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Aug. 28th, 2005 07:40 pmSo I watched the opening episode of Rome tonight, the new HBO miniseries about the civil war and Julius Caesar's rise and fall. I'm not sure our family is supposed to get HBO, but we do for some odd reason, though we never watch it. It was at least better than that atrocious network miniseries I have already forgotten the name of, but I have mixed feeling about it.
Ironically, Rome is very Roman in its sensibilities. It takes liberties with history but they're mild and frankly rather interesting. It glorifies sex and violence in arrogant and condescending ways, as HBO so often does. It caters to the shortened attention span of the MTV generation; it ostentatiously feeds the plebes. Their excuse -- repeated many times in the making-of featurette -- is that this is a pre Judeo-Christian world, a pagan world. But then, Romans had their virtus and their laws regarding decency and humanity towards others. And of course that leads one to ask -- what is our excuse?
But it's still interesting, and it has rather good visual effects; the wall paintings are historically accurate and the costumes seem to be, costuming not being my strong point. What I like most is that despite the glitzy shit that is flung all over it, underneath it had a really good screenwriter and the actors eat it up. The characters are highly dimensional -- Brutus is likeable right off the bat despite being a terrible snob, Pompey is a strong politician but also a weak man when it comes to women, Octavian is a hyperintelligent but violent child, and Caesar is a tactitian who still lets himself be duped once in a while. I like that I have conflicted emotions about the characters and that I'm not being told what to think about them. I wish the women were given a little more backstory, but then that is Roman too.
I think it's something of an irony, or perhaps just a shame, that the history of Rome -- which is the history of great architects and orators as well as great violence -- is shown in such a skewed light, but then the life of Vitruvius wouldn't entertain very many people. I have said for years that the writing is on the wall -- America is the new Rome and you have only to read Tacitus to see our future writ large in Italy's past.
It's a strange dichotomy, watching this particular retelling of the most legendary time in the history of the Roman Empire. I'll keep watching it, I think, and I'll be interested to see how it develops the story of a civil war, particularly as it is presenting that civil war to a country which is heavily divided itself just at the moment.
And by god but I would have loved a job as props artisan on that show.
Ironically, Rome is very Roman in its sensibilities. It takes liberties with history but they're mild and frankly rather interesting. It glorifies sex and violence in arrogant and condescending ways, as HBO so often does. It caters to the shortened attention span of the MTV generation; it ostentatiously feeds the plebes. Their excuse -- repeated many times in the making-of featurette -- is that this is a pre Judeo-Christian world, a pagan world. But then, Romans had their virtus and their laws regarding decency and humanity towards others. And of course that leads one to ask -- what is our excuse?
But it's still interesting, and it has rather good visual effects; the wall paintings are historically accurate and the costumes seem to be, costuming not being my strong point. What I like most is that despite the glitzy shit that is flung all over it, underneath it had a really good screenwriter and the actors eat it up. The characters are highly dimensional -- Brutus is likeable right off the bat despite being a terrible snob, Pompey is a strong politician but also a weak man when it comes to women, Octavian is a hyperintelligent but violent child, and Caesar is a tactitian who still lets himself be duped once in a while. I like that I have conflicted emotions about the characters and that I'm not being told what to think about them. I wish the women were given a little more backstory, but then that is Roman too.
I think it's something of an irony, or perhaps just a shame, that the history of Rome -- which is the history of great architects and orators as well as great violence -- is shown in such a skewed light, but then the life of Vitruvius wouldn't entertain very many people. I have said for years that the writing is on the wall -- America is the new Rome and you have only to read Tacitus to see our future writ large in Italy's past.
It's a strange dichotomy, watching this particular retelling of the most legendary time in the history of the Roman Empire. I'll keep watching it, I think, and I'll be interested to see how it develops the story of a civil war, particularly as it is presenting that civil war to a country which is heavily divided itself just at the moment.
And by god but I would have loved a job as props artisan on that show.
