Books vs. Movies
In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
Books vs. Movies
Ep. 37 Farewell, My Queen by Chantal Thomas vs. Farewell, My Queen (2012)
What if the extravagant world of Marie Antoinette was seen through the eyes of her devoted reader during one of history's most chaotic periods? Join me as I dissect the fascinating narrative of "Farewell, My Queen" by Chantal Thomas alongside its cinematic counterpart featuring Lea Seydoux and Diane Kruger. Immerse yourself in the book's depiction of Agathe-Sidonie Laborde's uniquely positioned perspective during the French Revolution, and discover the creative liberties taken in the film that add new dimensions to Agathe's journey. From the stark contrast between Agathe's humble life and royal splendor to the nuanced portrayal of Marie Antoinette by Diane Kruger, we explore the layers of tension and character dynamics that each medium offers.
The episode further navigates the misleading promotional tactics that hint at a romance subplot that doesn't quite materialize, redirecting the narrative focus on Agathe's central role. With a critical lens, I share my mixed feelings about the book's lack of urgency and the film's more engaging yet still slow-paced delivery. We also touch on the importance of embracing foreign films, as seen in Kruger's authentic performance. As we wrap up, I encourage you to join the conversation by leaving your thoughts and look forward to the next episode, where I'll be analyzing "White Bird in a Blizzard" by Laura Kasich and its adaptation with Shailene Woodley and Eva Green.
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Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set out to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Yuvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today I will be discussing Farewell my Queen by Chantal Thomas and its 2012 adaptation, farewell my Queen starring Lea Seydoux and Diane Kruger. Starring Lea Seydoux and Diane Kruger. Hi everyone, how are you Good to see you? So I'm expecting this episode to also be short and sweet, because there isn't much to say about the book or the film other than they're both really, really, really slow. So with that, I mean, let's go ahead and get started. So, farewell my Queen. By Chantal Thomas. And translated. So this was originally published in French. Translated by Moishe Black. Shout out to my friend, moishe. Obviously, he's not the same Moishe that translated this, but I don't see that name very often. So anyway, translated by Moishi Black.
Speaker 1:Tells the story of Agathe Sidney Laborde, and I know how to pronounce Agathe, thanks to we actually had a one of our international students that we had last year. Her name was Agathe and she's the one that taught us how to pronounce it. So, anyway, agathe Sidney Laborde is essentially hired as the queen's reader. So she does read to Queen Marie Antoinette. We start off in the future, where she is now she's now lived in Vienna for many, many years before we flash back to July 14th, 15th and 16th of 1789. And we kind of get an inside glimpse into the start of the French Revolution. So what happened during those days is that the Bastille falls or is overtaken by the French citizens, who are tired of the French monarchy, essentially, and that's just very, very simple, layman's terms. Obviously, there's more complicated things, but anyway. So we get an inside look as to what happened in Versailles the day that the Bastille fell and the two days immediately after.
Speaker 1:The 2012 adaptation Farewell my Queen stars Lea Seydoux and Diane Kruger, and it focuses on the relationship platonic relationship between Marie Antoinette and one of her and her reader during the first days of the French Revolution. So it is a pretty faithful adaptation. There are some differences, as always, but for the most part, pretty faithful, nothing much to add. The biggest change is probably that of Louison, who is also one. She's not one of the readers, but she is one of. Like the ladies-in-waiting to the queen. She does not exist in the book or if she does, it's very, very minor, briefly mentioned, does not play as big a role as she does in the film.
