I’d wanted to catch Chevalier (2022) in the theaters, but it only showed locally for a short window. However, it’s finally available streaming on Hulu, and let’s face it, that’s better for us to review it because we can pay more attention to the costumes!
The movie, as a whole, is an entertaining film that gives a glimpse into the life of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (December 25, 1745 — June 9, 1799), a talented composer, virtuoso violinist, and champion fencer, among other accomplishments. The film isn’t a complete biopic, but it hits the standard beats of a “misunderstood genius” story, except this genius, Bologne, is misunderstood because he’s Black and society is racist. That’s not underplayed by any means.
Screenwriter Stefani Robinson told Screen Rant:
“If I had enough budget, and time, and resources, I would do the Joseph limited series. It would go on for seasons. It wouldn’t even be limited; it would be unlimited.”
Which is pretty accurate because Bologne’s life story is full of twists and turns that’d fill hours and be far more than a weekend binge-watch. What this flick does is try to answer the question of why would Bologne go from being friendly with Marie Antoinette and seeking her patronage to joining the French Revolutionary Army after the First Republic was established. I suspect there are many reasons he would “change sides,” as it were, but the movie script gives it an air of personal growth and liberation.
This isn’t a bad thing, but I’m sure that nit-pickers will complain that the film doesn’t stick to the historical facts — as if any film did or should. Folks whined a lot about The Woman King (2022) not being “accurate” either, and yet classics like Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (1974) are just as much inaccurate hagiography that get a pass. Yes, Frock Flicks lives to nit-pick the costumes, that’s our whole mission, but we also recognize that historical accuracy is not the number one goal of movies/TV and it’s just entertainment. After all, there’s only so much you can do in an hour and 48 minutes to tell an entertaining story! So we focus on the costumes because that’s easier to get right than cramming a perfectly accurate life story into a movie.
My one complaint about the story here is the love affair between Joseph (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and Marie-Josephine (Samara Weaving). It’s based on historical rumor, fine, that doesn’t bug me. But it unrolls within the movie in a somewhat preposterous fashion, while also feeling obligatory to the plot. Worst of all, I didn’t find that the actors had a lot of chemistry, unfortunately, and the dialog failed them. They just state things at each other and don’t connect very well. In comparison, Joseph and the queen have witty banter and have conversations that show each one is paying attention to the other and responding to what the other says. He has a true dialog with Marie-Antoinette (Lucy Boynton), unlike with his lover. Joseph also has a beautifully written and acted relationship with his mother, Nanon (Ronke Adekoluejo). So while the writing is uneven, it’s certainly not bad.
Since the story cherry-picks from real events, no specific year is given other than “pre-revolutionary.” In 1776, Bologne hoped to become the new director of the Paris Opéra, and his first opera Ernestine premiered in 1777. Because the plot revolves around and connects these events, you could say that’s when the costumes are set as well. Although the revolutionary fervor that occupies the last part of the film really got going in the mid- to late 1780s, after France had spent a ton of money on the American War of Independence. The costumes are mostly suited to the 1770s, but there’s some bits that veer earlier. Note that the main period images we have of Bologne are from the 1780s, and the mens’ fashions are starting to change from the longer waistcoats and full-skirted jackets to a more close-cut style.
Let’s start with the Chevalier himself. His signature color is light blue, though his color palette does change towards the end of the film. In an interview with Schön! Magazine, costume designer Oliver Garcia said:
“There are various reasons why that powder blue is Joseph’s main colour. Firstly, it is the colour that is recorded to be one of Marie Antoinette’s favourite colours, so it made storytelling sense to use it for Joseph because it’s like his tool for social acceptance within the aristocracy and the French court. It’s almost like a uniform that he needs to put on to be able to exist and flourish within that racially unjust society that he’s in. And then secondly, it’s a very visually peaceful and calming colour and that helped define the character. It also looked great on Kelvin’s skin tone. He shines wearing that blue and it just felt right for the character. It’s a character that’s been in the dark of history for centuries and this was our time to put the spotlight on him and that light reflecting quality was very interesting to use.”
Joseph Bologne wears various shades and textures of blue that give a nice depth to his suits onscreen.
The costumer designer noted how they did strive for a level of accuracy:
“All the costumes we created — which is pretty much 85 percent of what you watched — are all historically accurate for the period. To create those silhouettes, we used the correct corset shapes, the panniers, and the correct underpinnings. So yes, just respectful and truthful to the research that we did.
