the “Danton Affair.” Begun in Poland during a high point of the Solidarity liberation movement, it was eventually filmed in France after the movement was outlawed and martial law was instituted in 1981 under General Jarulszelski—a coup directed by the Soviet Union. After the coup, Wadja and his crew moved to France as émigrés. There they completed the film with a cast of Polish and French actors. Danton was played by the French Gérard Depardieu and Robespierre, by the Pole Wojciech Pszoniak. Although Wadja had staged the play several times before, the film reflects Wadja’s opposition to the return of a Stalinist regime in his homeland.

Cast

Gérard Depardieu	....	Danton
Wojciech Pszoniak	....	Robespierre

Anne Alvaro	....	Eleonore Duplay
Patrice Chéreau	....	Camille Desmoulins
Emmanuelle Debever	....	Louison Danton
Krzysztof Globisz	....	Amar
Ronald Guttman	....	Herman
Gérard Hardy	....	Tallien
Tadeusz Huk	....	Couthon
Stéphane Jobert	....	Panis
Marian Kociniak	....	Lindet
Marek Kondrat	....	Barere de Vieuzac
Boguslaw Linda	....	Saint-Just
Lucien Melki	....	Fabre d'Eglantine
Serge Merlin	....	Philippeaux
Erwin Nowiaszak	....	Collot d'Herbois
Leonard Pietraszak	....	Carnot
Roger Planchon	....	Fouquier Tinville
Andrzej Seweryn	....	Bourdon
Franciszek Starowieyski	....	David
Jerzy Trela	....	Billaud-Varenne
Angela Winkler (I)	....	Lucile Desmoulins
Jean-Loup Wolff	....	Herault de Seychelles
Szymon Zaleski	....	Lebas

Questions for the Film

Specific scenes:

What do you make of the opening scene when Elenore Duplay is teaching her brother to recite the keystone document of the Revolution, “The Rights of Man and Citizen”?
In the central scene of the film, Danton and Robespierre meet in a hotel. What do you think is the point of showing other guests who are then hounded out? Based on your reading of Danton and Robespierre, does the meeting ring historically true?
What is the point of having Madame Desmoulins go everywhere with her infant in arms? The Desmoulins are portrayed as being rather well off and probably had a servant or two to look after the baby.
What does Robespierre’s speech at the Convention intend to show?
What does the musical score add to the film?
What do you think is the meaning of the final scene with Robespierre in bed?

Broader issues:

Some critiques claim that historical films reveal more about the period in which they were made than about the period they portray. To what extent do you think this is true of Danton?
However flawed it may be, what does Danton contribute to your understanding of the French Revolution?
What does Danton illustrate about the possibility of film as form of good history?

Questions for the Reading

Each generation, it is said, rewrites history, revealing it's particular interests and ideological concerns within a context of surrounding circumstances. Hence, in the attempt to recover and interpret the past, historical writing also reflects concerns of the present. In this sense, written and filmed history mirror both "the past" and "the present." The French Revolution provides a classic example of this continuing process of rewriting and revision, as our study of the film Danton and selected historical writing will show.

We'll begin by looking at examples of how Georges Danton (1759-1794) and Maximillien Robespierre (1758-1794) have been interpreted by J. M. Thompson in 1929 and by other historians in 1989. We'll also look at how two historians of the 1980s disagree over the nature and significance of that radical part of the Revolution known as "The Terror." With this background, we'll then study the film Danton.

In the reading, concentrate on identifying the differences in the accounts of Danton, of Robespierre, and of the Terror.

Questions for comparing the accounts of Danton and Robespierre by J. M. Thompson (1929) and Mona Ozouf et al. (1989):

1. What are two major differences in these biographical sketches?

2. How might these differences reflect the era in which they were written?

3. Which of the paired accounts seems to be more favorable to the leader in question? How so?

4. To what extent has the heroism (or villainy) attributed to Danton or to Robespierre changed over time in the hands of successive historians?

5. Which of the two accounts of Danton (or Robespierre) do you find more compelling?

6. How would you make a film that centers on Danton and Robespierre?

Questions for comparing Francois Furet and David Bien on "The Terror."

1. What do you think is the main point of Furet's interpretation of The Terror? What evidence does he present to support it?

2. What do you think is the main thrust of Bien's critique of Furet? What evidence does he bring to bear?

3. To what extent are you persuaded that the Terror was built into the Revolution from its very beginning and was thus a natural outcome of the 1789 revolutionary program?

4. What would either Francois Furet or David Bien emphasize in a film that represents their view of the Revolution and Terror?

Further Reading:

R.R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution (New York: Atheneum, 1965).

Alan Forrest, The French Revolution. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993.

Colin Jones, The Longman Companion to the French Revolution. Longman, 1988.

Colin Lucas, "Revolutionary Violence, the People and the Terror" in The French Revolution and the Creation of ModernPolitical Culture: Volume 4, The Terror ed. K.M. Baker, pp.57-79.

Documents by Robespierre and on the Terror [web]

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/robespierre-terror.html

French Revolution Web Sites [web]

http://www.iso.gmu.edu/~gbrown6/links.html

David Hart, University of Adelaide, Danton, Robespierre and The French Revolution [web]

http://arts.adelaide.edu.au/person/DHart/ModernEurope/Seminar/Danton.html

The French Revolution: the People Enter Politics, by William Doyle, with fine links to first rate articles by UK historians, to glossary, to documents, etc. [web]

http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/corehistorians/frenrev/preface.htm

http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/corehistorians/frenrev/resource/21ab(i).htm

Francois Furet, Comment on the Terror Text Resources [web]

http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/corehistorians/frenrev/text.htm