So how did France get her charm back you ask? It may be a small let down to learn I have re-discovered France's charm at one of the most predictably charming places imaginable: Versailles. I am referring to the palace of Versailles and not the surrounding locale. Yes, the gardens, the tapestries, the statues, the perfectly manicured bushes, the rococo wallpaper, the wall decor that took eleven layers of varnish! It was with the swoop of François Boucher's damsels on swings that I re-entered the throngs of Americans in envy of France's refinery.
Again I have to cite Adam Gopnik and his endlessly quotable guide to all experiences expat in France, Paris to the Moon. I wrote in my first post about how coming in with no expectations is the best way to approach this experience. However, Gopnik writes, "There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more." When I first re-read this quote I wanted to disagree. How can you experience a place if you already have a fixed idea of what you want it to be? But upon further reflection I realized that this is what creation is, this is how humans engage with the world.
Gopnik's idea is to think of travel as a creative action. As a painter and sometimes-writer I think it is a beautiful idea. When we travel there is a dual "direction of fit": our minds trying to match the world while simultaneously constructing the world to match our minds. Anyone who has ever drawn or painted a self-portrait will understand this concept. When you create an image you are gleaning both from what you see (or look for) and what the world shows to you. It is a combination of active and passive engagement. This was my experience of Versailles.
I really should be thanking Sofia Coppola for making her beautifully-crafted portrayal of Marie Antoinette in her eponymous bio-pic of the Austrian princess and her life at Versailles. It is the distinct power of the image, of the photograph or the film screen, to present itself as an ontological truth, as plain fact. But again, as many of us know, historical films are prone to hyperbole and dramatic flare--Coppola's is no exception. The cinema is performative, whether that refers to the actor's image or to the theatrical production and arrangement of the mise-en-scene. Coppola begins her film with an anachronistic image. While Gang of Four's "Natural's Not in It," a punk anthem to hedonism, plays in the background, Antoinette has her feet pampered by a maid wearing a servant's uniform out of the 19th century. We already have three centuries manifesting within a single frame, the 16th century Marie Antoinette, the 19th century housemaid, and a 20th century soundtrack. And yet the image speaks to a truth of Coppola's creative conception of the Antoinette as a relatable, rebellious, spoiled child.
Thanks to Coppola's film I entered into Versailles with a fresh, 21st century sensibility as to the wildness of the by-gone parties, the pressure of Antoinette to perform and conform to her new life as both an Austrian and a French queen, and the tragedy of such decadence among the poverty of the outside world in 1783. While the sky was clouded and the light entering the chateau muted and grey, I could nevertheless see the vivacity and vividness of Coppola's film images in Versailles' flowered wallpaper, its shining mirrors, and its the lacquered furniture.
The ontological truth of the film image became my own ontological truth. Antoinette slept in this bed, she ate with this silverware, and she fled through this door just before she was taken by a French mob and beheaded in Paris. Versailles is a perfectly overwrought distillation of all that is refined about French culture and history. The ridiculous refinery of French desserts, of multi-tiered pyramids of macaroons and intricately iced cakes and pastries of all shades of pink, make sense within the walls of Versailles. What might usually make me cringe as overwrought and over-refined feels perfectly natural next to the paintings of Boucher, next to the chairs whose upholstery matches the wallpaper and the mise-en-abyme of chandeliers reflected in the hall of mirrors.
Equally appropriate were these two jeune filles, so bored with the refined decadence of the chateau that their cell phone screens were the only locus of attention they had the energy to focus on. One might imagine the fifteen year old Antoinette had some of the same feelings of boredom among the everyday decadence of her existence.
Coppola's Marie Antoinette, for me, crystallized the best of Versailles, the best of this chapter in French history. I realize many may disagree with my loud approval of this film. Admittedly the plot line had little motivation and was somewhat meandering. The complexities of either M.A. or Louis XVI had difficulty shining through the makeup and the kicky soundtrack. But Coppola took full advantage of being granted a great privilege of filming on-location. She brought the main character of the story, Versailles itself, to life in her images. Each drape, each carpet, each duck on the pond, worked to fulfill a romantic ideal of Antoinette. Without Versailles the King and Queen of France would just be another European royal couple. Versailles speaks volumes through its architecture, its decor, its furnishings, about what it was to be the highest example of a French arbiter of culture.
Lastly, my favorite part of my visit to Versailles was something I found unexpectedly, one of many idiosyncrasies that this palace of French refinery had to show me that I could have never imagined myself. The most charming thing I found that day was in the gardens. Each statue had been wrapped up for winter, as if hibernating. Among the fall foliage, each sculpture and flower pot had been cozily secured under a thick tarp and securely wrapped with string such that one could easily guess the shape and form of the underlying figure. Leave it to the French to uniquely and charmingly wrap each one of the hundreds of sculptures within the gardens of Versailles. The result was an extremely charming eeriness, of both the presence and absence of these statues. It is reminiscent of the many ghosts of history that roam these manicured pastures and of the many invisible curators of French history, the gardeners and conservators, who work to keep Versailles alive.
The realization that France is not just what is shown to me, but also what I look for in it, is a liberating concept. After Versailles I do not feel as solitary and boxed in as a foreigner living in France. I can be a foreigner both experiencing and making this year into the experience I want it to be. Coppola and Godard, Monet and Duchamp may all have insights into what France is or was. I walk among their invisible gazes everyday and feel less alone because of it.
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