Speaker 1:So in the film we focus a lot on this beautiful clock that is, it's just this stark, stark contrast to Agathe Sidney's very bare room. Obviously, as servants they live in minimally furnished rooms with the tiniest of windows and the barest of beds and things like that. So it stands out in stark contrast because it's like this beautiful, elaborate clock that was actually loaned out to her by the queen's lady-in-waiting to make sure that Agathe gets up on time and reports to the queen on time, because she does have a tendency to be late. So Louison, who is one of Agathe's friends, she is obsessed with this clock, obviously, and wants to look at it and be around it all the time and at one point Agathe lets Louison borrow it. It's kind of one of those like tip for tack kind of situations, like she really needs a favor, like immediately from Louison and Louison's like I'll do it if you loan me the clock. So she loans Louison the clock and at one point on the second day of the invasion, louis-saul escapes with one of the soldiers. So instead of battling, this soldier essentially leaves and he and Louis-Saul are having an affair. So they leave together and Louis-Saul steals the clock and Agathe needs to explain to the lady-in-waiting what happened to the clock and of course she gets in trouble. But there's more pressing matters than finding out what happened to this clock. That does not happen at all in the book. There's no raison, there's no clock. Yeah, none of it completely made up for the film.
Speaker 1:Another change is that Agathe is very skilled at embroidery and this is mentioned in the book, but it's just mentioned, and in the film the lady-in-waiting tasks a gat with sewing a dahlia or embroidering a dahlia for the queen to have as a keepsake, and she gives. So the queen obviously is not very interested in literature, like she lets the reader read to her, but most of the time she ends up canceling or stopping her from reading anything of substance and essentially directs her to read about, I guess, the equivalent of like the fashion magazines of the time period, and so she has like this huge album of just like different pages of like the fashion of the time, and it's very precious to her. So the lady-in-waiting lets Agathe take that book and see the particular Dahlia that the queen loves so that she's able to embroider it, and she does, and then that's like the last thing she gives the queen before she needs to flee, but that's it by the time she needs to flee. It's kind of like oh, thank you for sewing this, I don't really care, because crap's about to go down. French Revolution is starting, but again, that also does not happen in the book. The Lady in Waiting also plays a much more prominent role in the film than she does in the book. She is very like on top of what Agathe is doing, does not let anything like nothing slides by her. There's one brief moment in which the queen asks to speak to Agathe privately and Agathe takes great pleasure in, like, closing the doors on the lady-in-wait in waiting space. That again does not happen in the book.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things that happen in the film that do not happen in the book, as you can probably tell. So that is it really. Everything else is pretty similar. So, yeah, so, yeah. How do I feel about both? So I think the thing that was most irritating to me about the film was that the main focus of the story is Agathe and Marie Antoinette Great.
Speaker 1:And then about, like in the last third of the film, like we start getting focused on Gabrielle de Polignac. So we are introduced to her a little bit earlier in the film, but there's not too much emphasis placed on her, other than Agathe feeling a little bit of jealousy towards her because it is she was a reality the rumored girlfriend of the queen. In the film they don't make it a rumor. Like they do make it official that they're in love with each other. And so towards the end of the film, like we're introduced to her and then whatever, we get lost in the action of everything that's going on at Versailles, as a list comes out of everyone that the citizens of France rumored relationship with the queen is on that list.
Speaker 1:The queen wants to protect her because she loves her, and so she asks Agathe to pretend she's Gabrielle de Polignac and Gabrielle will pretend that she's Gabrielle's lady-in-waiting. Hopefully that made sense. She's Gabrielle's lady-in-waiting. Hopefully that made sense. So Agathe is pretending to be Gabrielle, who's pretending to be Gabrielle's lady-in-waiting? And that is the plan. To get Gabrielle safely out of France. They're exiled or they're going to be exiled. Essentially, once they leave they can't come back. But in order to protect Gabrielle's life, it's kind of like you're going to pretend to be Gabrielle. That way, if you're captured, they'll kill you and she'll still be alive, because they have no reason to kill the lady in waiting. And so they trade places and they make it out of France safely and then, as the film ends, we see them escaping.
