MovieChat Forums > Marie Antoinette (2006) Discussion > American movies ALWAYS screw-up royal fo...

American movies ALWAYS screw-up royal forms of address


In the scene where the Duchess of Polignac (played by Rose Byrne) first meets Marie-Antoinette during an opera performance, she refers to the Dauphine as "Your Majesty", when in fact she would have been referred to as "Your Royal Highness". "Majesty" is only reserved for a Monarch and/or a Queen consort. Considering the iron clad etiquette and insane royal rituals that existed at the French court at that time, the Duchess would NEVER have made such a gaffe in the presence of the heirs to the throne!

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Yes, in German, Amerika IS spelt with a K!
And when you AMERIKANS stop calling my country Germany (an English word) and start calling it by it's proper name Deutschland, we will start using the English name for your country.

You should get out and travel my friend, and then you wouldn't have to be schooled.




"They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantlepiece". - There Will Be Blood

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this is America NOT Germany
What is America? What do you mean by "THIS"?
Do you think I am coming to you from Amerika? This site is international my fräulein. So "get with the program already".
No one refers to Germany as Deutschland
your right, every language has it's own name for Deutschland, but only English speaking peoples call it 'Germany'.
So my point was, you go ahead and use your English language term for my land, and I will use my 'German' language term for your land.
But really, I DO want to know what in the world you mean by
this is America
Please do tell me


"They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantlepiece". - There Will Be Blood

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That's a good thing ^ LOL!

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Spelling America with a "k" would be correct if you were communicating in German, but you're not. You're communicating in English, and in English America is spelled with a "c". Nice try, though.

This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.

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just so that you know, simply the best... not everyone is FROM AMERICA. Not everyone IS AMERICAN. Not everyone is POSTING FROM AMERICA. and Not everyone has HAD AN AMERICAN EDUCATION.


stop being so self righteous and ignorant.


YOU get with the program and get with the freaking topic!!!

OH THANK YOU GOD! THANK YOU SO BLOODY MUCH!!! Basil Fawlty

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You are speaking English. In English it is called Germany. If you don't like it then go speak German on a German site. Pretentious euro trash.

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Isn't she??

It is people like her who make me disappointed in my culture.

Please don't think that all Americans are as shi77y and ignorant as she is.

If she isn't trash then she is at least bipolar schizophrenic.


OH THANK YOU GOD! THANK YOU SO BLOODY MUCH!!! Basil Fawlty

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I would REALLY restrict any bragging about being German! I have relatives there and they, like most Germans I met, are boring, bigoted, humorless and still NOT sorry (the ones who were part of it) for perpetrating one of the biggest atrocities in history: The Holocaust. The younger generation simply refuse to discuss it. Is this what Die Deutschen are taught in their "superior Universities"?

I suppose you Germans can take credit for at least one famous scientist who changed the world: Robert Oppenheimer (look him up). Er war bekannte der vor allem während des Zweiten Weltkriegs für seine Rolle als wissenschaftlicher Leiter des Manhattan-Projekts bekannt wurde. Dieses im geheim gehaltenen Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico stationierte Projekt hatte zum Ziel, die ersten Nuklearwaffen zu entwickeln. Robert Oppenheimer gilt als „Vater der Atombombe“, verurteilte jedoch ihren weiteren Einsatz, nachdem er die Folgen ihres Einsatzes gegen die japanischen Städte Hiroshima und Nagasaki gesehen hatte.

Oh...right, I guess his little invention DID NOT go so well after all.

"I have become Death--destroyer of worlds". - J. Oppenheimer

Imagine what he could have accomplished had he not worked for one our "Inferior Universities", but a German one!



Nothing is what it seems. Everything is a test. Rule #1: Don't...get...caught.

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Actually, "Germany" comes from "Germania" which is what the Romans called that area of Central Europe. So no, "Germany" is not originally an English word.

Nice try though.

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You are undoubtedly one of the most unpleasant little fellows I've had the misfortune of encountering on this website.

I do so hope your superior education will afford you the chance to cure your disgusting ignorance.

Good day, you pretentious and condescending little person.

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I can grasp that you lost the Revolutionary War.

You mad?

-
Liberalism: Ideas so good, they're mandatory!

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I can grasp that you lost the Revolutionary War.

After losing most of it's battles, the American colons only won due to the FRENCH!

You know, those people whose language you can't pronounce, and wouldn't go to war for.

