Danton

Danton (1983) — watch online on iFILM. Andrzej Wajda directed this French-Polish historical drama with Gérard Depardieu in the title role, shooting it in Paris in 1982 while martial law was in force back in Poland.

November 1793. Robespierre's guillotine moves through names daily. Georges Danton rides back into Paris from his country retreat to demand an end to the killing — and promptly becomes the next name on the list. Depardieu plays him as a loud, physical, flesh-and-blood man who knows exactly where this is heading and speaks at full volume anyway. Wojciech Pszoniak's Robespierre is his opposite: cold, precise, unblinking.

The political allegory was not subtle and was not meant to be — audiences in Warsaw and Kraków in 1983 read it in minutes. A revolution turns on the people who first believed in it. Stream Danton online on iFILM.