Speaker 1:And then we get like the epilogue in letters or in words, basically saying Gabrielle de Polignac escaped and she lived out the rest of her days in sadness and it's said that she died of a broken heart because she was separated from her, one true love, which the reason that irritated me was just that kind of came out of nowhere. Like I said, the focus up for the first two thirds of the film was the relationship between Agathe and Marie Antoinette and kind of like Agathe's obsession with the queen. We kind of get the sense that she has a crush on the queen, like obviously this unrequited crush, and she's infatuated and wants to do everything to please her queen and her queen could give two craps about her. And then all of a sudden it's like oh, this is my girlfriend that I love and I want her to live, so you're gonna trade places. And then the epilogue focuses on Gabrielle de Polignac as opposed to Agathe, and I understand that Gabrielle was a real person and Agathe was more than likely made up for the book slash film. But then make this story about Marie and Gabrielle, don't make it about Agathe and Marie, but anyway. So that's kind of what just really irritated me about the film is that we're following this journey of this one character and then we end up not knowing what happens to her. Presumably there's one moment in which they get stopped and then nothing happens and they're allowed to go on their way. So presumably she makes it out of France alive. But I mean, that's who I care about, that's who the film wanted me to care about up until I didn't know where they wanted me to care about someone else. So that was what kind of irritated me about the film.
Speaker 1:What irritated me about the book was just that nothing really happens. Now, granted, nothing really happens in the film. That was Orlando's so game to watch anything with me and he was kind of like nothing really happened and I was like no, not really. And it's one of those things where, like, I wasn't a huge fan of the film and overall films were quote, unquote. Nothing happens, don't bother me. I watch films for the storytelling, the art, the acting, all of that. So sometimes I watch films for the mindless entertainment. So sometimes I watch films for the mindless entertainment and sometimes I watch it for the more cinematic aspects of film. So the fact that nothing really happened didn't bother me per se, but it also just wasn't very interesting Like. This film is just not very interesting overall. The book was even worse. Like nothing.
Speaker 1:When I say nothing happens in the book, I mean nothing happens in the book, everything that I just said. It does happen, like she is approached by the queen and she's tasked with changing places with Gabrielle and she does, and they escape. But these are supposedly three of the most tense days for someone to have experienced living in the royal courts, whether you were part of royalty or not, because I got the impression that the citizens were also targeting some of the people that worked there because they worked there, but it had to be like for a good reason. If you were just like trying to pay the bills, they weren't targeting you. But it's very like. The Bastille has been, has fallen and now there's a list of 200 people that the citizens want to execute and people need to escape.
Speaker 1:Some of the royals, yes, but some of the lesser royals I don't know what they're called. They're not like the main royals, but they're and they're. They're like technically royalty but like they're not at the same time, like if something happens to them, nothing happens to, like the line of succession or anything, but they're still like like dukes, like the dukes and duchesses, like technique, like yes, they are royalty but like people don't care about them as much. You know that that's kind of what I'm trying to say. So it's very, very tense and people are scared for their lives.
Speaker 1:And meanwhile the book is kind of just like I woke up and I went to the queen and I read to her and then I went to go talk to my friend to find out what was going on and he told me and then I went to bed and then I woke up the next day, like it's just so slow and I was like where is the sense of urgency? These are like your lives are potentially in danger and you don't seem to care, like you don't seem to care. So I will say the film definitely added a lot more of that tension which, like I know, orlando is going to be listening to this and being like it did. It's like, yeah, yeah, it did. You felt a lot more of the tension in the film than you did reading the book. In the book it was just I'm not even joking when I'm saying it was like that I was like I, people, people are in danger. I 100% cannot tell. Okay, sure, sure, jan, yeah, so there's that.
Speaker 1:And then so in the in the film, as Marie Antoinette tells the first late, her lady in waiting, like go get a gat. This is what I'm going to ask of her, the lady of waiting and waiting goes to get a gat and she says listen, the queen is going to ask something of you. You should say no, honestly, like you should say no, but a gat does it because she's infatuated, possibly in love with the queen. That also doesn't happen in the book, Like she's summoned, but the lady in waiting doesn't warn her. She is a little bit scared in the film to do it, and in the book she's kind of like, yeah, all right, all right, yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, that's fine, what are we going to have for lunch today? Like she's just so, so calm about the whole thing, which is not very interesting to read.
