ABSTRACT
Marie Antoinette has been repeatedly given the "movie treatment" from France, England, Canada, and the United States for nearly a century. Catriona Seth insists on the "broken dreams" quality and drama found in the life of this "mythical character". Ascribing Marie Antoinette biopics to a single category proves arduous as critics have distinguished between historical movies, costume dramas, and melodramas. The numerous feature films and made-for-television productions portraying Marie Antoinette provide an excellent corpus for a comparative study of how historical vision can vary over time and in cultural contexts. As George Custen astutely points out, costume dramas offer their audience "the possibility of connecting concretely with a glamorous image of a famous historical person in the guise of a contemporary movie star". Marie Antoinette's historical significance is obviously beside the point as far as cinema is concerned: what really matters is a star quality that makes her the perfect vehicle for a female leading actress to shine even brighter.
