Ed will roll
Director Ed Bazalgette talks taking up the reins of season two of historical drama Marie Antoinette, blending high drama with soapy character storylines and showcasing the series’ luxurious costumes and locations.
From the medieval fantasy world of The Witcher to the Saxon Britain of The Last Kingdom, and several trips with Doctor Who’s TARDIS, director Ed Bazalgette has enjoyed numerous adventures through television time and space.
The BAFTA-nominated filmmaker has also worked on dramas including A Mother’s Son, Endeavour and Poldark, and is the lead director on Lynley, the upcoming BritBox and BBC reboot of the detective series based on Elizabeth George’s novels.
Whatever the genre, however, “the golden rule is that all your instincts about a vision and all your ideas about the direction to take a show in start with a script,” Bazalgette tells DQ. “The answers are all in there. It could just be a very simple stage direction, but there’ll be something I pick up on in that script that will give me a sense of where I want to take it tonally. So even though different genres might be far apart, there is always that core storytelling instinct.”
As a result, he doesn’t label himself as an ‘actor’s director’ or an ‘action director.’ Instead, “I always think the best and the most honest answer is I’m a storytelling director. I start with a script, that’s my starting point, and I love that process of taking the potential and the possibilities in the script and expanding that out and fleshing that out into a fully realised world. I have found myself moving between very different looking and feeling shows, but it’s that continuity of the script that always grounds me.”
With a passion for history, it’s not surprising that many of the series on which Bazalgette has worked are set in the past – including the third and final season of French historical drama Versailles. That job established his contacts and credentials with producer Capa Drama, which then offered him the chance to kick off the second season of follow-up show Marie Antoinette, which arrives in the UK on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer this Thursday.
The Canal+ original drama was created by Deborah Davis (The Favourite). Season two, titled Marie Antoinette: The Diamond Necklace Affair, is led by head writer Louise Ironside, with Bazalgette and Raf Reyntjens directing. It is produced by Capa Drama, Banijay Studios France and Beside Productions, and distributed by Banijay Rights.
The second run picks up the story of Marie (Emilia Schüle) and husband King Louis XVI (Louis Cunningham) in the winter of 1783, when the royal couple are at the height of their fame. Finally producing an heir, they have proven themselves to be compassionate, capable and forward-thinking rulers. Yet radicalism is swirling among those willing to rise up against the monarchy, and Jeanne de Valois (Freya Mavor), a young con woman, is plotting the biggest diamond heist in history – and plans to frame the queen.
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Joining the series, Bazalgette followed in the footsteps of Pete Travis and Geoffrey Enthoven, who established the world of the show in season one. One stylistic choice they took, which Bazalgette continues, was to shoot it very much like a contemporary drama, with an energy and pace to the storytelling. It just happens to be set in 18th century Paris.
“That was also a maxim we carried through The Last Kingdom, that it should have that modern edge,” he says. “It should make no concessions to any long-standing conceptions about how history should be presented dramatically on television. We just wanted it to feel like a contemporary, pacy, punchy drama. Obviously it’s costume, but to all intents and purposes, it should really look and sound and smell of modernity, and the world we depict in Marie Antoinette was what those people were experiencing at that time.”
Handheld cameras were used to immerse the audience in the world of the Versailles court, an approach that also allowed the characters to bring the story to viewers. “Even though we were shooting a lot in Versailles – we had some extraordinary locations – we wanted to see all those wonderful sets and locations through the eyes of the characters and not sit back and give a sort of proscenium arch perspective of that world,” Bazalgette continues.
“Another thing is it’s a multi-strand story. We’re very much starting to build towards the foothills of the French Revolution, it’s very much the beginning of the end. But also we were blessed because in our timeline came the fantastic and unbelievable but absolutely true story of the diamond necklace affair, where this grifter, a confidence trickster, decided to try to steal the most valuable necklace in the world and then try to point the finger at Marie Antoinette. That gives us this kind of heist spine throughout season two, which is a gift, but again plays into the values and the kind of energy we wanted to impart with the way we told the story.”
