Making Marie Antoinette: A touching Coppola family affair

Making Marie Antoinette

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Director: Eleanor Coppola

Cert: None

Genre: Documentary

Starring: Sofia Coppola, Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman

Running Time: 1 hr 27 mins

There’s a moment in Making Marie Antoinette when director Sofia Coppola – one of the few women to helm a studio picture in 2006 – breaks down the titular character for star Kirsten Dunst: “They treat you like you’re just a dumb girl and you let them. But every once in a while, you let them know you’re not an idiot.” Well, quite.

Most making-of documentaries are extended promotional features, offering behind-the-scenes footage as a Blu-ray extra for diehard fans. But most making-of documentaries are not directed by the late Eleanor Coppola, who redefined the possibilities of the form with Hearts of Darkness, her unmissable account of the trials and tribulations endured by her husband, Francis Ford Coppola, during the making of Apocalypse Now.

Eleanor’s filmmaking grafted intimacy and empathy on to conventional reportage, however tumultuous the set of Apocalypse Now. Making Marie Antoinette, a much calmer affair, and assembled from her footage by Sofia after her mother’s death in 2024, offers a similarly personal, essential angle.

Made with a $40 million budget, Marie Antoinette was the director’s most ambitious project to date, requiring a large cast and crew, elaborate costumes and permission to film at Versailles. Eleanor’s camera follows the production with quiet curiosity, capturing petit fours and costume fittings with superstar designer Milena Canonero.

Eleanor’s 80 hours of footage was dusted off during the Covid lockdowns. But it fell to Sofia to complete the documentary, incorporating extracts from her mother’s journals, poignantly read by Diane Lane. These reflections – Eleanor fretting about Sofia’s cough or how slight her daughter appears on set – give the film its emotional heft among all the finery. Her admiration of Sofia’s determination and creative independence is tinged with regret that she is always chronicling her talented family’s films, rather than striking out on her own.

It’s a family affair. Sofia’s eventual husband, Thomas Mars, contributes to the score; dad Francis Ford Coppola visits the set; and cousin Jason Schwartzman plays Louis XVI. Eleanor can scarcely contain her pride watching Sofia collaborate with her brother and first assistant director Roman.

A last and touching love letter from a matriarch who emerges as a great film-maker, a great mother and one of the medium’s great chroniclers.

Streaming on Mubi from Friday, November 6th