The Historical Threshold : Crisis, Ritual and Liminality in Sofia Coppola’s Marie-Antoinette (2006) The Historical Threshold : Crisis, Ritual and Liminality in Sofia Coppola’s Marie-Antoinette (2006)

Marie Antoinette does not pertain to any of the narrative tropes and standards set by the conventional historical drama. Rather, it is a film about the politicisation of the female body. Its focus on the rite of passage of a young girl into adulthood in an extreme situation is, in effect, highly political both in its effort to convey a specifically female subjectivity and in its eschewal of a more traditional treatment of its subject matter. Marie Antoinette does not pertain to any of the narrative tropes and standards set by the conventional historical drama. Rather, it is a film about the politicisation of the female body. Its focus on the rite of passage of a young girl into adulthood in an extreme situation is, in effect, highly political both in its effort to convey a specifically female subjectivity and in its eschewal of a more traditional treatment of its subject matter.