Bazalgette likens Marie Antoinette to another royalty drama, Netflix’s The Crown, when he describes it as a high-end drama with a soap structure at its heart. Numerous different character perspectives come into play, each giving a slightly different view of life at court while also revealing both honourable and sinister ambitions, not least when it comes to Jeanne.
“When we shift to her point of view, obviously we’re telling her story and that she’s got this outrageous scheme but, at the same time, it comes out of a very human desire for acceptance, and she has these wild ambitions to be accepted at court at Versailles and to become part of that high society,” he says. “Of course, she’s embarking on that endeavour through foul means, but when we see it from her point of view, we see a very different side to that world of 18th century Paris.”
As the series progresses, “the different strands and the protagonist and the antagonist come together and the case goes to court. It’s a very dramatic denouement. Then by the end of the season, the ordinary people in Paris have marched out to Versailles and they’ve come to confront the monarchy. So the ending is very much the start of what led to the revolution.”
The splendour and finery of the show’s real-life locations certainly play a key role in the dazzling look of the series. Bazalgette wanted to do them justice on screen, not least the Palace of Versailles, but he also wanted to use them in a way that spoke to the characters’ emotions or behaviour at various moments in the story.
One example is when Marie is in the iconic Hall of Mirrors (the Galerie des Glaces), and Bazalgette uses the vastness of the room to shoot her as a “tiny, isolated figure,” demonstrating her position as an outsider both geographically as an Austrian and also in terms of her social status. “It’s a beautiful shot. It’s a really powerful moment and also laced with the tragedy of that story,” the director says.
Bazalgette’s role on Marie Antoinette marked the second time he had worked in France, the first being Versailles, so he was well versed in the country’s strict working practices. But as the person responsible for ‘making the day’ each day on set, he still found it a significant task to ensure every department had the time they needed to do their jobs to the highest level while keeping the schedule on track.
“On Marie Antoinette, the costumes are incredible. Each costume is handmade and stitched – every item of clothing is a work of art in that show,” he says. “So it’s a challenge when you finish a scene and the AD says, ‘OK, we’ll move on to the next scene. Emilia will be ready in an hour-and-a-half,’ and you go, ‘What?’ But at the same time, if she was having a costume change, if the hair designer was giving her a different look, it could easily take that amount of time. That’s a far cry from when Inspector Lynley has to put on a coat to go into another scene. And you think, ‘Oh, we could probably manage that costume turnaround in about 14 seconds.’ So that is a challenge.’”
The show “had to look amazing,” he adds, with the cast and crew facing immense time pressures on a tight schedule, “and we had to make it work.”
It’s the reason he describes a scene featuring Marie and her ‘favourite’ Yolande, Duchesse de Polignac (Liah O’Prey) – the pair are walking through the gardens of Versailles while courtiers are petitioning the Queen and trying to get her attention – as one of his favourite moments in season two.
“It’s basically two shots on a rickshaw,” the director says. “It was really just [filmed on] an old cart with a couple of wheels and a couple of the grip team pulling it and pushing it, with a handheld camera on the back of that. There were two shots, one behind [the characters], one in front, and that was basically the scene.
“There’s something about the pressure of time that really focuses the mind, and you can see that energy ripple through the crew and the cast,” he adds. “We’re very lucky to do what we do and, at moments like that, it’s so satisfying that it was tight but we got it and it’s great. It’s terrific. You’re always facing that really intense pressure, but when you’re surrounded by so many good people and everyone does their prep, invariably we get it.”
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tagged in: Banijay Rights, Banijay Studios France, BBC, BBC Two, Beside Productions, Canal+, Capa Drama, Ed Bazalgette, Marie Antoinette, Marie Antoinette: The Diamond Necklace Affair