Lady Oscar (1979) watch online HD

I've finally had the chance to watch Jaques Demy's movie - Lady Oscar. I waited so long to see it and i put so much enthusiasm on it that i almost can't bear the disappointment. As a big fan of Ryoko Ikeda, of "Berusaiyu no bara" and of the Japanese musical version of it, i have to confess: the movie HURT! The acting is so bad, the story is so cut, no fluidity between scenes ... and the end ... oh, that is really painful!!! Oscar is too cute ... no! better said: "sweet"... but OK. Marie Antoinette too stupid! Fersen .. where is Fersen??? So little appearance that i forgot he existed. Girodelle .. oh! ... disgusting! And was that brown haired girl really Rosalie? I think it was the opposite of her. The only character i can't comment on it, is Andre. He was (especially on the first part of the movie) ... he was Andree. He was human, real and acted well .. Pity he ended so stupid ... Everything in this movie have no meaning ... and some scenes are just ridiculous.

As had been the case with Christian-Jaque's THE BLACK TULIP (1964), this is another French swashbuckler whom I first became aware of via the Japanese animated series I used to catch on Italian TV as a kid. Conversely, the film version of LADY Oscar proved to be more satisfying than that of THE BLACK TULIP, which is surprising given that the former is a maligned film within its distinguished director's canon. Having said that, along with his modernistic remake of Jean Cocteau's OPRHEE' (1950) entitled PARKING (1985), LADY Oscar had always been the one title I was most eager to catch from Demy's lean and near-invisible post-1973 period. It is ironic therefore that I have managed that feat before having acquainted myself with Demy's best-known and finest achievements of the early 1960s – which is all the more remarkable when one considers that LADY Oscar was a bastard international production: a Franco-Japanese joint venture shot in English with a cast of equally mixed nationalities and whose tangled worldwide distribution rights have made it impossible for even the British Film Institute to secure a screening in their renowned National Film Theatre in London for a 'complete' Jacques Demy retrospective in November 2007! Therefore, all the more power to Yamato Video, the Italian DVD production company who specializes in releasing vintage Japanese anime series (that were all the rage on Italian TV as I was growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s) for succeeding where others have failed; a gallery of trailers from their catalogue is available as a supplement on the LADY Oscar disc and watching it was "a blast from the past" for me as the saying goes!

Anyhow, back to the film at hand: the fairy-tale qualities of the historical narrative are ideal hunting grounds for Demy, who had already brought DONKEY SKIN (1970) and THE PIED PIPER (1972) to the screen – although, in this case, he drew inspiration from a Japanese comic strip rather than a local legend (albeit set in his native land). Needless to say, the film is a feast for the eyes when it comes to sets (some of the exteriors were actually shot on the Versailles Palace grounds) and costumes but, even if the work of Demy here seems not be counted among his finest achievements, a couple of elegantly sweeping camera movements (the clandestine meeting in the abandoned château between Queen Marie Antoinette and her Swedish lover) and well-mounted sequences (the vigorous fist-fight in the tavern) are certainly noteworthy; the same applies to the musical contribution of Demy's regular composer Michel Legrand. If there are distinct flaws, it's that the film moves at rather too deliberate a pace (with a running time of just over two hours) and has a needlessly unhappy ending.

In spite of the title, the narrative incorporates three parallel story lines that give a more sweeping picture of the tumultuous times it depicts (starting out in 1755 with the birth of Oscar and culminating in the storming of the Bastille that led directly to the French Revolution of 1789): Oscar's father had long wanted a male heir to follow him into his military career and when his wife dies in giving birth to yet another female, he determines to make a man of his newborn child regardless; while Oscar is eventually recruited as personal guard to Marie Antoinette, we follow the amorous exploits of the latter as well as the rise of one female peasant into aristocracy through devious schemes and callous behavior to her true peers (perhaps in emulation of the notorious Madame Dubarry whose name is mentioned at one point). In view of its origins as light-hearted kiddie fare, there is a surprisingly subversive undercurrent of sexual ambiguity in Oscar's imposed masculinity (and the fact that this starts a cross-dressing fad among the upper classes), the repressed feelings for her shown by the stable boy she grew up with, the full-blown kiss on the lips Oscar gives during her own supposed engagement party to a giggling young lady she's dancing with, etc.

