The French Revolution in Film: Danton (1983) by Andrzej Wajda

This French film from the Polish director Andrzej Wajda is a powerful, intimate depiction of a famous friendship soured by politics and corruption. The earthy, man-of-the-people Georges Danton and icy Jacobin extremist Maximilien Robespierre were close friends who fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France’s ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in solitude in the French countryside, but he returns to Paris to challenge Robespierre’s violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Meticulous and fiery, Danton has been hailed as one of the greatest films ever made about the Terror.

The film’s contemporary relevance in 1983 did not go unnoticed. By drawing parallels to Poland's “Solidarity”, a grassroots workers' movement that was being quashed by Poland's Communist government as the film went into production, Wajda drags history into the present. (Criterion)

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Please watch the movie before the discussion, available below or stream it on various platforms.

* English dubbed version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jpnT4xBr8-I (YouTube version: watch at your own peril)

* French original with English subs: https://m.ok.ru/video/6068541786695