CinemaRian Blog

Under discussion:

Jefferson in Paris  (1995)

The first surprise is it’s not really, really boring. The next is that Nick Nolte is actually plausible as Thomas Jefferson. The next is that it’s quite good. The third is that it’s really, really good, and very smart on top of that. The movie is two hours and nineteen minuets long, about a subject that many would find dull, and consists almost entirely of dialogue, but avoids all the traps that could have made in a treatment for insomnia. Watch this one late at night and you’ll probably force yourself to stay awake to see what happens next.

As the rather bland title indicates, the movie is an account of Jefferson’s experiences as Ambassador to France, which Wikipedia states occurred from 1784 to 1789, although the film condenses the action down to considerably less than that times. The movie opens in 1873, as an elderly black man (James Earl Jones) prepares to tell a reporter his story- he is the child of Jefferson and one of his slaves. As expected, there is a flash back to the founding father as he visits Paris after the death of his wife, accompanied by his beloved daughter Patsy (Gwyneth Paltrow). Despite a deathbed promise that he would never marry another woman, Jefferson soon becomes involved with Maria Cosway (Greta Scacchi), an artist of English and Italian ancestry who is married to the homosexual Richard Cosway (Simon Callow). Spoilers alert! Everything is going well, and Jefferson seems prepared to move to France permanently to stay with her until he receives word that one of his other daughters, who has remained in the states, has died. Patsy never liked Maria, apparently out of an Elektra complex, and makes her father pledge loyalty to her first. Then he sends for his sole remaining daughter (Estelle Eonnet), who is accompanied by her fifteen year old slave, Sally Hemmings (Thandie Newton).

The first and most obvious success of the films is that Nick Nolte is quiet a good Jefferson. Unlike some other actors (such as Harvey Kitel) Nolte is successful at leaving behind his contemporary, urban persona, and we can believe that this man was an intellectual giant of the eighteen century. Ivory is also not afraid to show us Jefferson as a deeply flawed man- overly emotional, able to rationalize slavery to himself and also able to effortless abuse the underage Sally. His intellect works against him, as its too easy for him to come up with convoluted logic as to why what he’s doing is right (how someone who opposes slavery owns them, how someone who wrote that “all men are created equal” can morally equivocate on what that simple statement means). Nolte’s performance is complex, brave, intelligent, perhaps the best of this career.

Ivory and his longtime screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, also avoid the many of the clichés that so many others would have resorted to in a film like this. Sally is a victim, but she’s a real person, too. She does not exist for the sole purpose for Jefferson to abuse her. Rather she is an immature teenager who does not really understand what is going on around her, or what the real implications of her status are, although her older brother (Seth Gelliam) does. (For the record, Wikipedia states that researchers believe that Jefferson did not begin a sexual relationship with Hemmings until he had left Paris and she older, but it’s still kind of hard to give consent when you are a slave).

All of the other major characters in the film are given the same treatment. This is a real drama about real people. Ivory has also made a great historical film here, we witness the flight of the first hot air balloon and the under currents that would lead to the French Revolution, as well many other, less glamorous events and customs of the day. This movie is second only to Barry Lyndon at really giving the audience the feeling of being in the 18^th century. Can that suffice as a closing summation?

Jefferson in Paris (1995)