Lifted Hem Films at Getty Museum
Seduction and Betrayal at Baroque & Rococo Court of Versailles
The Getty Museum's series "The Lifted Hem: Seduction and Betrayal at the Court of Versailles" introduces viewers to 20th-century filmmakers' impressions of Rococo France.
The Lifted Hem: Seduction and Betrayal at the Court of Versailles is a unique film series at Los Angeles, California's J. Paul Getty Museum that presents one German and five American films inspired by its current special exhibition Consuming Passion: Fragonard's Allegories of Love (February 12-May 4, 2008). The six superb selections were made in consultation with experts from the Film & Television Archive at the University of California-Los Angeles.
A number of 20th-century filmmakers were fascinated by the political intrigues, overt libertinism and voyeuristic behavior of those at the court of France's Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) and his two immediate successors. The half-dozen movie classics chosen for the Getty Museum series harken back to the days of the bold, ostentatious and sometimes flamboyant paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806).
The Lifted Hem... Film Schedule
Friday. April 18, 2008 at 7:30 PM:
- Madame DuBarry (Passion) (1919, Germany)
Actress Pola Negri's performance in this early work by director Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) is an evocation of sexuality suitable for comparison with the playful eroticism expressed in Fragonard's Fountain of Love. Silent movie with live piano accompaniment by Michael Mortilla.
Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 4:00 PM:
- Marie Antoinette (1938, United States)
The foibles of the marriage between the adolescent Dauphin Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, his equally immature Austrian bride (sympathetically portrayed by Norma Shearer), contribute to the demise of the Ancien Régime and the French monarchy's downfall during the Revolution.
Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 7:30 PM:
- When a Man Loves (1927, United States)
This period costume melodrama, a restored Vitaphone gem, stars John Barrymore in a complicated story of reversals of fortune.
Friday, April 25, 2008 at 7:30 PM:
- Monsieur Beaucaire (1924, United States)
The scenes of elaborate court life, influenced by the Rococo paintings of French masters Fragonard and Watteau, are punctuated by the performance of movie icon Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926). Silent film with live piano accompaniment by Michael Mortilla.
Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 4:00 PM:
- Start the Revolution Without Me (1970, United States)
Donald Sutherland and Gene Wilder portray two pairs of aristocratic and peasant twins opposing each other during the French Revolution.
Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 7:30 PM:
- DuBarry Was a Lady (1943, United States)
This uproarious Technicolor production moves between scenes of a New York night club and scandalous intrigues at the 18th-century French court.
Screenings of the movies in The Lifted Hem... series take place at the Getty Museum's Harold H. Williams Auditorium for free with reservations (limited to four seats).
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