The Coming of Power of Louis XIV by Roberto Rossellini

In 1966, a film directed by Roberto Rossellini for French television portrayed the young king of France in his first days of taking the reigns of power in France.  When I first began my research into the study of Louis XIV this film had been tops on my list of films to see.  I had seen many references to it, but much as I tried, I could not find it so that I could get it.  Luckily, last week when I was browsing the videos at the library I found it while looking for Angelina Jolie's The Tourist.  There were two copies. I was determined.  I checked out both of them so that if something was wrong with a disc I had a backup.  I had to clean the disc as it turned out because it was dirty and causing the film to stop.  I had done myself right after all.

If I were to ever want to judge a king by a film, this would not be the worst or the best to use, but it is adequate.  It opens with the death of Cardinal Mazarin so that the first part of the film deals mostly with the priests of the church who are administering the last rites to the dying cardinal.  They discuss mostly his list of sins as we have to hear his confession of which frankly there is little to say since all his life was devoted to the cause of the state of the nation, France.  So he can be forgiven much since he gave so much.

Immediately we get a glimpse of a young assistant, Jean Baptiste Colbert who is a very interesting character in this video.  He warns the prime minister early on about the scheming of the financial minister, Nicholas Fouquet.  But because to be honest, Mazarin has been also living high off the hog himself, he cannot truly condemn the financial minister while Colbert who is scrupulous and honest can and does.

After witnessing the commotion around the dying Cardinal, we are twenty minutes into the film finally ushered into the bedroom of the young king who is only 22/23 with his queen while the court waltzes in to watch them do the morning levee.  (Insert here that this is performed similarly but not exactly as the way in which I first learned of it in my memory of it.  It is far more elaborate than depicted in the film with flourishes and bows which the film did omit.)  The queen does clap her hands gleefully in this scene so that it is explained that that means that the King had performed his conjugal duties with her that night.  In this film, the queen is decidedly pretty.

With this video comes a brochure which explains the making of the film, and there is also a set of features built into the video that one can see which also describes the making of the film.  Gary McCollim had told me that the actor who portrayed the king had been a mailman but the feature said that he had been an actor with some company but had been told not to memorize his lines but to read them from a blackboard of some kind.  The idea was to give the impression that the King is talking to the world.  Who knows for sure?

At any rate, the man who portrays the king is named Jean Marie Patte and is reasonably close in physical appearance to give an idea of how the king may have looked at that time.

Once the cardinal has died, the king now has total rule and control over the court so that this film shows how he acted in his early days, responding to a crisis regarding the financial minister who is clearly embezzling and ripping the court off, hoping to make himself prime minister so that he can rule the kingdom. He appears to have been acting as though he had the power of the king all along and it has often been said that the real King had to prove himself so that Fouquet was his first evidence of the power he would wield.  He had Fouquet arrested, tried, and sentenced early on so that Jean Baptiste Colbert becomes the primary financial minister.  Fouquet would have been the same age as the king's mother since he had been serving the crown for many years while she had been acting as regent.

We also meet the young Louise de la Valliere, the King's first mistress. I liked Roberto's choice of actress and the way in which he proved that Louise is a loyal lover to the King.  Fouquet had tried to bribe her with a gift.  She quickly reported it to the King who was then able to make his decision to have the greedy minister arrested and tried.

We also meet his mother, and this is one part of the film that I did not like at all.  For the most part, the actors chosen do appear to resemble their characters but not so with the Queen Mother.   She is even portrayed too harshly for my tastes.  She was the king's most loyal and dependable supporter all his life long until her death.  Nobody defended the King more than she but in this film she is critical and rude at times which I do not believe at all.  She is a pious woman and probably would have made appeals to his nature but she would not have sounded the way she does in this film.  Her attitude towards the kings remarks about Cardinal Mazarin are frankly puzzling since she was also the staunchest supporter of the Cardinal.

There is a hunt with a stag, and a lot of hounds making a lot of noise. One of the most interesting scenes is the construction of the Chateau de Versailles.  The Chateau de Versailles is built around the former King Louis XIII's hunting lodge where he liked to go to get away from court.  In honor of his father, King Louis XIV brings the entire court to the hunting lodge to have it turned into the seat of government.

Rossellini used a quarry to show this scene of cutting into concrete blocks and hoisting them to develop the work and years it took to build this monumental awesome Chateau.  It is incredibly worth everything to see just this much to understand the value of King Louis XIV upon the state of France.  Not that there are not enough chateaux already dotted around France built for and by previous kings but to impress upon the world the relation of the court to the king as the planets are to the sun Louis XIV determined that he would make his mark in this way.

Rossellini would have you believe that the King learned from Fouquet the importance of fashion and style.  Tis not so. The King had been well dressed as a child at his majority, at his wedding and in his ballet costumes.  He always dressed in excessive grandeur, but this time the director errs when he tries to imply that the King decides to control his court through fashion and decorum, changing his own bland and otherwise dull outfits into glorious creations of satins, silks, and lace.  He looks like a buffoon in this transformation which frankly is untrue of the Sun King as well. He dressed fashionably well, and it is a discredit to Rossillini that he did not pull this off better than he did.

Finally, at dinner, we find the king dining alone, having his meal served one dish at a time, eating with his fingers, disdaining the new invention the fork, and having his 24 violinists play beautiful string music in the background.  The King sets the tone for the court, and all courtiers must dress fashionably and well. 

In a short 90 minute film, Rossellini attempts to give the audience a look at the young King who is now in power.  The final moments are fascinating to me.  Once away from the court and in his private room, the king removes his wig, shows his hair smashed down while he takes out a book to remind himself of his duties as king, his personal credos...in the image that I saw the look resembles that of some other famous person in history.   I won't reveal it now. But personal to me.

I did see an occasional tendency to try to confuse him with Napoleon.  The King had been a ballerina and would have walked in a graceful, elegant manner.  This actor portrayed his walk in a way that I found unfortunately unlikely and also too soldier like, brisk, and rigid.  Louis XIV talked softly, as he seldom ever raised his voice, he walked gracefully and elegantly. He always tipped his hat to the ladies of the court. He was the bona fide gentleman who never lost his temper but five times in his entire life.  He is an amazing king, and this film does a fairly decent portrayal...I recommend it but it is not true to life as I have come to know the King.