Watch Jefferson in Paris For Free

Wonderful Movie

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Amazingly, several reviewers have apparently found that this marvelous 1995 film just could not meet their evidently peculiar standards or expectations. It boggles the mind and defies comprehension to consider the sort of niggling, whining, nagging, crabbed sort of critic that could, somehow and beyond all belief, manage to find serious error, or in fact any error, in this outstanding and beautiful film, shot on location in Paris with many scenes filmed in the palace of Versailles. One has to wonder: if this movie doesn't do it for them---what sort of film it is that appeals to this class of critic? Perhaps if the movie had included a few car explosions it might have pleased better these silly persons. The film chronicles the years 1784-89, when Jefferson served as Minister to the Parisian royal court for the fledgling US Congress; that is, in the period before and during the passage of the United States federal constitution, Jefferson being by then a world-renowned political celebrity. This is a historical drama of pitched and immense interest, presenting with great skill and art the sad and terrible racial politics of colonial America as presented through the fascinating personage of Thomas Jefferson, and his entourage of slaves---slaves now (temporarily) liberated in the environs of pre-revolutionary Paris. Conflicts ensue between Jefferson as Slave Master and his slaves, as the inevitable return to Monticello Plantation, which figures here almost as powerfully as it did for Jefferson himself, looms always ahead. Nick Nolte, an inspired if perhaps controversial and unexpected choice for the difficult role, portrays Jefferson's genius, complexities and faults with a fine and austere dignity and grace. The outstanding cast includes James Earl Jones; a young Gwyneth Paltrow as Jefferson's conflicted daughter Patsy; and a young Thandie Newton as Jefferson's paramour-slave-concubine Sally Hemings. With the imperial Court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as background, and featuring the Marquis de Lafayette, Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotine, Jefferson's beautiful Parisian lover Maria Cosway, and the brewing Terror of the French Revolution, this film is a true and unique, classy feast for the eyes and mind---for viewers of elevated taste and learning only; cretins and historical ignoramuses should seek their entertainment elsewhere.

The DNA test is inconclusive, there is just as much likelihood that Randolph Jefferson was the father. To make this the opening scene and a big part of the story is a travesty and worthy of tabloid press not a historical drama."Historians have the wrong Jefferson. Hyland, an experienced trial lawyer, presents the most reliable historical evidence while dissecting the unreliable, and in doing so he cuts through centuries of unsubstantiated charges. The author reminds us that the DNA tests identified Eston Hemings, Sally's youngest child, as being merely the descendant of a "Jefferson male." Randolph Jefferson, the president's wayward, younger brother with a reputation for socializing among the Monticello slaves, emerges as the most likely of several possible candidates."

I love this movie, because I am a complete sucker for movies set in the 18th century, and this is exceptionally well done. Nick Nolte is the most extremely unlikely choice to play Jefferson, but somehow he and the director make it work. The extensive selections from Jefferson's letters as he watches things unravel in France add a great deal to the entertainmnet value.Most people think that TJ signed the Constitution, when in fact he was US ambassador to France. From a costume point of view and in terms of certain vignettes, this movie does a marvelous job of debunking that notion.Now to the Sally Hemmings thing. DNA evidence does not lie, and it is now clear that he did indeed father her children. But I have a problem, and I'm not sure if there is any historical resolution to it. In the movie, she is a "massah, how's you feelin' today" type slave. I'm willing to accept that they fell mutually in love, but I'm still having a hard time dealing with her not having more class. It is a mistake to believe that slaves of relatively enlightened owners (yes, folks, I know what I'm saying) had no sophistication.Dumas Malone, the great biographer of Jefferson, would go into an apoplexy if you raised the possibility of this affair being real. Now that we know that it was, I might be his unworthy successor in suggesting that a man like Jefferson would not simply take a steppinfetchit slave girl to his bed, but would rather seek comfort in the arms of someone whom he could respect, however questionable the situation looks in a modern light.

This is a screen account, directed by James Ivory, of a fascinating historical episode - Thomas Jefferson's period as US ambassador in Paris for the five years leading up to the 1789 revolution. Many Americans may be put off the film, because they do not accept its assumption that Jefferson was the father of children born to his young slave Sally Hemings. Non-Americans may be less interested in this arguable relationship than in the undoubted fact that Jefferson - a passionate believer in individual liberty and draftsman of the Declaration of Independence with its ringing references to equality and inalienable rights - was a slave-owner, and that he could justify his two-way stance (at least to himself).Jefferson also displays double-think when, though a fierce defender of religious liberty, he stops his pious, dutiful daughter Patsy (Martha) -an admirable portrayal by Gyneth Paltrow in a difficult role - from converting to Catholicism and joining a convent. Overall, Jefferson does not come out of the movie too well. In addition to revealing him as a child-molesting hypocrite, Ruth Jhabvala's scenario allows Nick Nolte to convey the tentative and observant side of Jefferson's character, but gives him scant opportunity to bring out the depth and breadth of Jefferson's mind or his political philosophy.In addition to the visual delights of costume and setting that we have learned to expect from Merchant-Ivory productions, the most successful aspect of the movie is the all-but love affair between Jefferson and witty, charming Maria Cosway - the wife of a foppish English artist (Simon Callow in full make-up) - a role in which Greta Scacchi lights up the screen. By contrast, Thandie Newton has been criticised for her awkward hamming as Sally, but it should be remembered that she is playing an uneducated 14 or 15 year old girl.Perhaps the movie's worst features are the "framing" sequences set in the late 19th century, where a Jefferson/Hemings descendent (James Earl Jones) relates his family history to a newspaper reporter. If these superfluous scenes had been cut, perhaps there would have been time to go deeper into Jefferson's politics, which after all is why the man is remembered today.