One of the all-time best documentaries centred on the making of a seminal movie is Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, Eleanor Coppola’s bonkers account of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s physical and emotional turmoil as he made . Eleanor, an artist, screenwriter and director in her own right, regularly worked on behind-the-scenes projects which examined the creation of films by those in her family, from her son Roman Coppola’s 2001 comedy drama to her daughter Sofia Coppola’s swoon-worthy 1999 feature debut, . Now, more than two years after Eleanor’s death, her last film is about to be released: , a privileged peek at the birth of Sofia’s Versailles-set, candy-coloured romp about the doomed French queen, 20 years on from its release.
Unlike Hearts of Darkness, this is not a dramatic tale of slowly descending madness and narrowly averting disaster – it’s a quieter portrait of a master at work, but just as valuable and perhaps even more poignant for its centring and celebration of the female gaze. In its dissection of the minutiae of filming, from logistical challenges to the numerous costume changes and the intricacies of set decoration and choreography, it’s clearly designed for obsessive fans of – if you’re in any way alienated by the froth and fripperies, this won’t convert you. But, for those who have watched and rewatched and pored over every single frame of this extraordinary period piece over the past two decades, it’s a one-of-a-kind treasure; an intimate and fascinating look at a revolutionary film which turned an entire genre on its head, and shaped everything that came next, from and , to and .
begins by laying out its backstory: during the production of in 2005, Eleanor Coppola was on set and captured more than 80 hours of candid footage. Some 15 years later, during the early days of the pandemic, Eleanor and Sofia found themselves in the same Covid bubble and revisited the recordings. Eleanor began stitching it together and, after her passing in 2024, at the age of 87, Sofia ensured it was finished. The result is a very much authorised, but still illuminating glimpse at genesis over its 57 days of filming, from a shy, softly-spoken, then-34-year-old Sofia kicking off proceedings with the crew to a somewhat frenzied race to the finish line while staying on schedule and within budget.
devotees who have already scoured the internet for backstage images and anecdotes won’t find much here that’s genuinely revelatory, but it’s an immense joy simply to be in this world – to spot the Uggs peeking out from under extravagant ballgowns; to catch extras in powdered wigs snoozing between takes once shooting days stretched to 11 hours in the final portion of production; and to watch an off-duty Jason Schwartzman, in costume as Louis XVI, going ham on the piano while department heads around him attempt to have serious conversations about the film.
A handful of moments feel like gold dust: in one, Sofia introduces her mother, who is behind the camera, to her then-new boyfriend (and now husband), Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars, as he and his bandmates arrive on set to make cameos as a coterie of court musicians at the Petit Trianon. In another, Asia Argento, in the gaudy finery of Madame du Barry, reads the palms of her co-stars during a break in filming. When Sofia asks Asia to read hers, she tells the director that she will have two children. (Romy and Cosima Mars would go on to be born in 2006 and 2010, respectively.)
But, where truly takes off, though, is in its portrait of Sofia. If the film has an arc, it is her evolution from a quiet, marginally less experienced filmmaker to a slightly more assertive one. When we first see her attempting to rally the troops, you almost can’t hear her over the clamour of her colleagues. But then, she has to make decisions every single day – to insist on costume changes and order more extras to be brought in and fight for small artistic decisions she believes in. She remains polite, but you can see her, however slowly, coming into her power.
This is crystalised in a sequence in which we see her filming the Parisian masked ball scene, in which Kirsten Dunst’s vivacious Marie Antoinette encounters Jamie Dornan’s dashing Count Fersen. Once Sofia has captured their initial spark from Marie’s point of view, her male colleagues insist on getting another shot from Fersen’s. It won’t make sense otherwise, they say. Sofia gently pushes back. This isn’t about his point of view, she says; it’s about Marie’s. There’s confusion and more deliberation, but Sofia eventually has her way. It’s quite something watching her, this slight figure who sometimes seems uncertain and self-doubting, surrounded by this giant, almost all-male team, doing all she can to realise her vision, while also always being herself.
That self is most at ease with Dunst, who, lest we forget, was only 22 at the time of filming. She’s a shy interviewee, giggly and uncomfortable when she’s being observed by Eleanor’s keenly perceptive camera, but also preternaturally poised once Sofia calls “action”. It’s evident that the director and her star, who had of course already collaborated on , have a seemingly cosmic, frequently unspoken connection; a kind of young-woman shorthand that’s joyous to witness. When preparing to shoot Marie’s 18th birthday party, Sofia says to Kirsten, “You know when girls see their friends at a party and they’re like…” She lets out a girlish scream. Kirsten understands perfectly and performs it with precision. It’s silly and hilarious and heartening – a reminder of how rare it still is for us to get to see women making art together and having a great time while they do it.
’s other star is Eleanor. Like every other documentarian, she feels the push and pull of remaining impassive and strategically intervening. At one point, after watching Sofia cough through a day of filming, Eleanor calls for a doctor without her daughter’s knowledge. It turns out that Sofia has bronchitis and needs antibiotics. Sofia, on the whole, is loving and generous with her mother on set, but there are also wonderful moments when she regresses into a kind of exasperated teenager, as we all do when around our parents for too long. Towards the end of filming, when Eleanor tries to ask a sleep-deprived Sofia more questions about , she grimaces. “Maybe I should rest, so I can come onto set fresh and not having done a press junket in my trailer with my ,” she groans. Touché.
In portions of the film, you can hear Eleanor’s own voice, but in others, legendary actor Diane Lane reads from Eleanor’s journals during the making of . It’s a decision that could have felt stilted and false, but is done sparingly enough that it’s quite seamless. This narration is most affecting when it veers into more personal territory – Eleanor’s sorrow at being rejected by Sofia in her adolescence, though she understands that break was necessary for her daughter to become her own person; her recollections of Sofia pretending to direct on the set of ; and her lingering frustration at having spent so much of her life documenting the rest of her family as they made art, rather than making more of her own.
aficionados might leave this documentary wishing for a bit more juice. There’s nothing here, for instance, on Rip Torn’s diva antics in the part of Louis XV, or footage of Sofia and Kirsten partying in Paris on their days off, or an account of the film being booed at its Cannes Film Festival premiere, or any assessment of its reemergence as a cult classic. But, that isn’t, in the end, what is about – it’s a lo-fi, fly-on-the-wall, sometimes meandering return to this magnificent, eye-popping universe; a cultural artefact which functions as a multi-layered love letter to female filmmaking, and one which will likely be obsessed over and rewatched almost as much as the original movie itself.
Making Marie Antoinette will be in cinemas from 23 October, and streaming exclusively on Mubi from 6 November.