A Century Gone in the Teeth
So, the first episode of the HBO/BBC Rome. If you suspected, like me, that there’s not a lot new to do with this particular story, I don’t think tonight changed your opinion. That leaves us with the enduring questions - How much frontal? How much kinky sex? What twists on the ‘honorable Centurion’ and scheming wench and other stock roles? Answers so far: reasonable amounts of nudity, strictly vanilla coition, the whacked-out condemned soldier guy, kind of fun.
I was impressed by the casting of Brutus - nicely left field. And the show’s thesis is plainly that, as has been said, the Republic was a fruit ready to fall. I’ll keep watching, but the time between episodes will not, I think, seem to drag.
I would like, sometime, to see such a show with an American cast. I think going to the accent pimps (the BBC, that is) for talent provides American audiences with an undeserved distancing mechanism. Why not do a “Fall of the Republic” miniseries with some great Italian-American actors in the central roles? Remove the last whiffs of gentility (which is what English accents evoke in Americans regardless of the actual class of the speaker) and reserve. I suppose you’ll tell me we already did this and called it the Godfather movies. But I’d still like to try it straight.
Comment by Scott Scheule —
August 28, 2005 @ 11:15 pm
Jim, c’mon. We already had that! They were called The Godfather movies.
Comment by Avram —
August 28, 2005 @ 11:17 pm
“Hey, Carthago delenda est, yaknowwaddamean?”
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 28, 2005 @ 11:21 pm
Scott, you know how to hit your cues, man. Avram: you’re not talking . . . French, are you?
Comment by julian —
August 29, 2005 @ 1:03 am
Worth waiting to see if it improves. Didn’t think much of the first two episodes of Deadwood, either, and look where -that- went.
Comment by Hesiod —
August 29, 2005 @ 8:30 am
I don’t get HBO, so I missed it.
Seeing as how I’m a Roman Republican history buff, you’d think I’d enjoy this show. And maybe I would.
But the whole Julius Caesar, fall of the Roman Republic saga has been (literally and figurateively) done to death.
I was hoping they’d at least put a fresh gloss on it by adapting Colleen McCullough’s terrific Masters of Rome series of novels. Those start with the rise of Gaius Marius and Lucious Cornelius Sulla, at least a full generation before Caesar was even born, and end with Augustus and Marcus Antonious defeating Brutus and Cassius.
But, Sadly No!
I understand the dramatist’s attraction to doing, yet another, Fall of the Roman Republic story. It has recognizable historical figures, shakespearean oevrtones (literally — heh), and it has alleged parallells to our times.
The problem with all of these adaptations, however, is that they always start when the Republic is already teetering and corrupt. They never begin when the Roman Republic was functioning at peak efficiency which, it operated at for literally centuries before its “rapid” collapse in the first century BCE.
As such, we never get a feeling for what was lost. It all looks so inevitable and justified, so there’s no lamenting its fall.
Folks like Cicero and Cato look like preening whiners and moralist a-holes, rather than people desperate to retain the glory of the old system, flaws and all.
Remember, Rome itself was founded on the expulsion and renunciation of kings. Or at least, that was its fioundation legend.
So, incongruously, Caesar, the would-be monarch of Rome, is usually portrayed in a favorable light. Probably the verdict of “great man” worshiping historians at work. But, from the standpoint of people who loved the old Republic, and remembered, dimly, what it was like in its heyday, he’s a villian of the highest order.
The point is, I guess, that the Roman Republic collapsed because no empire of such size and DIVERSITY, could long survive without the modern communication, economic and transportation systems we have today.
“Democracy” for an empire that large, or even our version of republicanism was just impossible. So, it either had to break apart into smaller constituencies, or more and more drastic measures (such as the rise of the politician generals) had to be adopted to keep the whole edifice from crumbling.
The moral of this story? Wake me when somebody does a show about the Roman Republic ON THE RISE, such as the First or Second Punic wars, or when Rome conquered Greece.
Then I might care.
Comment by Jesse Walker —
August 29, 2005 @ 4:30 pm
I think going to the accent pimps (the BBC, that is) for talent provides American audiences with an undeserved distancing mechanism.
Amen! Oh how I hate the Hollywood convention that says the best way to represent that something happened a long time ago is to give the actors English accents.
That said, I’m following Julian in taking a wait-and-see attitude. The fact that both John Milius and Michael Apted popped up in the credits suggests that, if nothing else, we might be in for an interesting clash of sensibilities.
Comment by Rob —
August 29, 2005 @ 7:40 pm
Of course the biggest reason you use British actors is that they are relatively cheap. The second reason is that they tend to be classically trained as opposed to method trianed meaning you can put any type of strange dialougue in front of them and they can make it work. I think its one of the biggest reasons why the second Star Wars trilogy fell apart at times. The dialougue was bad in both trilogies but you had classically trained actors in the first three saving it from collapsing to utter foolishnees (See LOTR for further study)
Comment by Hesiod —
August 29, 2005 @ 8:25 pm
Of course the biggest reason you use British actors is that they are relatively cheap. The second reason is that they tend to be classically trained as opposed to method trianed meaning you can put any type of strange dialougue in front of them and they can make it work.
See Brando, Marlin in Julius Ceasar for case in point. If Brando couldn’t make it work, it’s highly probable that Jack Scalia isn’t going to be too suiccessful either.
Or, god forbid, Joe Montegna. He’d make the dialogue sound like Damon Runyon.