Louis XIV doc on Arte

[toursenlair]

For those of you who can access Arte and speak French:

 

Louis XIV, roi des arts

dimanche 30 août à 16h10 (87 min)

Rediffusion mardi 01.09 à 8h55

 

http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/061795-000/louis-xiv-roi-des-arts

[Terpsichore]

Thanks for that. Unfortunately I don't think that the programme is accessible here even through the internet. When I tried to view another of the site's videos I was met with the message "Erreur Cette video n'est pas disponible dans votre pays."

 

I am very interested in this topic. I have actually written an article on Le Ballet de la Nuit which was the subject of the 6th Oxford Dance Symposium in 2004 and I watched and reviewed Bintley's The King Dances earlier this year.  You will find them in the blog with links to other sources if you are interested.

[Katharina]

Have just watched this! It was about Louis XIV (who died september 1st, 1715) and the artists working for him, how the Roi Soleil used them and their work to cultivate his own image and glory.

Examples were Molière, Racine, painters, architects, and of course Lully.

There was quite a lot about the King´s fondness of dancing, about the ballets de cour, also about the Ballet de la nuit and how it related to the fronde, the uprising of members of the aristocracy against the crown and its centralised power (night/the fronde ends with the arrival of the sun/le Roi Soleil, who danced himself in this ballet).

Also discussion of Lully, his life and personality, how he was a dancer himself, not just a composer, and inspired the King to dance.

A little bit about the Académie royale de Musique/Conservatoire de danse which was the first school training professional dancers (now L'École de danse de l'Opéra national de Paris = POB school).

The documentary used interviews wth historians, excerpts from the film Le Roi danse (by Gérard Corbiau, 2000, recommended!) and some other period films, plus it showed boys (POB school, I think) learning choreography in the style of that time. It was also stressed how ballet up to the 19th century was mostly a man´s art.

I loved this! (Have to admit that one of my favourite scenes in The Flames of Paris is the Rinaldo and Armida court ballet ... not completely authentic - pointe shoes etc - but catches the spirit well, I think).

Edited August 30, 2015 by Katharina

[Scheherezade]

 

BIRMINGHAM ROYAL BALLET IN BBC FOUR TELEVISION WORLD PREMIERE

 

The King Who Invented Ballet: Louis XIV and the Noble Art of Dance and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s newest work The King Dancesto be broadcast on BBC FOUR on Sunday 13 September at 8pm.

 

[FLOSS]

Well I managed to watch it by clicking on the icon on the big picture of Versailles.Don't be put off by the fact that it is in French it really is worth watching.

 

The main message is that the culture that we associate with Louis XIV is essentially Roman Baroque and was originally brought to France by Cardinal Mazarin.Louis was his apt pupil,building on what he had been taught and out doing his master.That all the arts with which we associate his reign are the embodiment of royal power.His artists such as Le Brun create the style which exemplifies his regime.The establishment of the Academy is part of this exercise in artistic development and control. The original academicians were of course at the cutting edge of theatrical and literary art.It was an age of scientific and artistic development.

 

The Ballet of the Night in which Louis appeared as Apollo was a theatrical expression of the Crown's defeat of le Fronde. The sun dispelling the night is the King overcoming the nobles(le Fronde) who threatened royal power.Louis uses the arts to project his power which amazes the rest of Europe.He visits Vaux where Fouquet has built a novel chateau with extraordinary gardens designed by Le Notre. He has Fouquet arrested because he sees him as a threat to royal power.Louis takes up his ideas at Versailles and out does him.Versailles is a message in stone and marble that the King has transformed the kingdom.

 

He employs Colbert who in effect controls the image that both we and his contemporaries had of Louis. Every image whether it is painted, engraved or cast as a medal is under his control and is an expression of royal power. Colbert controls Louis' image and France itself.Everything is controlled. The modern world of arts or some aspects of it begin here.Music and dance become professionalised and so does their training.Dance as an expression of male power and control is important in court entertainment and among the military.Dance begins to become professionalised. If dance is to be taught to children who may become professional dancers the movements have to be categorised and codified.Lully's importance to French music is explained in terms of his being a man with an Italian training but without any baggage which makes it possible for him to create French opera.

 

The Hall of Mirrors is significant because it was built after a great victory and le Brun the regime's official painter produces a series of paintings based on incidents in the life of Alexander the Great who is identified with Louis. For the first time the titles of the pictures on the frames are written in French rather than Latin. I must admit that the significance of this hadn't occurred to me before.This shift to the vernacular in France is roughly contemporary with the first books about scientific discoveries being published in England in the vernacular rather than Latin.

 

By the time I had finished I felt I knew far more about why Bulgakov had written his play Moliere. So much of what he was writing about seventeenth century France in that play was so like his life in Stalin's Russia only the names were different.

 

It's a great pity that this film will not turn up on the BBC with subtitles at some point but there is a great deal to enjoy in it without them. It does not say anything about the dire economic consequences of Louis' policies but it does explain a great deal about French culture then and now.

Edited September 3, 2015 by FLOSS