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“Dangerous Liaisons,” Stephen Frears’s adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 epistolary novel about the sexual schemings of the French pre-revolutionary upper crust, was released in 1988. This is fitting, for no decade of the twentieth century channeled the 1780s’ “let them eat cake” conspicuous consumption more overtly than the 1980s.

By 1988, of course, an uncomfortable self-awareness was sweeping the United States and England—not only because of the 1987 stock market crash but because of the dawning realization that AIDS was here to stay unless conservatives like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan finally acknowledged it as a legitimate health crisis. The party was drawing to a close but such ridiculous glitz as big hair, blackened catfish, and gold lamé dresses still dominated the cultural zeitgeist. If you replaced the post-punk soundtrack with the trilling of opera and slitted your eyes just the right way, it all looked exactly like Marie Antoinette’s doomed palace.

It is also fitting that Stephen Frears directed this adaptation. In such earlier projects as “My Beautiful Laundrette” (1985), in which he introduced the angular genius of Daniel Day Lewis to the world, and “Prick Up Your Ears” (1987), about the ill-fated gay playwright Joe Orton, the helmer had established his fierce class politics through the medium of sexual politics. With “Liaisons,” he was in his element, then—allowed to eat his cake too. Continue Reading →