Review of The Taking of Power by Louis XIV

Apply cinema verité to an historical setting and You Are There. Rossellini succeeds in slowing the pace, but rather than making it feel slow, he makes it feel majestic, as it should be in a story about a king. Likewise, he makes the dialog conversational à la Hawks. The locations are authentic, as are the costumes and customs, thus completing the illusion.

In Olivier's Henry V, we see how a one becomes a feudal king; in The Rise of Louis XIV, we see how one becomes a Sun King.