Le film de Danton Andrew Vaida est basé sur la pièce " The Danton Affair "

Historical context:

Before starting this review, it is important to understand the historical context in which the action took place.

A political movie

The movie of Andreï Wajda respects, in its main lines, the historic events. But at a closer look, the Polish director, who restores with a big correctness sets, speaks especially about Poland of 1982 and about the communism.

Poland of 1982

At that time, Poland crosses a grave political crisis. Spent under the thumb of Moscow after the Second World War, the communist regime is more and more badly accepted by the population. In summer, 1980, a general strike, in answer to a rough increase of the prices (prizes) decided by the government, affects all Poland, which is paralyzed. Solidarity (Solidarnösc), an embryo of autonomous labour union (syndicate) towards the State and towards the Party, is born with in the head a worker electrician in the unemployment, Lech Walesa. An agreement is finally concluded with the power on August 31st, 1980, which recognizes the existence of this autonomous labour union (syndicate). The political consequence of this first crisis is the appointment (naming) of a liberal at the head of the Communist Polish Party, Stanislaw Kania, and the nomination of general Jaruzelski at the head of the government. The conservatives regain control of the party at the following Congress, in July 1981, under the friendly eye of Moscow which does not appreciate what takes place in Poland. General Jaruzelski accumulates from now on all the powers: he is at the head of the Party and of the State. Strong of its 10 million members, the Solidarity labour union, supported by the Church, represents a threat for the Polish power.

So, dreading an intervention of the Red Army, general Jaruzelski decides at night from 12 till 13 December 1981 to arrest the main leaders of Solidarity and to forbid the labour union (syndicate); the military also take possession of the television.

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Summary and about the movie:

The film Danton by Andrej Wajda is based on a play ‘The Danton Affair’ which was written in 1935 by polish playwright Stanislawa Przybyszweka. The story is set against the terror of the second year of the French republic in 1794 in which over 16,000 people died. It focuses on two of the main personalities of the era, Robespierre the head of the committee of public safety and advocate of the use of the Guillotine and Danton, moderate, idealist, adherent of the more liberal ideals of revolutionary rhetoric. He and his supporters believed in decreasing or cutting out the role that terror and the guillotine played in enforcing revolutionary policy. The film is also played out against a backdrop of severe political disturbance in Poland. The director Wadja actually was forced to stop production in 1981 and retired to France to complete the film. That gives to us an interesting character study of two of the most controversial figures of this time. Made in 1982 by the Polish director, Andrzej Wadja, the film is based on a Polish play of 1931 called the “Danton Affair.” Begun in Poland during a high point of the Solidarity liberation movement, it was eventually filmed in France after the movement was outlawed and martial law was instituted in 1981 under General Jarulszelski—a coup directed by the Soviet Union. After the coup, Wadja and his crew moved to France as émigrés. There they completed the film with a cast of Polish and French actors. Danton was played by the French Gérard Depardieu and Robespierre, by the Pole Wojciech Pszoniak. Although Wadja had staged the play several times before, the film reflects Wadja’s opposition to the return of a Stalinist regime in his homeland.

The action in the film takes place only over a few months. In this short time it aims to illustrate all the major factors that affected the unstable machinations of a republican government that was still in its infancy. The film opens with a bleak portrait of Paris in the spring of 1794. People are queuing for limited supplies of bread. Already in only the second year of the republic discontent is in the air. Danton returns from the country back into the arms of his people. His carriage is beset on all sides as the people in the streets greet his arrival. This lively, hearty and much loved man is juxtaposed to the sickly figure of Robespierre.

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At the beginning of the film when we first see Robespierre he is in bed sick. This weakness is played on throughout the film. Whereas the first time we see Danton it is amongst lots of people, the first time we see Robespierre he is sick and alone. In the house of this staunch advocator of the terror, the maidservant is indoctrinating her little brother with the revolutionary creed, the declaration of the rights of man and the citizen. These opening scenes sum up how the characters will be portrayed throughout the rest of the film. The film draws upon the common conceptions of both characters Danton as a ‘man of the people’ and Robespierre as the cold-hearted instigator of the terror. Their physical differences are used as visible manifestation of their ideological standing.

The film is set around events leading up to and including the trial and execution of Danton and some of his supporters and cohorts. The film is rich with symbolism and metaphor. It draws many parallels to the contemporary communist state in Poland from which Wadja had fled. This is made explicit in the opening minutes when the contents of Camille Desmoulins pamphlet are being read aloud to Robespierre. It states that if Moscow had a free press Russia would be free tomorrow.’ This tack of metaphor so explicit from the beginning of the film is then pursued more subtlety as this story of post revolutionary France unfolds. The story is also conveyed with a fair degree of not little historical accuracy. The characters of Danton and Robespierre are fully developed; they are not depicted as merely two-dimensional characters, which are so often the case in films of this nature, particularly with an ulterior political motive. It is not the case that the despotic tyrant Robespierre has the heroic man of the people Danton bloodily executed under the guise of the good of the state. Both characters are seen to be both good and bad, although ultimately Robespierre is far worse.

The main point of contention is seen to be this; Danton wants an end to the terror and Robespierre advocates its use as a necessary tool of the continuation of the new republic. Their associates urge both parties into action, Robespierre by the Committee for Public Safety and Danton by his friends who can see how the Committee’s opinion

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