I think the modern comes in through the design approach because early on, I made the decision to keep the surface decorations of the costumes luxurious and minimal (if I could say that) and just use colours in a way that is more in tune with contemporary fashion sensibility.”
I was pleased to see details like this — Joseph’s shirt cuffs are laced closed through eyelets, which is one of the ways a gentleman’s cuff would close in the period. A simpler method would be a sewn-on ties, and a fancier method would be linked buttons (rather like modern cufflinks), so this shows his status as elevated but not at the most refined level.
One detail that surprised me was Joseph wearing suspenders to hold up his breeches:
They’re pretty and embroidered, but I’ve never seen them before in 18th-c. menswear! So I dug around and found exactly this one extant pair:
Not a lot of info about them though, as most info about men’s suspenders refer to the 19th century. Typically, 18th-c. breeches were tightly tailored to the leg and the waistband was somewhat wide and kept fitted with lacing at the center back. You can see that waistband here:
Oliver Garcia concludes on Joseph’s costume arc saying:
“During the last half of the movie, he’s no longer looking for that approval, he’s in this self-acceptance mode and he embraces his cultural roots and becomes a part of the African community. So, the colours that he wears reflect that. To close the film — the final concert scene — Joseph wears purple, a soft purple, and that was a nod to Prince, who was an inspiration for Kelvin and Stephen. Prince was an artist with great style, swagger, and stage presence, and that was a constant reference for Joseph Bologne.”
It’s not as obvious as Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton (2020), it’s really subtle!
Of course, as the queen, Marie-Antoinette gets the most elaborate costumes in the film, and there are some nods to period images. In her first scene, she’s wearing a simplified court gown that reminds me of one of her famous portraits.
I was happy to see that Lucy Boynton didn’t have any particular complaints about the corsets and costumes — she told A.frame how she appreciated the elaborate outfits:
“On the one hand, you have all eyes on you, and you’re this spectacle, and you are taking up all this space. And on the other hand, you are entirely restricted with breathing, the way you can project your voice, the way you can move. You are this walking contradiction. And that was so informative to the way I was going to then play her. And I think it helps so much when you have such a tangible and physical ritual of exiting yourself and entering the shoes of this very, very different person in their world.”
Next, when Joesph and the queen get chummy, she’s in a very bright orangey-pink gown (still with too much makeup, which is a problem with most of the ladies in this flick).
She veers between pale blue and bright orange again, first delivering bad news to Joseph:
She gets one classic pale robe a la francaise:
And then wears another jacket when threatening Joseph at the end of the movie. Her two jacket outfits look more 1760s to me.
Compare with:
Then there’s Marie-Josephine, who wears mostly standard-issue late 18th-century outfits, with a few oddities.
All throughout, both the queen and Marie-Joesphine wear heavy modern makeup. Just compare with a more 18th-c. aesthetic and you’ll see that it’s the lack of eye makeup, lighter brows, and lighter lip.
But the costumes aren’t all bad! Mostly they’re pleasantly unremarkable, such as:
One spectacular costume is Marie-Josephine’s stage costume for the opera:
While it may seem over the top, this is reminiscent of period theatrical costumes and allegorical paintings of the era.
The other standout costumes are the more restrained outfits worn by Nanon. The use of textiles and color hint at her story as a Black formerly enslaved woman and mother of the now-famous Chevalier. She goes through her own story arc in costume.
Nanon quickly finds the African community in town and socializes with them, talking and laughing in Creole.
She eventually takes Joseph out to meet her friends. This is when his wardrobe starts changing to darker colors (instead of his pale blues). Nanon is wearing an ikat print in pastels — a fashionable fabric that was considered “exotic” because it was associated with China and the Middle East. It’s like she’s reclaiming that exoticism with her exuberant stance and insistence on bringing Joesph together with her community and their heritage.
Compare with:
At the end of the film, she wears this green striped jacket as she braids Joseph’s hair.
And Nanon wears a more formal French gown at his final concert — green for renewal and growth, perhaps? This is a lovely way to end the movie.
Have you seen Chevalier (2022) yet?
Eh, even if that pale blue on Marie Antoinette does have a sack back (doesn’t look like it but one can’t be sure) it still isn’t a ‘robe à la française’ – it’s a ‘pet en l’air’. Which is one of my favourite names for a garment ever – such a wonderfully rude, crude name for an elite fashion item.
Neither of MA’s blue outfits appear to be francaises — one’s a court gown, the other’s a jacket. I think the pale white-ish gown might be a francise (tho’ the back isn’t shown), & it’s not a pet en l’air bec. it’s not cut short (there’s a full-length front view onscreen).
