Jefferson in Paris

After reading, a few weeks ago, Annette Gordon-Reed's book The Heminges of Monticello, I was curious to take another look at James Ivory's 1995 film Jefferson in Paris, which covers the period when Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings began their relationship. I hadn't seen it since I saw it upon it's opening (as I look over my records, I see that I saw it on April 13, Jefferson's birthday, and at the Paris Theater in New York).

Armed with fresh knowledge of the events, the film had more resonance for me this time, but I still found it to be a bloodless pageant more than stirring drama. Part of the problem is that Ivory and his screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala adhere so strictly to the history that there's little room for emotion, particularly in the area of Jefferson and Hemings' feelings about each other.

Hemings, played by Thandie Newton, doesn't show up in the film until the half-way mark. The first portion of the film deals with Jefferson (Nick Nolte), in Paris as a diplomat, and his flirtation with Maria Cosway (Greta Scacchi), the wife on an English painter. His daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) has been entered into a convent school, though Jefferson is worried that she will become converted to Catholicism. It is after Jefferson's youngest daughter dies back home in Virginia that he sends for his middle daughter, allowing her to bring one servant with her--Sally.

The second half of the film is far more fascinating than the first, which plays like a soggy historical romance, complete with powdered wigs and courtly manners. These were formal, educated people, but I have to believe once in a while even a man like Thomas Jefferson had an unguarded moment. Jhabvala has such respect for her characters that she seems reluctant to allow them any ugliness. This is especially true of Hemings, and to be fair, there is nothing in the historical record that tells us what her personality was like, other than what her children said about her. Jefferson never wrote about her, except to note her in his farmbook (an inventory of his holdings). So, in this film, she is a bit nebulous, a girl who is afraid of ghosts, likes to dance, and favors bright colors.

Given these limitations, the film still has its moments, none so much as the momentous conclusion, when Jefferson vows to Sally's brother James, who has served his master in Paris as a chef, that he will free him if he returns to Virginia. He also swears to free Sally and her unborn child, which is Jefferson's (although it is unspoken among them) upon his death. Paltrow, also aware of what has been going on, is called upon to witness the oath and vows to carry it out. This she did.

Problematic is Nick Nolte as Jefferson. I still can't wrap my mind around how Ivory and his producer, Ismail Merchant, came to choose him as Jefferson. Yes he looks like him, but I've always thought of Nolte as a more rough-hewn kind of actor, more appropriate for Daniel Boone than the aristocratic Jefferson. As the film goes on, though, I got more used to the idea,

This is the kind of film that can be show in an advanced high school history class. It has no overt sexuality--there's only one shot of Hemings in Jefferson's bed, her bosoms heaving. But as compelling drama it falls flat.