Catriona MacColl looks just ravishing in the title role, both when dressed in her military outfit and also when she occasionally gives in to her womanhood (including a brief topless bit); this was her first film and arguably her best role since only another appearance for Demy and three in Lucio Fulci horror films – including CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) for which she even recorded an exclusive audio commentary for its R2 DVD! – really stick out from the rest of her filmography. Another beguiling presence in the film is undoubtedly that of Christine Bohm who plays Marie Antoinette; unlike MacColl (despite their being the same age), LADY Oscar proved to be her last film as she tragically died at 25 in an accident that same year. As for the male cast, the most prominent are Barry Stokes (as Oscar's stable boy companion and true love) and Martin Potter (as her jaded, titled but short-lived fiancé); incidentally, while they both had their artistic triumphs for major directors – in Juan Antonio Bardem's THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER (1973) and Federico Fellini's FELLINI - SATYRICON (1969) – they each also worked for cultish British exploitation film-maker Norman J. Warren in, respectively, PREY (1978) and SATAN'S SLAVE (1976)!!

P.S. My amiably lazy feline pet goes by the name of "Lady Oscar": I had originally dubbed it Oskar – in tribute to one of my favorite foreign films THE TIN DRUM (1979) because, like its protagonist, my cat seems to have stopped growing of its own accord (while that of my aunt, which is of a similar breed and only a year or so older, has become quite huge!); my mother, unaware of this connection, insists on calling her "Lady" because, first of all, it's a female and, frankly, really does act royally and has the genuine impression that we're there to wait on it!!

I love the Rose of Versailles (Lady Oscar in West) original comics and was a pleasure to watch this movie. However it's necessary to say it's just for fans. When you previously know the characters and want to get in touch with an alternative point of view, it's OK, but if you take Lady Oscar as a movie about the French Revolution's or a cross dresser heroine, you probably would feel disappointed.

The work was not as good as it would be; some actors and actresses were not well chosen; main events were forgotten; and Oscar's personal drama lost force. But as I said, I liked it a little, because any Lady Oscar's product would attract me.

I don't know what to think about this live-action version of the great comic created by Riyoko Ikeda (Which was also was adapted into a great anime series): On one side, the direction of Jacques Demy (The same director of "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg") is competent and sober, and production values (and the music, as well) were quite beautiful and more than adequate. But on the other side, the performances are terrible (To the point of being laughable) and the story (Which is considerably different than the one from the original comic and the anime series) is filled with lots of silly situations, as if were some kind of parody.

Here is the irony: While the animated adaptation of the same comic feels mature, realistic and dramatic, the live action versions feels way too cartoonish and unrealistic.

Personally I think that the anime version is way much better than this.

Lost ,nobody will deny,is it a sleeper, a great forgotten work?I have my doubts.

"Lady Oscar",a Japanese production, was never commercially released in Demy's native France.It's a movie so hard to see I had to wait twenty-four years.Was it worth the wait?Partly,but only partly.It's hard to recognize Demy's touch is these historical adventures.The action takes place in the years before the French revolution and I really wonder why Demy used English actors to play Marie-Antoinette,Madame de Polignac,Louis the Sixteenth et al.The historical facts do not rise above the historical clichés:the hamlet of the Queen,the necklace case,her affair with Axel Fersen.Sacha Guitry did much better with his "si Versailles m'était conté";humor is definitely lacking here.The characters of fiction are essentially walk ons ,mainly in the first half.Then Lady Oscar begins to hit her stride,with feminist accents dear to Agnès Varda (Demy's wife and producer).But the end is disappointing as if Demy had planned a sequel(there was a Japanese cartoon,featuring the Lady Oscar -the woman raised and dressed as a boy-,some years after but targeted at the children's market).

So what makes this movie worthwhile though?The dazzling costumes,Demy's refined style,all the wonderful ball scenes.The form is a feast for the eye and almost entirely overshadows the content.Lambert Wilson,who was to become a famous actor in the eighties and nineties has a cameo :he's the insolent soldier.

That said,the great lost Demy movie is not "Lady Oscar" but his stunning "pied piper" (1972)

Jacques Demy's movie of Lady Oscar frequently moved me. It is not a "swashbuckler" in spirit, it does not glamourise violence; it is not a movie about "girl power". It is a tragedy that raises important questions about freedom and gender. After becoming father to a series of daughters whose mother dies in childbirth, Général de Jarjayes decides that his latest daughter will in fact be a son, Oscar, and brings her up to be an heir and defender of the de Jarjayes name. He is delighted to find her a position as bodyguard to Marie Antoinette. Oscar is unquestioning of the system into which she is inducted, a bubble of privilege, acid wit, and decadence. She is dutiful and she "knows her place". At the same time the young boy and later groom who was her companion when Oscar grew up seems to have much more class consciousness.