The attitude that all of your complaints about accuracy (which have certainly sometimes extended to writing as well clothes) are valid complaints and everyone else’s discussions of accuracy are “whining” doesn’t seem entirely fair.
People could certainly call what you do “whining” about something that doesn’t matter to a fictional story, and I’ve seen you react very negatively to comments like that. Which is entirely fair. You feel that discussing accuracy in this area is an important part of analyzing a historical movie and want respect for the knowledge and work you put into this blog, and I agree.
What I don’t understand is why you won’t extend the same respect to others. Fictional stories can and do take creative licenses to tell a story – with regards both writing and costumes – and I agree that it would be limiting to write this off as inherently bad. At the same, I think there’s great value in being true to the real history, and at least sometimes this blog seems to share that opinion.
It’s an entirely valid take for someone to criticize the liberties a movie takes in telling a historical story. It’s entirely valid for them to question why certain deviations were made and if they really improved the story. It’s entirely valid for them to discuss the ways that changing these historical truths can distort the meaning of the story or unfairly villainize historical figures (for example, the way Philippa Gregory writes Anne Boleyn.)
It’s entirely valid for someone to, for example, say “Joseph Bologne’s life story was so dramatic and incredible that it was better than anything the moviemakers could have made up, and staying true to his real story would both have made for a better movie and respected his legacy more.”
You don’t have to agree with that opinion whatsoever! By all means in fact, say why you think the artistic licenses taken were a great choice if that’s how you feel. But there’s no need to dismiss any and all criticism that isn’t yours as “whining” in the process.
I think our friend at An Historian Goes to the Movies address why the plot of movies/TV shows can never be “historically accurate” here:
https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-an-historically-accurate-movie-part-1/
https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-an-historically-accurate-movie-part-2/
Tl;dr — “Historically accurate movies are impossible, because making films requires so many assumptions about what was said and done and worn that historical accuracy becomes literally impossible, at least in any way scholars would understand the term.”
Much of the time, when ppl complain a movie isn’t “historically accurate” they’re complaining that the movie’s plot changes or compresses the timeline, doesn’t show every single person, etc. Yet that’s exactly what movies need to do!
Plus even when productions do strive for historical accuracy, people still complain. I remember how a big production detail of Wolf Hall was they tried to largely use natural or period accurate lighting (read: a lot of candles) in the majority of scenes… and then people complained it was too dark and you couldn’t see anything happening onscreen (especially during night scenes).
“Plus even when productions do strive for historical accuracy, people still complain.”
To be fair, I’ve seen quite a few about which people have few complaints. That’s not to say perfect, but are generally lauded. As for Wolf Hall… you say that, but that I have admit that one’s on the cinematographer. It didn’t ruin my experience but I get where people were coming from.
But the cinematographer should have done a better job working with that lighting. Barry Lyndon (1975) sometimes used only a few candles to light a scene (tent scene, for example), and it was both perfectly visible and beautiful. They had to use a specialty lens, but we have even better sensors nowadays. That’s not to say the cinematographer wasn’t decent, but those circumstances called for something better. No offense to them. Then again most of the cinematography was kind of “workman” anyway so in a weird way it fit.
I would argue it wasn’t the authenticity; it’s the fact they didn’t make it work. And it absolutely can be done.
I think most people understand that 100% accuracy isn’t possible, in the sense of every single word and detail being verifiably something that actually happened. That doesn’t mean that the entire concept of historical accuracy is now invalid and there can never be any value in discussing the ways that historical media does or doesn’t stay true to the facts that we do know.
For that matter, the points An Historian Goes to the Movie makes about why a movie can never be truly historically accurate (which are very true and well-made) also apply to the impossibility of 100% accurate costuming. Even in a movie with the greatest possible attention to accuracy, it would be impossible for every single garment to perfectly recreate the actual clothes worn by the actual historical figures at every moment, which is basically the equivalent of what AHGTTM says about how a movie cannot perfectly recreate every moment as if it had been caught on video. This is even more true when we’re talking about older periods where we may not know exactly how certain garments were constructed and surviving evidence is more limited – there’s always guesswork involved.
Yet this doesn’t make the entire concept of accurate costuming now null and void. And similarly accuracy in writing is still worth discussing, even with the understanding that recreating history is always a messy and imperfect process.
I think it’s very subjective and we all have different opinions about what degree of historical artistic license works, and our opinions may vary from movie to movie. All I’m saying here is that this range of opinions and the varied discussions about the topic should be respected, not dismissed as inherently whiny and worthless.
