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Danton

Play trailer Poster for Danton PG 1982 2h 16m History Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
85% Tomatometer 13 Reviews 82% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
This French film from a Polish director explores a famous friendship soured by politics and corruption. Georges Danton (Gérard Depardieu) and Maximilien Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak) fought side by side during the French Revolution. But when Danton takes control of France and starts executing citizens in droves, Robespierre feels it his duty to challenge his one-time comrade. Robespierre goes to Paris to remove his old friend from power, but Danton will not go down without a fight.

Critics Reviews

View All (13) Critics Reviews
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times [Wajda] has made a great historical picture, and one with sweat and grime all over it. Rated: 4/4 Jun 19, 2018 Full Review Mark Bourne Film.com ...uncompromising and impassioned. [Depardieu's] throat-scraping, rage-against-the-machine speech in court -- "the Revolution is devouring its children!" -- makes Jimmy Stewart's in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington look like a monk's benediction. May 20, 2009 Full Review Joseph Jon Lanthier Slant Magazine Danton's true achievement is as elaborate period pageantry. Rated: 3/4 Mar 29, 2009 Full Review Yasser Medina Cinefilia Far from inaccuracies, it is a historical film in which Wajda illustrates, with superb aesthetics, the injustice and the clashes of power that devoured the French Revolution like Saturn did with his children. [Full review in Spanish] Rated: 8/10 Oct 7, 2023 Full Review Octavi Marti El Pais (Spain) The lack of clarity of the ideological debate weighs heavily on the film. [Full Review in Spanish] Sep 24, 2019 Full Review Robert Darnton The New York Review of Books It adds up to an overwhelming indictment of government oppression. Jun 15, 2018 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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VincentsGhost A masterful commentary on the meaning of freedom, done while Wajda was expelled from his home country of Poland by the Communist authorities. He shows the division in the French revolution between those who want to overthrow the king to put a more just government in place and those who want to overthrow the king to assume the king's power. As Lincoln is famously quoted, both sides act in the name of freedom. Only blemish is the film is done with the expectation of a knowledge of this time in French history. I myself did not have it and it was some work to sort out what was going on. But further research only made me appreciate it more. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/04/24 Full Review william d This movie lacks context. There is no exploration of what caused the rift between Danton and Robespierre, or what caused the formation of the Committees for Public Safety. What's left is a drama about the persecution of a political that the film makers strongly infer was unjustified, but don't explain why, Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review william k Gerard Depardieu is fully convincing as Danton in conflict with Robespierre in this accomplished, but quite demanding depiction of a decisive moment of the French Revolution, clearly evoking similar events in Poland at the time (although denied by the director). Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Tony S Great portrayal of two ex-colleague, now enemies. Robespierre and Danton marvelously played by Pszoniak and Depardieu. Their characters superbly written. With Robespierre, not being showed as a raving madmen but almost a tragic figure, who had lost sight of his ideals. Good visuals that invoke, surprisingly, sickness and dread of reign of terror. Dim lights, damp, dirty streets and visibly ill characters, suffering from fever and headaches. And what an excellent soundtrack, something out of horror film but perfectly fits this film. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 08/10/21 Full Review Audience Member When did the French Revolution end? With the Insurrection of August 10th and the overthrowing of the monarchy, which would lead to the establishment of the First Republic? With the onset of the Reign of Terror, a betrayal of liberty in the name of law and order? With the Thermidorian Reaction and the swing back to counterrevolutionary conservatism? Can a revolution even end if its guiding principles never took root, if—as Mallet du Pan put it, though here put in the mouth of the titular Danton—"a l'exemple de Saturne, la révolution dévore ses enfants"? With obvious resonances with the politics of the present day, both the totalitarian regime in Poland of 1983 and the resurgence of autocratic fascism today, Wajda's somewhat overlong and longwinded period piece boils down the complexities of the Jacobin Terror into a character drama swinging violently between two representative antipodes at the culmination of the Revolution's dualistic drive between idealism and destruction. On the left there is the radical Robespierre, incorruptible and inflexible to the point of absolute despotism, egoless in his pursuit of revolutionary zeal even as he brings it to its logical end and breaking point, versus the more bourgeois Danton, human and corrupt yet hugely popular as an embodiment of the struggle for liberty, who would betray the letter of the law to preserve its spirit. Though Wajda's allegiances clearly lie with this version of Danton, so full of life even as he heads toward death compared to the coldly calculating if not quite bloodthirsty Robespierre, the conflict at the heart of the Revolution is ultimately an aporia, with neither of these figures able to offer a way out of the deadlock that will lead both to the guillotine. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review s r A recreation of the time period of French growing pains with freedom and independence. Good acting, but some very poignant themes about legitimacy of government, power and freedoms. It was unlike any other film I have seen in that regard. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Danton

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Movie Info

Synopsis This French film from a Polish director explores a famous friendship soured by politics and corruption. Georges Danton (Gérard Depardieu) and Maximilien Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak) fought side by side during the French Revolution. But when Danton takes control of France and starts executing citizens in droves, Robespierre feels it his duty to challenge his one-time comrade. Robespierre goes to Paris to remove his old friend from power, but Danton will not go down without a fight.
Director
Andrzej Wajda
Production Co
Gaumont, TF1 Films Production
Rating
PG
Genre
History, Drama
Original Language
French (France)
Release Date (DVD)
Mar 31, 2009
Runtime
2h 16m