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Funny, I remember the British using German troops............

But the British were winning battles, but they weren't stopping the revolutionaries one bit. The French navy pushed it to the breaking point for the war, but the mighty British empire still was failing to beat a bunch of "peasants".

Doesn't change the fact that the British got whooped. Just like the US whooped them again in the war of 1812 (Plattsburg, Baltimore and New Orleasns) and saved them during WW2. "Oh but Britain won the battle of Britain" blah blah nonsense. The British won that air battle because of high octane American fuel that gave them an advantage they didn't have when they got whooped by German airplanes over France. The British were useless against Hitler and Japan, the Russians and Americans won that war.

You are just more pretentious euro trash.

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@Jh66
"After losing most of it's battles, the American colons only won due to the FRENCH!

You know, those people whose language you can't pronounce, and wouldn't go to war for. "


Oh, right; those ungrateful schmucks whose behinds we saved in WWII? Yeah, those people who never said thanks for them not having to speak German today and who are rude to us for no reason when we visit there? That bunch?

Jh66, you're just a bitter, angry piece of euro-trash. Go back to your room and play with yourself.

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LOL! good one! Making fun of Americans feels like such a decadent treat since IMDB is polluted with an over abundance of them.

"They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantlepiece". - There Will Be Blood

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No one cares about German Euro trash. Get over yourself.

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Then why are you on the site of a 'euro trash' wannabe movie if you.re not interested in European culture.


Damn it! Look what GOD did to US!-Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas

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I actually ended up here because I was researching Sofia Coppola for a different purpose. I never saw this movie, nor do I care about royal forms of address. All a bunch of pretentious euro trash culture.

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@jh66_
Americans can never grasp anything outside our borders? Hmm, what an ignorant, small-minded generalization you make of ALL Americans. I sincerely hope there aren't too many ignorant a-holes like you in your country. Moron!

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Forget it. This movie is crap for suburban California illiterates.
















Scostatevi profani! Melpomene son io...


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I have been studying European Royalty for over 30 years and it always bothers me when movies get titles and forms of address wrong.

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I don't care about what any of you all say. I smoked a jay and went into the theater without any pretense and decided I was going to have a good time...And I did.

The movie was made well and I liked the music. The Cure was a nice touch. I don't care if she looked at it through a modern eye, honestly. It was a good movie. I liked it enough to feel that it deserves an 8 rating. Those are my feelings. A 6 rating or whatever isn't cool. Any score below 7 seems just a bit pompous and slighting by an audience of laymen who know nothing of the pains it takes to make an "okay" movie let alone finish it.


"Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels" - Arthur Rimbaud

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"...but perhaps the character had it wrong..."

This is what I thought. In a film where all other forms of address seemed to be correct, I thought it odd that Sofia would have made such a slip. Polignac was drunk when she entered the box and not one who normally cared about doing or saying the right thing. She wasn't seen as being particularly respectable and I wouldn't put it past her to say something 'outrageous' just to get a reaction.

This was probably why Marie-Antoinette's mother and advisers wanted her to distance herself from Polignac.

It's all too easy to jump on that 'Way Ugly American' bandwagon and imagine they're all too self absorbed to pay attention to important details like this. But in this case, I'm not convinced OP has it right.


Everything I've ever told you has been a lie. Including that - George Spiggott

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In your blind (and quite uninformed) hatred of Americans, I don't suppose it occurred to you that:

= This was a multi-national project, with several Brits (well-known for their magical knowledge of titles and forms of addressing obsolete nobility, etc.). Go to this page to see just how FEW Americans were involved in this film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0422720/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

- The Duchess of Polignac, a known iconoclast and wit, as well as a traveler, who may have come to disregard the "iron clad etiquette", did this deliberately, as a way of poking fun at the Monarchy.

- At least one of said heirs happened to become the best friend of Polignac...so she probably did not give it much thought, IF it ever happened.

If you want some real gaffes in forms of address and confusion as to who is called what and by whom (and do we really care?), based on rank and heredity, just watched the BRITISH "Downton Abbey", for lots of them (at least when Maggie Smith isn't in a scene!).


Nothing is what it seems. Everything is a test. Rule #1: Don't...get...caught.

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Who cares how royalty would have been addressed 250 years ago? Only those who think knowing such things are important or a sign of education. For those of us who couldn't care less about royals, such things are trivial, to say the least.

This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.

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