Memories of Versailles and the ancien régime in French film

Abstract

While the French Revolution brought about the end of Versailles as an active seat of politics and the Ancien Régime as a political and social system, both Versailles and the Ancien Régime remain important symbols of the past, and what Pierre Nora calls lieux de mémoire, in the cultural fabric French Republic, not least because they serve as a frame of reference for that paradox of continuity and disjuncture between ‘old’ and ‘modern’ France. With specific reference to film as a repository for historical memory, this thesis will examine the ways in which historical films that deal with Versailles and the monarchy (I will focus in depth on four case studies: La Marseillaise, 1938; L’affaire du collier de la reine, 1946; Si Versailles m’était conte, 1953, and La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV, 1966) use this specific aspect of the past to speak the concerns of the present moment, to provide a sense of historical continuity, to affirm a particular social contract based upon a set of national traditions, or to bind the various traditions of France’s past together into a common or shared culture predicated upon the existence of a national heritage. Ultimately, this thesis argues that Versailles and the Ancien Régime (as symbols, metonyms, epochs) hold such cultural, historical, and political weight that their memory is firmly embedded within French culture and regardless of their idiosyncrasies, differing tones, textures, and political or artistic perspectives, the various films about them, including the films under discussion. Moreover, it maintains (with close reference to the films) that in addition to being conduits for memory, historical films hold the capacity for doing
History (with a capital ‘H’).

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Identifiers

ORCID for Michael Williams: orcid.org/0000-0001-5386-5567

ORCID for Louis Bayman: orcid.org/0000-0002-4780-2057

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