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Le Roi Danse (The King Dances) (2000)
Directed by Gerard Corbiau
Distributed by RemStar
115 minutes
Gérard Corbiau's Le Ro/ Danse (2000; released with subtitles 2008) "puts its foot forward," as it were, from the very beginning. Dancing feet, elegantly slippered and superbly arched, propelled both King Louis IV and his court composer Jean-Baptiste LuIIy (1632-1687) to heights of power and glory. But those same feet, damaged and broken, ultimately brought both men down. The aging Sun King stumbled badly and never danced again. And after suffering a freak accident to his right foot, the venerable LuIIy took to his bed and died of gangrenous infection. A metaphor for life and art, the dance, like the meteoric careers of both men, defied gravity and circumstance in its initial ascent and fell back to Earth in its final trajectory of failure and disgrace. Likewise, Le Ro/ Danse initially leaps forward in its breathless pace, propulsive editing, and blazing color palette; but at the end it lapses into the still point of a somber and measured eulogy for a vanished Golden Age.
LuIIy was, according to French Baroque music historian William Christie, a "national figure" from his early days, and long after his death he was "canonized not only by the aristocracy, the literati, and the musical educated, but by everybody in France." His god-like standing in the world of French music constituted a parallel to the divine appointments of his patron, Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 to his death in 1715. Together they ruled; and together they repeatedly bickered and reconciled in a symbiotic artistic and political embrace.
The film opens in 1687 when the aging LuIIy, in defiance of the King's absence at a court performance, orders his orchestra to begin to play. But while pounding his staff into the floor to keep time, he stabs himself in the foot and takes to his bed, facing the amputation of his foot. "Not my leg," he cries, "not a dancer's leg!" Flashback: It is 1653. The young Louis, not yet a King, prepares to make his dancing debut as Apollo. The boy LuIIy, newly arrived from his native Italy, and currying favor with the future King, presents him with a specially crafted pair of...