Reflections on the Revolution in Hollywood: Part II

One would think that a film released in 1970 would be more progressive than a film released in 1938 but the 1970 French Revolution comedy Start the Revolution Without Me makes it hard to tell. Granted, the later is supposed to be a comedy -- and therefore not likely to be historically accurate -- but even considering that, there is something about StRWM's take on history that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

For one thing, there is an air of hypocrisy about the 1970 effort which makes it hard to take seriously as either a comedy or a social comment. The film does not really identify with the aristocrats -- apart from one exception -- but it does not identify that much with the common people either and the main glimpse we get of the French revolutionaries is so lacking in either humor or humanity that one would think that this film was commissioned by the French monarchy. Indeed, the most sympathetic character in the movie, believe it or not, is King Louis XVI, who is depicted as a unfairly maligned cuckold who could have readily solved this whole "rights of man" business if he had just been given a chance.

To be fair, the movie's other two sympathetic characters are fictional in nature and not all that likable themselves. Indeed, the main virtues of the characters of Claude and Charles Coupé (played respectively by Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland) are that they are not quite as cruel or haughty as their aristocratic counterparts Phillipe and Pierre DeSisi (also played by Wilder and Sutherland). Add to that a royal conspiracy involving King Louis XVI's wife Marie and her villainous consort, the Duke d'Escargot, and one can't help sensing the basis for what could have been a very intriguing Alexandre Dumas parody which unfortunately never quite gets off the ground.

Part of the reason the movie ultimately does not work is that it is too busy trying to execute an awkward political allegory. In this allegory, the French Revolutionaries are obvious stand-ins for the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), the French Revolution a metaphor for the campus upheavals of the late 1960s and poor Louis XVI an obvious symbol for former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. Unfortunately, the idea of Louis XVI as a misunderstood do-gooder just does not seem all that believable and the hamhanded attempts to relate the actions of the movie to current events seem more embarrassing than emotionally moving. Indeed, the movie's idea that the French Revolution could have been "solved" if the masses had just gotten out of the way and allowed the King to sign the right paperwork seems intellectually idiotic even by humor standards. And yet such are the movie's politics that one rarely sees any signs of sympathy for anyone rebelling against the status quo -- just sympathy for people like the Coupés who get caught up in the crossfire.

Nor does it help that none of the movie's villains get an emotionally satisfying comeuppance. Indeed, even the film's conclusion proves unsatisfying. Instead of an emotionally satisfying finale, we get a parody of an ending -- a parody which might have worked if the rest of the movie was more humorous but alas, it was not. To be fair, Wilder and Sutherland have some funny scenes but not as much as one would expect. Heck, even narrator Orson Welles can't save this movie. Fortunately, Wilder and Sutherland will do far better work in more recent movies but not, alas, in the same movie.

In any event, I wanted to like this movie far more than I did. But I guess I was too rebellious to appreciate it.