Son of a slave and a white planter from Guadeloupe, Joseph Bologne de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) was around twelve years old when his father introduced him to the Académie de La Boëssière, where he receives the education of a French gentleman. Brilliant student, virtuoso violinist and high-level fencer, the young man of great beauty became the darling of all of Paris and even entered the private circle of Marie-Antoinette, who made him a knight. In the midst of the French Revolution, he joined the Legion of Americans. Having escaped the guillotine, he died in poverty at the age of 54.
If, nowadays, the name of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges is not as well known as that of Mozart, whom he would have influenced during a stay of the Austrian genius in the City of Light, it is because Napoleon Bonaparte , by restoring slavery in the French colonies, did everything so that his compositions would be forgotten forever. By devoting a biographical drama to him, director Stephen Williams and screenwriter Stefani Robinson missed the opportunity to pay him a tribute worthy of his talent.
Camped in an anachronistic Paris that is too clean to be true, with Haussmann buildings to boot, Knight chronicles the prejudice, humiliation, violent attacks and racism that St. George, played by the charismatic Kelvin Harrison Jr., faced throughout his life. In doing so, the creators highlighted one of the many liaisons he had, that with the singer Marie-Joséphine de Montalembert (Samara Weaving), wife of an ugly marquis (Marton Csokas), for us recount the main lines of his life. Why reduce the extraordinary destiny of a composer of genius to bedtime stories?
Worse still, a rivalry between Saint-Georges and the German composer Christoph Gluck, both tipped to conduct the Paris Opera, is invented from scratch. For a large part of the film, we therefore witness the creation of the opera Ernestine. Between two bed scenes, we are shown ad nauseam the same excerpt where the singers massacre the French: “Mooon amouuu’! Maaa douuuleuuu! Note also that none of the passages in French and Creole are subtitled.
What audience is this aesthetic film really aimed at? To those who lost their temper before the devastating charm of Regé-Jean Page in Bridgerton ? As proof, the opening scene where Saint-Georges and Mozart (Joseph Prowen) engage in a ” rap battle with a bow. And what about one-dimensional characters? Philippe (Alex Fitzalan) does not have the makings of a revolutionary; Marie-Antoinette (Lucy Boynton) looks like a common courtesan moving freely through the streets of Paris; and La Guimard (Minnie Driver), one of the singers who slowed down Saint-Georges’ career, displays her intentions on her forehead.
As the wind of revolution blows timidly, Knight ends where the story could have finally gotten tougher. In order to discover the genius and the life of Saint-Georges, it will be better to see The Black Mozart. Reviving a Legenddocumentary by Raymond Saint-Jean interspersed with excerpts from his works, where violinists explain all the complexity of his compositions.