La Mort de Danton

Steve is learning to be an actor at the prestigious Cours Simon in Paris. His ideal part? Gérard Depardieu in Danton. But “the teacher only wants to give me a part when there is a Black in the play!” Over several months Alice Diop films a turning-point in the life of this novice actor: how can he admit to his band of mates in the ‘City of 3000’ at Aulnay-sous-Bois that for three years he has been spending three hundred Euros a month to learn how to act? How can he speak to the young Parisian girls on his course without “frightening them”? How can he get his drama teacher, who in his office urges him not to “stay on the sidelines”, to give him more challenging roles than in Driving Miss Daisy? The filmmaker, who is clearly close to the person she films, starts up a dialogue with him at the point when questionings and doubts arise. Through questions and advice, Alice Diop seems to help Steve to hold on, to not give up even when he feels that he does not belong there. By alternating the actor’s transformations as a character and the involuntary transformations of a depressed Steve in bad shape, The Death of Danton shows to what extent an individual’s desire is continuously threatened with submersion. But this story of a difficult initiation can also be seen as a very different portrait, not as young or promising as Steve’s talent: the portrait of a France that still refuses to accept a black Danton.

Charlotte Garson