Lady Oscar

Lady Oscar (Japanese: ベルサイユのばら Hepburn: Berusaiyu no bara, "The Rose of Versailles") is a 1979 English-language romantic period drama film, based on the manga The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda. The film was written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music composed by his regular collaborator Michel Legrand. The Japanese-French co-production was produced by Mataichiro Yamamoto for Kitty Films, Nippon TV, Toho, and Ciné Tamaris, and was filmed on location in France. Catriona MacColl stars as the eponymous Oscar François de Jarjayes, with Barry Stokes as her lover André Grandier, alongside Jonas Bergström, Christine Böhm, Mark Kingston, Georges Wilson, Sue Lloyd, Martin Potter, and Anouska Hempel. A young Lambert Wilson appears in a minor role. Plot General Jarjayes' wife dies while giving birth to a baby girl. Frustrated by this and refusing to believe his wife would die without giving him a male heir, the General names the girl Oscar François de Jarjayes and decides to raise her as a boy. He tells his housekeeper that her son, André, will grow up with Oscar and become her best friend, as the General believes the girl should be around men. As the years go by, the two children grow up to be inseparable friends, while Oscar learns to sword-fight and behaves like a boy. Despite belonging to a different social strata from Oscar, André starts developing romantic feelings for her. However, she does not feel the same way about him and only loves him as a brother. The Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, like many within the aristocracy, is fascinated by Oscar and eventually decides to give her an honored position as a personal guard. The Queen, a vain ruler who does not care about the terrible conditions in which the commoners of France live, is unsatisfied with her arranged marriage to the King and does not love him. She decides to have a lover, aristocrat Hans Axel Von Fersen. This secret eventually becomes public knowledge and becomes further proof of the Crown's hypocrisy. The people of France get angrier and their hunger for Revolution gets even stronger.