Refer back to what I said: “This isn’t a bad thing, but I’m sure that nit-pickers will complain that the film doesn’t stick to the historical facts — as if any film did or should. Folks whined a lot about The Woman King (2022) not being “accurate” either, and yet classics like Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (1974) are just as much inaccurate hagiography that get a pass.”
You’re welcome to write your own takedown of this or any other flick on your own blog re: historically accurate plot. This is not your place to do so. My site, my rules :D
Because what I see in comments here 99% of the time, is exactly what I called out — whining about some films not telling a perfect reflection of history (and oh, interesting that those are BIPOC stories, hmm) while others w/equally not “accurate” stories get no such complaints.
I really enjoyed the movie; I’ve had the soundtrack on repeat for weeks and I love the little touches (like how they show Joseph getting his wig powdered in an early scene, with a mask to cover his face from the powder). It definitely didn’t feel like it was covering as much time as it actually was (seemed more like a matter of months to a few years rather than the full decade or so all the events actually span) but I didn’t mind that since it mostly just made me want to learn more about Chevalier Saint-Georges and his life.
The soundtrack uses a lot of Bolonge’s actual music & yes, it’s wonderful!
It’s telling how much I was listening to it because Spotify was recently all “hey we have a whole album’s worth of his compositions, want to listen to that too?”
I started watching this earlier today and still need to finish it, but so far it’s very engaging, entertaining, and I’m enjoying not knowing anything about where it’s going since I chose deliberately not to look up Joseph. I will check for historical accuracy later. For now, it’s just PURDY.
There’s an exchange in Joseph’s final confrontation with Marie-Antoinette where she says something like, “Are you just doing this to get back at me?” And he responds “This is so much bigger than you!”
However, I did not feel the movie did the work to show his commitment to the Revolution, and it did seem like he was motivated by spite. This is part of a larger problem in which the king is a non-entity and the film embraces the Ostrich Bitch narrative.
I had the sense that the character was only aware of the civil unrest and a movement for equality at all because his “best friend” Philippe kept repeating, “Hey man, I’m starting up a Revolution! You should totally join!” It would have made more sense to cut down or completely remove the romance to develop Joseph as a budding Revolutionary in his own right.
Yeah, this is a problem with trying to squeeze decades’ worth of events and relationships, and the motivations that emerge, into two hours; the Chevalier’s life really deserves a series. Very enjoyable, though, if only for the costuming and sets and Kelvin H.’s performance, and Adekoluejo’s as Nanon. (The musical duel with Mozart was entertaining, but I doubt it happened. Mozart was supposedly his landlord for a while, and Bologne was also friendly with Gluck. These brilliant artists were regarded as servants, so I imagine even rivals had some sense of kinship. Now many of their aristocratic patrons are only remembered for having had the good taste to employ Haydn and Mozart.)
YES! Joseph is supposed to be a brilliant genius and has deep ties to the court, and yet, another man (and specifically a WHITE man) has to keep reminding Joseph a revolution is afoot? Yeah, it just doesn’t make sense to me.
Hair braiding scenes in a period film! Excuse me while I squee my heart out.
Two of them, actually!
I’m sensing a Gemma Graven as Cinderella vibes with the hair on Samara! Hair down=Young and hip trope, again?
Definitely seemed to be the vibe they were going for, to contrast how she’s this beautiful young woman who loves to sing but is all constrained by her older military worshipping meanie husband – especially since in scenes where she’s with her husband, she’s got it more or less up (or at least more ‘done’) but scenes where she’s hanging with Chevalier, it’s a lot more free flowing.
The only defect is the bi erasure for all the film. Boulogne was bisexual, he had a long term relationship with fellow musician George Lamothe ( they met when they were childre ’cause lamothe’s father worked for Josep’s father ) and many flings with women, Josephine was not his big love, she was an other love and the one who got pregnant, stop.
I get it why the bisexuality was erased but it’s important for Boulogne, his lover Louise Fusil described he and Lamothe as “Orestes and Pylades” ;)
I struggled with this film, as did my husband. We did see it in the theatre and walked away feeling flat. I think the poor writing and the lack of development in the characters was very problematic. The other issue is something you mentioned, the complete absence of chemistry between Joseph and Marie-Josephine and no reason given as to why they fell in love. Other than, she’s pretty and unattainable and wants to escape an abusive husband. The story fell into one bad trope after another.
In my opinion, it was a missed opportunity all around to tell a story about a man that sounds way more fascinating than the movie portrayed.
(Forgive my errors, I have a bad migraine)