Danton wasn’t Andrzej Wajda’s first brush with Stanisława Przybyszewska’s seminal work of Polish political theatre, Danton’s Case (1929), which he first directed for the stage in 1975 at Teatr Powszechny, to rave reviews. The 1981 Palme d’Or success of Man of Iron facilitated making Wajda’s next film in the form a lavish Polish-French co-production (scripted by Jean-Claude Carriere, who sat on the Cannes jury that awarded Wajda). Two riveting performances — titular one by Gérard Depardieu, as well as Wojciech Pszoniak’s magnetic Robespierre — are two magnificent anchors for the historical drama of the great conflict between two chief architects of the French Revolution, a moderate and a radical.

Wajda proved a perfect director for a white-hot political costume drama, coming from a country experiencing its own political upheaval in the early 1980s. The film remains a first-rate spectacle and a poignant political tale, in which people leave and breathe lofty ideas, making them into flesh (and blood) of everyday political change.