Madame Du Barry (1919)

Madame Du Barry is a German film first released in 1919, directed by Ernst Lubitsch.  The film stars Pola Negri, Emil Jannings, Harry Liedtke, Eduard von Winterstein and Reinhold Schünzel.  It has also been released under the title: Passion.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


Jeanne, a young Parisian milliner, gives up her beloved Armand to start an affair with the nobleman Du Barry and begin a career as a courtesan.  King Louis XV decides to take her as his mistress, but first she must have a title, so she marries the  brother of Du Barry.  As Madame Du Barry, Jeanne becomes the most powerful woman in France, but she is resented by the ordinary folk of Paris.  Her greatest enemy is her jilted lover Armand, who has every intention of destroying her if he can.  In the revolution of 1789, he has the opportunity to do just that...

Mention the name Ernst Lubitsch and most people immediately bring to mind the director’s energetic, highly entertaining romantic comedies of the 1930s and 1940s.  But there is another Lubitsch who, early in his career, made several big budget silent epics, of which Madame Du Barry is one of the most memorable.  The film stars two of Europe’s leading actors at the time, Pola Negri and Emil Jannings, playing respectively the ill-fated Madame Du Barry and King Louis XV of France.

The film has been condemned for its obvious historical inaccuracies, with events which took place over several years appearing to happen in a matter of hours – for example, the death of Louis XV is almost immediately followed by the storming of the Bastille.  Lubitsch’s intention is clearly not historical accuracy but rather to tell, in the manner of a Greek tragedy, an intimate story recounting the remarkable rise and fall of one of the most well-known victims of the French revolution.  

Whilst the film is perhaps somewhat weak when it comes to characterisation, with several characters poorly delineated, it has production values which are exceptional for a film of this era.  The eye-catching lavish sets and stylish cinematography come close to matching the excellence of D.W. Griffith’s historical masterpieces.  Most impressive are the spectacular final sequences, which convey a real sense of France descending into bloody anarchy as Madame Guillotine claims her most glamorous victim.  No contemporary French filmmaker would dared to have portrayed the French revolution in such a vividly negative light, in a way that draws a clear parallel with the recent Bolshevik uprisings in Russia.

© James Travers 2008

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