Speaker 1:And then I also didn't get that kind of sexual tension that Agathe feels for the queen that I was getting in the film. Like in the film it was very obvious like, ooh, this girl like has it bad for the queen and it's not a sense of like I'm a loyal citizen, it's she's got it bad. So there was none of that in the book either. In the book she was very much just a loyal citizen. That was like whatever my queen tells me to do, just a loyal citizen. That was like whatever my queen tells me to do, I will do because I follow her faithfully. And that's it, that's, that's. Farewell, my queen. There's really nothing to it. There's nothing really exciting about it. And yeah, it was. It was what it was.
Speaker 1:One thing I did discover that I found really interesting is that Diane Kruger, who plays Marie Antoinette, actually speaks. So this film is a French film. So if you do watch it, you will have to read subtitles, which just PSA. Do not let subtitles deter you from enjoying a really great film. This may not be the film for you, but just in general, like, stop discrediting foreign films just because you have to read a little bit to understand what's going on. You're missing out on some great films by doing that. But anyway, I found out that Diane Kruger was actually speaking French with a German slash Austrian accent, which is more than likely how Marie Antoinette herself spoke French, since she was born in Austria. So that was just a fun little fact that obviously I would never have known just by watching the film because I don't speak French. And so, yeah, definitely not going to be able to pick up on the different accents. But I mean, diane Kruger was good and she wasn't bad by any means, she just wasn't memorable to me. But I don't necessarily think it was her acting choices, I think it was just I didn't find the character that interesting, which is interesting considering it's Marie Antoinette. Anyway, lea Seydoux was really, really good. I'd never seen her act before. I'd obviously heard her name because of Blue is the Warmest Color, which is kind of the film that launched her to stardom, at least in the US, and yeah, so she was great overall.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go ahead and get into the rating, even though I think you know what the winner is. The winner is the film. I didn't tell you what, I rated them, but I rated them both three stars. The book is probably more like 2.5, 2.75, maybe a little bit less than a three. If not, it's a solid three, but definitely not a tie between the two. They were both just okay, nothing exciting. Like I said, that really happens in either one. But the film does have those little extra touches of that unrequited sexual tension between Agathe and Marie and the just the overall tension of the fact that, hey, there's stuff actually going down and our lives are in danger and we're kind of screwed so we kind of need to leave now or face the consequences of our bad ruling. So yeah, bad ruling. So yeah, that was good.
Speaker 1:And I think the other reason I was kind of annoyed by the film going back to that a little bit more is because even like the poster, like the film poster is Marie Antoinette and Gabrielle de Polignac hugging each other, looking at each other in the eyes tenderly and Laïcidou in the background, just kind of looking at this display of affection, kind of disappointingly.
Speaker 1:And so you see this film poster and you're expecting like this love story or this possible like secret love story between Marie Antoinette and another woman and you don't get that Like the poster. Even the poster wants you to think Gabrielle de Polignac plays a bigger role in the film than Agathe does and Agathe is by far, like clearly the protagonist of the film, like it's not even like. She is the lead and Marie Antoinette is supporting, and then Gabrielle is like supporting, supporting. That's not a thing, but I'm going to call it that just to tell you how much, how important Gabrielle is to the film and yet she's the focus of the poster and the focus of the epilogue. It's like if you wanted me to care about her, you should have just made it about the two of them and had a G be the supporting, supporting.
Speaker 1:But anyway, that is it for this episode of books versus movies. If you liked this episode, please leave it a rating and a review and tell all your friends about it, because I really want to grow this little community that I have come to care for so much. Next time time I will be talking about White Bird in a Blizzard by Laura Kasich I will look up how to pronounce that next time, but White Bird in a Blizzard by Laura Kasich and it's 2014 adaptation, white Bird in a Blizzard starring Shailene Woodley and Eva Green. See you next time.