The Man in the Iron Mask

Dir: Randall Wallace

1998

***

You can tell a classical adaptation by the decade it was made. I think the 1970s remains the peak decade, everything before and after still haven’t quite matched it, but then I think the same could be said of all genres of film, the 1970s were the best. After Ridley Scott’s Gladiator the grand epic made a revival, with very few being of great quality, and the swashbuckler seemed to all but disappear. Randall Wallace’s adaptation of The Vicomte de Bragelonne isn’t great but it is very 90s, making it not so bad. It hasn’t aged well but I really dig it, as it reminds me of how wonderfully silly many 90s films were. It also shamelessly copies Richard Lester’s Three Musketter films, although it has very little of their charm. For me it was all about the cast and their performances. It was a relatively early film for Leonardo DiCaprio who was a real pin-up at the time, so choosing such a deplorable role was very canny of him. It did him well to play the villain and he plays it well, but his character is also the bad boy that many a young girl is attracted to, so it is a role with duel reward – which is fair I guess, seeing as it is also a literal duel role. Jeremy Irons plays Aramis, John Malkovich plays Athos, Gerard Depardieu plays Porthos and Gabriel Byrne is D'Artagnan. It seemed a novelty for Irons to play a good guy for once and he suited the role well. Gerard Depardieu seems a far too obvious choice for Porthos but you wouldn’t want anyone else and Gabriel Byrne is rather good as D'Artagnan. I think my favourite performance was from John Malkovich, and to cast Peter Sarsgaard as his son was a genius decision. The film is more Douglas Fairbanks than it is Alexandre Dumas but it is what it is. Set in 1662 (half a century before the real Louis XIV’s birth), the Kingdom of France faces bankruptcy from King Louis XIV's wars against the Dutch Republic, which has left the country's agriculture impeded by a heavy tax burden and forced the citizens to live on rotten food. Though the country appears to be on the verge of a revolution, Louis continues to spend his time preparing for war and seducing countless women. The three musketeers have gone their separate ways; Aramis is now an aging priest, Porthos has become a philandering drunk, and Athos is retired and living with his only son, Raoul, who aspires to join the Musketeers. Only D'Artagnan has remained with the Musketeers, now serving as their Captain. Aramis learns that the Jesuit order has declared Louis's wars unjust and the source of public hunger and outrage. Louis personally instructs Aramis to secretly hunt down and kill the Jesuit leader. Also in attendance are Raoul and his fiancée, Christine Bellefort. Louis immediately sets his sights on Christine, but faithful to Raoul, she resists his affections. A Jesuit assassin attempts to kill Louis but is killed by D'Artagnan instead. Louis immediately plots to seduce Christine by having Raoul sent to the battlefront. D'Artagnan visits his old friend Athos to warn him of the danger Raoul faces but then Raoul arrives and informs his father he has been recalled to his regiment because he believes Louis desires Christine, Athos turns on his friend and holds him partly responsible. Raoul nevertheless resolves to go because he will not risk making Christine a widow nor consider himself a coward. Athos angrily warns D'Artagnan that if Raoul is harmed, then Louis will become his enemy. D'Artagnan tells Athos he will personally speak to Louis about the situation. An angry crowd from Paris attacks the Musketeers when they are fed rotten food, but D'Artagnan calms the crowd and says he will personally speak to Louis about public hunger. Louis assures D'Artagnan he will deal with the matter, and that Raoul will return soon from the war. Instead, Louis orders his chief adviser Pierre executed for distributing the rotten food (despite the fact that Louis earlier ordered him to do so), and orders that all rioters are to be shot from now on. Raoul joins the war and is killed at the battlefront by cannon fire. Upon learning of his son's death, Athos attempts to kill Louis but is stopped by D'Artagnan, and goes into exile. Louis invites Christine to the royal palace and coerces her into sex by pretending to care for her mourning and by promising to have his personal doctor treat her sick mother and sister and has them sent to recover at his country estate. Aramis summons Porthos, Athos and D'Artagnan for a secret meeting in which he reveals that he himself is the Jesuits' leader and has a plan to depose Louis. Athos and Porthos agree, but D'Artagnan refuses to cooperate citing his oath of honor cannot be removed or betrayed. Athos angrily confronts D'Artagnan over his devotion and loyalty to Louis, but D'Artagnan still refuses to join their plot. Athos brands him a traitor and threatens him with death should they ever meet again. The three musketeers enter a remote prison and smuggle out an unnamed prisoner in an iron mask, taking him to the countryside, where Aramis reveals that he is Philippe, Louis's identical twin brother. Aramis reveals that the night Louis was born, his mother, Queen Anne, gave birth to twins. Louis XIII, hoping to avoid dynastic warfare between his sons, sent Philippe away to live in the countryside with