Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution

In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" - claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence. This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee Of Public Safety - the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France. Contesting Robespierre's legacy is Slavoj Zizek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who believes the road from Robespierre ran straight to the gulag and the 20th-century concentration camp. The drama, based on original sources, follows the life-and-death politics of the Committee during "Year Two" of the new Republic.

6.5

0 min

Cast

Jan Pearson

as Narrator (voice)

Stephen Hogan

as Maximillian Robespierre

Ed Stoppard

as Herault

Brian Pettifer

as Couthon

David Andress

as Self - Author 'The Terror'

Martin Hancock

as Collot

Colin Jones

as Self - Author 'The Great Nation'

Jonny Phillips

as Carnot

Slavoj Žižek

as Self - Author - 'In Defence of Lost Causes'

Simon Schama

as Self - Author - 'Citizens'

Marisa Linton

as Self - Author - 'The Politics of Virtue'

Hilary Mantel

as Self - Author - 'A Place of Greater Safety'

Ruth Scurr

as Self - Author 'Fatal Purity'

George Maguire

as Saint-Just

Director

Carl Hindmarch