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That Night in Varennes

That Night in Varennes (French: La Nuit de Varennes; Italian release title: Il mondo nuovo) is a 1982 historical drama directed by Ettore Scola, a French-Italian co-production that follows a stagecoach of passengers who, on a June night in 1791, travel the same road as the fleeing Louis XVI and witness his arrest at Varennes.1 • 2 The screenplay by Sergio Amidei and Scola adapts Catherine Rihoit's novel La Nuit de Varennes ou l'Impossible n'est pas français.3 • 4

Key factDetail
Director and writersEttore Scola; screenplay and dialogue by Scola and Sergio Amidei, from the novel by Catherine Rihoit1 • 3
ProductionFrance and Italy, 1982; produced by Renzo Rossellini for Gaumont, FR3, and Opera Film Produzione1 • 5
SettingA June night in 1791, along the route of Louis XVI's flight from Paris to the frontier, ending at Varennes2
Principal castJean-Louis Barrault (Restif de la Bretonne), Marcello Mastroianni (Casanova), Hanna Schygulla (Countess Sophie de la Borde), Harvey Keitel (Thomas Paine)6
Running timeAbout 153 minutes in the Cannes listing; the Quebec classification records 152 minutes2 • 7
Festival and awardsIn competition for the Palme d'Or at Cannes 1982; three David di Donatello awards in 1983 (screenplay, production design, costume design)8 • 9
ReleaseFrance 15 May 1982; Italy 23 September 1982; later openings through 1989 in the UK1

Spoilers

Premise

The film takes one real night of the French Revolution, the royal family's failed escape from Paris, and watches it from a coach that runs parallel to the king's carriage. Restif de la Bretonne, the libertine writer, sees a mysterious carriage leave the Palais Royal and decides to follow it; along the post-road stops he falls in with an odd company of passengers, among them an aging Casanova and royalists in flight.2 • 10 The passengers pass the time discussing life, love, politics, and the Revolution, and learn that the royal family has fled Paris; reaching Varennes, they witness the king's arrest.2

The travelers hold divided opinions about the Revolution, the monarchy, the rights of man, and the future of France. The Austrian countess among them, Sophie de la Borde, turns out to have a direct stake in the flight: she is one of the Queen's ladies in waiting.11

Cast and characters

The ensemble mixes historical figures with fictional ones. Jean-Louis Barrault plays Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne, Marcello Mastroianni plays Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, Hanna Schygulla plays Countess Sophie de la Borde, and Harvey Keitel plays Thomas Paine.6 The supporting cast includes Jean-Claude Brialy as Monsieur Jacob, Andréa Ferréol as the rich widow Madame Adélaïde Gagnon, Jean-Louis Trintignant as Monsieur Sauce, Michel Vitold as the magistrate De Florange, Laura Betti as Virginia Capacelli, Enzo Jannacci as an Italian clown, Pierre Malet as the student revolutionary Emile Delage, and Daniel Gélin as the industrialist De Wendel.6 • 2

The royal couple themselves appear without billing: Michel Piccoli plays King Louis XVI and Eléonore Hirt plays Marie-Antoinette, both uncredited.6

Production

The project came to Scola through Daniel Toscan du Plantier, who proposed a film about Louis XVI at Varennes.12 Claude Manceron served as historical consultant.6 The crew included the cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi, editor Raimondo Crociani, composer Armando Trovajoli, production designer Dante Ferretti, and costume designer Gabriella Pescucci.1 Some scenes were shot at the Château de Versailles, which lists the film in its record of productions made on the estate.13

Sergio Amidei, the co-screenwriter, died in 1981, the year before release, and the film is dedicated to him.14

Release and reception

The film competed at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and was released in France on 15 May 1982 and in Italy that September, followed by openings across Europe over the next seven years.8 • 1 At the 1983 David di Donatello awards it won Best Screenplay, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design.9 • 15 • 19 On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.2 out of 10 from about 2,800 votes.16

Place in Scola's work

Scola had worked chiefly in the Italian comedy genre through the 1960s and 1970s, with a critical interest in Italian social problems in films such as We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974) and A Special Day (1977). With La Nuit de Varennes he widened his field to an episode of French Revolutionary history, and, as a scholarly study notes, he focused less on the royal couple's epic than on "secondary" characters confronting a change of era and the flight of time.17 Roger Ebert's review observed that Mastroianni's aging Casanova was a variant of the performance he might have given in Fellini's Casanova (1977), had Fellini not cast Donald Sutherland instead.18

The film has remained in circulation: it streams on the Criterion Channel in the United States and is available on disc and digital rental in several countries.16

References

  1. That Night in Varennes (La nuit de Varennes), Cineuropa
  2. La Nuit de Varennes, Festival de Cannes (Cinéma de la plage page)
  3. La Nuit de Varennes, Festival Premiers Plans d'Angers program notes (La Rochelle festival PDF)
  4. À la recherche de la noblesse émigrée dans les films français concernant la Révolution française, QUAINA
  5. The Night at Varennes = La nuit de Varennes, ACMI collection
  6. That Night in Varennes (1982), Full cast & crew, IMDb
  7. La nuit de Varennes, Répertoire des films classés, Québec
  8. La Nuit de Varennes, Festival de Cannes (1982 competition page)
  9. That Night in Varennes, Where to Watch and Stream, TV Guide
  10. La Nuit de Varennes, JustWatch (France)
  11. Rendezvous with the French Revolution: Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, European Cinema, Cambridge University Press
  12. La Nuit de Varennes, Festival Premiers Plans d'Angers
  13. Liste des films tournés au Château de Versailles 1896–2024
  14. Notice bibliographique La Nuit de Varennes, Bibliothèque nationale de France
  15. That Night in Varennes (1982), Sinekatalog
  16. That Night of Varennes streaming, JustWatch (US)
  17. Temps des fuites et fuite du temps dans La Nuit de Varennes d'Ettore Scola, José Pagliardini, Cahiers d'Études Romanes (DOAJ)
  18. La Nuit de Varennes movie review, Roger Ebert
  19. David di Donatello 1983

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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That Night in Varennes

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