no knowledge of his true identity. On his deathbed, Louis XIII revealed Philippe's existence to Anne and Louis. Anne, having been told by her priest that Philippe had died at birth, then wished to restore Philippe's birthright. But Louis, now king and too superstitious to have his brother killed, had Philippe imprisoned instead in the iron mask to keep his identity secret, something Aramis reluctantly carried out. Aramis's plan is now to redeem himself and save France by replacing Louis with Philippe. The musketeers begin training Philippe to act and behave like Louis, while Athos develops fatherly feelings for him. At a masquerade ball, the musketeers lure Louis to his quarters and subdue him, dressing Philippe in his clothes while taking Louis to the dungeons. D'Artagnan uncovers the ruse, after Christine accuses Philippe with evidence of Louis's role in Raoul's death and is not rebuffed. He forcibly escorts Philippe to the dungeons and they confront the musketeers before they can take Louis to the Bastille. They trade twins, but Philippe is captured before the musketeers escape. D'Artagnan is shocked to learn who Philippe is and begs Louis not to kill him, as does Anne. Louis refuses, but after Philippe pleads with Louis to kill him rather than put him back in the mask, Louis decides to send Philippe to the Bastille and have the mask placed on him again, cynically stating Philippe will "wear the mask until [he] love[s] it...and die in it". He orders D'Artagnan to bring him the severed heads of Athos, Porthos and Aramis or Louis will have his head. Meanwhile, Christine commits suicide by hanging herself outside Louis's bedroom window out of grief and remorse. D'Artagnan contacts his friends for help in rescuing Philippe from the Bastille. Louis, who suspected D'Artagnan would help his friends, ambushes them at the prison. Though he offers D'Artagnan clemency in exchange for surrender, D'Artagnan refuses, privately revealing to Philippe and his friends that Louis and Philippe are actually his sons from an affair with the Queen. He also reveals he never knew Philippe existed, and never felt pride as a father until now. They charge one final time at Louis and his men and are fired upon; their bravery compels the soldiers to close their eyes before firing and all miss. Louis attempts to stab Philippe but wounds D'Artagnan fatally. Philippe attacks Louis but stops when D'Artagnan reminds him that Louis is his brother. Athos asks D'Artagnan's forgiveness, realizing his loyalty to Louis was out of fatherly devotion to his son, the same fatherly devotion Athos had to his son Raoul. D'Artagnan dies in his friends' arms. D'Artagnan's top lieutenant, Andre, angered by his mentor's death, swears his men to secrecy and orders them out of the prison, siding with Philippe. He and the Musketeers switch the twins' places again. Philippe orders Louis locked away and fed by a deaf mute, placing him in the iron mask, and then names Athos, Porthos and Aramis as his royal counsel. A small funeral is held for D'Artagnan, where Philippe admits to Athos that he has come to love him like a father, which Athos reciprocates. Philippe later issues Louis a royal pardon and sends him to live peacefully in the countryside visited often by Anne, and goes on to become one of France's greatest kings. The tombstone of D'Artagnan has an iron mask imprint chiseled upon it by his friends with Philippe saying earlier that due to his secret, D'Artagnan was the real man in the iron mask. In Alexandre Dumas's The Vicomte de Bragelonne, although the plot to replace King Louis XIV with his twin brother is foiled, the twin is initially depicted as a much more sympathetic character than the King. However, in the last part of the novel, the King is portrayed as an intelligent, more mature, and slightly misunderstood man who in fact deserves the throne - and the Musketeers themselves are split, Aramis (with assistance from Porthos, who is ignorant and easily duped) siding with the prisoner, D'Artagnan with King Louis, and Athos retiring from politics entirely. D'Artagnan, foiling the plot of the others, is tasked with capturing his friends, who have taken refuge in a fortress in Bretony: he resigns his command, knowing that he will be arrested and his subordinate will open fire anyway. Without D'Artagnan's command and his tactical knowledge of his friends-turned-foes, Aramis's fortress refuge is taken by the king's men but at great loss of life, while Porthos dies in a heroic last stand and Aramis escapes to take political asylum in Spain (and later return as a member of the Spanish embassage, to ensure their neutrality should France and Holland come to blows.) D'Artagnan explains himself to the King, and is pardoned and restored to his position, and told that if he wants the final promotion he was on the point of earning, he had better go and win it on a foreign field: in the later war against Holland, he is finally awarded promotion to the supreme command, only to be killed while reading the notice of his promotion at the siege of Maastricht. I can see why the change was made but the ending of the film is fairly rubbish compared to the classic novel. It’s a bit of fluff, a Sunday afternoon film. It’s a terrible adaptation and not a particularly well made film but it’s incredibly watchable and totally forgivable.