What her gender transformation helps to do is to de-romanticise the material, when Oscar accepts a duel, the result, devoid of machismo, comes off as a banal murder, which is precisely what it is. It is difficult to wholeheartedly see Oscar as an éoniste or transgender hero as her identity as Oscar is created for her by her father. Indeed her self-actualisation is intertwined with her accepting a more female identity. On the other hand she does use her identity as Oscar to react against male society, and becomes a role model for some of the Versailles women.

Oscar, despite adopting a male role, is not free. This is potentially quite an important point of the movie, equality and freedom are not the same thing. Her role is to hang around the wilful and indolent Antoinette, and she develops a strong sense that her life has become meaningless. To become a man is not to have meaning, it's an escape from a trap within a trap, the outer trap being the Ancien Régime in the case of this movie. When Oscar attempts to enter a regiment, her male soldiers refuse to obey her, and her superior officer gives her no support whatever. In any case the regiment only exists to suppress the people.

At a very late stage Oscar finds freedom in an act of defiance. You can feel the weight lift off her shoulders as she spends her first day as a truly free adult, despite residing in a prison cell. This feels very contemporary, freedom is something very few of us are born with, it's something we have to seize, it's profoundly personal and cathartic.

Another reviewer on this site refers to Barry Lyndon as inspiration, "Now the magic of that was its carefully spaced vacuums. It had engineered emptiness, something that only a master could do." That is definitely something Lady Oscar is attempting, in my belief it worked better than my fellow reviewer felt.

A note on historical accuracy. Thomas Jefferson described Marie Antoinette as, "...proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck." That is exactly how she is portrayed in Lady Oscar by Christine Böhm. Jefferson also describes the relationship between the King and the Queen thus, "he had a Queen of absolute sway over his weak mind and timid virtue..." Again this seems to have been very well captured in the movie.

Lady Oscar is a politically complex movie which seems often to have been misjudged by relying on a fruitless comparative analysis with the animé and manga sources of the story. Whilst actually quite serious it does however have its gorgeous moments.

Actually,to correct what another reviewer said(wanting also to correct a supposed error,but making a mistake),the anime "Lady Oscar(Rose of Versailles)" came AFTER the movie(that means almost an year after the movie was made) and WAS ALSO TARGETED TOWARDS THE CHILDREN.So,the movie is based ONLY upon the manga and NOT AT ALL upon the anime.Also,the "historical clichés" aren't "cliches",but REAL HISTORICAL FACTS and I really don't see why the movie shouldn't present them,like the manga did,too. To talk about the movie,as a Lady Oscar's fan,I would consider it somehow average.It has some good-or even very good-parts(the costumes,the sets,the music,some aspects of the play of some characters-I disagree with someone who said that the acting is "incredibly weak all around",because it's clearly not like that!) and some more bad parts(the way in which most of the characters were presented,different from the ones in the original story,the fact that some important events in the story aren't showed at all,the play of some actors,the ending which is an almost complete nonsense).But,in the end,it's,like I said,it's an average movie,though enough fans are,quite rightfully,disappointed of it.

I've seen this film as an anime one and it was great but the movie film is the best I've ever seen about the French Revolution!It includes brave,love....and Christina Böhm act the Marie Antoinette fantastic!!!

I only read the first few chapters of the Rose of Versailles manga years and years ago, so this review is not coming from the point of view of someone biased against this film on the grounds of inaccuracy to the source material. Because even when measured on its own merits, Lady Oscar (1979)is a weak movie.

It's a shame, because this is a pretty production. The 18th century costumes and lavish sets are wonderfully realized, pastel-colored and almost fairy tale-like. They contrast well with the squalor of the lower classes. Michel Legrand's score is lovely and emotional.

Too bad everything else is borderline terrible. The dialogue ranges between passable and cringe-worthy. Exposition is delivered via clumsy lines and voice-over. The story is epic in scope, yet it rushes through events and years, leaving us little time to get to know the characters since the script is more obsessed with racing to the next plot point.

The acting is not wooden or too over-the-top, but it is incredibly weak all around. No one seems to contain much passion or enthusiasm for the material. The leading lady in particular possesses too little inner strength or charisma to hold our admiration. Heck, she's supposed to be a military officer and yet she cannot mount a horse without aid!

I was disappointed with Jacques Demy's direction, which had little verve or flow to it. It was as distant and disinterested in the action as the performers seemed to be. The editing was especially clumsy and confusing at moments.

