1) Given the film on the French Revolution’s emphasis on the key characters, i.e., Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, Danton, the Marquis de Lafayette, was this a fair rendering of the event(s) as seen through their eyes, or just good old-fashioned “Hollywood†style character development done for dramatic effect?
2) What do you see (as portrayed in the film) as the key turning points of the Revolution? Who, or what forces, drove these to mark the developments of a very fluid period of political change? Would the Revolution have taken a different course had these events never happened?
3) What ignited the very violent periods of Revolution (not just the “Terror†but other periods)? Was the departure of moderates, such as the Count de Mirabeau, factor into the radicalization of the Revolution? Was this made clear in the film, or was there possibly more room for discussion? How was the rendering of the September Massacres, the king’s execution, Marat’s assassination treated? Were there any biases that you could observe from watching the film?
4) What can the viewer take away from the film to make for a better understanding of the Revolution’s significance to history? How does the revolution in France compare with the revolution in America just a few years prior? What does the film show about the prospect of revolution elsewhere? Are revolutions good and necessary for change to happen? Or, are revolutions just expressions of irrational people who destroy more than what they seek to reform?