The worst aspect of this movie may be the characters and the way they were written. Marie Antoinette is made into an idiot. Louis XVI is antagonistic. Andre is a creepy jerk. And Oscar is unbelievably wimpy for someone so respected by the other characters. Her appearance and manner are also not as androgynous as they should be.

I think this story could have made for a solid swashbuckling melodrama, but as it is, this feels like a lifeless TV movie. While I feel there is a good movie lurking within this mess, the few good things there are cannot save it from mediocrity.

To correct some inaccuracies in the above review, the anime "Rose of Versailles" came before "Lady Oscar," not afterward, and it was not targeted towards children. "Lady Oscar" is primarily based on the manga "Rose of Versailles" by Riyoko Ikeda, although it contains several plot differences from either anime or manga. The so-called "historical clichés" and the feminism the above reviewer cites are part of Ikeda's story and have nothing to do with the director of "Lady Oscar." I found the movie slightly disappointing in its variations from the anime and manga, but overall I liked it. It was nice to see the story of Lady Oscar presented in English, and I enjoyed seeing European actors filling the roles. Oscar's character differs greatly from her personality in the anime, but I found her much more personable in "Lady Oscar." I was disappointed, however, in the portrayal of Marie Antoinette as she was wholly flaky and unlikeable in "Lady Oscar" and lacked all the redeeming qualities she possessed in the anime. Also, the film overlooks the close nature of her relationship with Oscar as portrayed in Ikeda's manga.

The sad truth is that Jaques Demy is a horrible filmmaker. The much celebrated "Umbrella's of Cherbourg" was dreadful. Absolutely dreadful, but pretty in a stagy way. There isn't much you can say when you encounter something pretty but hollow. Of course it happens all the time to me, that I find movies with no soul. like girls trained to be empty.

But there is something notable when something is so very pretty as this is, and so very empty at the same time.

The provenance of this is at least interesting: a Japanese comic book. And if you wish to sit through it, you'll see copious references to "Barry Lyndon," on which this is clearly modeled. Now the magic of that was its carefully spaced vacuums. It had engineered emptiness, something that only a master could do.

This. This is just empty.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

This film is an absolute joke. The acting is so horrible that I got up during the film and went to check IMDb to have some entertainment from all of the scathing reviews I was sure I would find... Well, the critics didn't even bother to review it and the only published review was from a person who is probably related to the director or the producer. This film is so bad, I'm sure 40 years from now it will be a cult film simply for its downright awful acting!

It's 2016 now but it is important to tell you guys : this movie is an awful movie!! I've watched lots of live-action movies but this is unacceptable!! First , about the whole movie. It was so fast. I know , it is hard to turn an anime with 40 episodes to a movie about 2 hours but I blame it on the director. Everything went to fast. André confessed to Oscar too soon , Rosalie cannot suddenly appear and say: You kill my mother,... Secondly, about the characters. Oscar is a strong woman but the Oscar that I saw in this movie isn't strong enough to be Oscar. She seems to be like a random girl from lots of movies. And André was such a failure!! I was so surprised when I saw him.His character has turned to be a douchebag. It is okay if this is a random movie. But it's a live-action so all the changes in this movie is unacceptable because it went too far from the manga/anime!! I hope you guys will not see this movie when you've already watched the anime

I'm a crazy fan of Rose of Versailles manga for a long long time, and I watch anime version, some scene of Takazakura version, a rock musical version in Italia. All of them are really close to the original one, but when I watch this live action, I cannot believe it belongs to Hollywood =='Totally holly crap, it destroy the characters of Riyoko Ikeda sensei. Especially Oscar, my idol, with girly outfit that I have no idea how she can survive in the army like that. They should choose another actress who look more like man and have strong personality. Moreover, Oscar's characteristic is broken 100% in this live action. When her father slapped her for disobeying the royal order, she slapped him back. OMG how a daughter can do this to her own father, even if he is doing the wrong thing??????????? Besides that, the scene with Andre in 12h July 1789 is unacceptable, and the worst thing is that : Oscar doesn't lead French people to attack Bastile Prison like manga, how pity !!! The ending is Andre comes out to see the revolution then he is shot and die????? Next thing is Oscar searches for him in the crowd without knowing that he is death???????????????? I just like what sh*t I just watch and I am really gonna angry for the description of this movie =='Really disappointed for a Hollywood production and it deserves a Golden Raspberry Awards :| Cannot understand why it has rate of 6.3 :|