viewing catch-up: historical dramas and movies
Comments (and a couple youtube vids) on a bunch of historical movies and miniseries I’ve watched recently, mostly biopics of historical women, in an attempt to catch up on posting.
Agora: A Spanish movie about the Greek philosopher, Hypatia. See this trailer?
Doesn’t that look awesome? Isn’t Rachel fabulous? She is, IT ISN’T. I’m not sure what’s strong: the way it made my obsessed with Hypatia (books, fiction or non-fiction, rec them to me), or my utter hatred of this movie. See the guy shoving her against a pillar about ¾ through? That’s Davus, a slave who’s in love with her. He helps burn down the Library of Alexandria, and then almost rapes her. He’s also the POV character. Yes, this movie’s POV character is a book burning attempted rapist. It actually made me utterly unsympathetic to slaves. I mean, serious, how do you create a character so repulsive and unsympathetic that the viewer can’t sympathize with slaves. The movie isn’t even about Hypatia, anyway. It’s a movie about the Greek men and the Christian men pontificating with random religious zealotry thrown in, and Hypatia shows up sometimes to be amazingly awesome.
The movie is made even worse by the fact that the acting is amazing, as are the visuals and almost every bit of cinematography. It just highlights how awful the plot is, and how good it could have been.
Beulah Land: I’ve seen this referred to as a “P.C. Gone With the Wind,” which is fairly accurate. And has Leslie Ann Warren, a rather subtle, secondary lesbian pairing, a nice unrequited, mostly one-sided romance (I was sad that it never happened!). The attitudes of the protagonists were a bit modern at times (well, 1980s modern) but not too annoyingly so, and it was largely pretty fun. Sadly, I’ve never been big on the glories of the Old South (though the series itself is also a bit jaded on that)
Duchess of Duke Street: Series 1-2 : A 70s BBC series about Louisa Leyton, a fictional mistress of King Edward VII when he’s still the Prince of Wales. The first few episodes are about Louisa’s early years as an apprentice chef and Edward’s mistress, and most of the series is about her life and the mistress of the exclusive Bentinck Hotel, and the lives of her staff. It shares a producer with Upstairs, Downstairs, and this shows strongly in both the formatting and the focus on the differences and bonds between employers and servants. Louisa isn’t always easy to like, but she’s a pure force of nature. I liked all the characters, including Louisa’s off-and-on love, Charlie, who I expected to really dislike at first.
Lillie: Complete Series: Another 70s BBC series about a mistress of Edward VII, but a real one. Specifically, Lillie Langtry. I really liked the first half (maybe closer to 2/3?) after the rather slow first episode (which has a 5 second cameo of Anthony Head as one of Lillie’s brothers) but was a little less engrossed by the later parts. Partly because I didn’t care as much for who Lillie later became (though it seems to be fairly accurate for her in history) but also because, since the series roughly 60 years, characters tend to come and go without explanation, and some of the later parts felt more like a collection of scenes than a cohesive story.
Miss Austen Regrets: Part of BBC’s “The Jane Austen Season” from a couple years back, this stars Olivia Williams as Austen late in her life (beginning just after she finished Emma, and ending with her death). I think even people who aren’t fans of Austen would like this, as long as they were interested in historical women, or the situation and frustrations of authoresses of the past. A clip:
I warn to avoid the intro if you find a version that includes it, as it annoys and sets a tone that jars with the movie itself. Also, press I’ve seen for this insists on talking about Austen’s Lost True Love of something, which is about as far from the theme of the movie as possible.
Return to Cranford: A sequel to my precious the Cranford mini from a couple years ago. While North and South is the most popular adaptation of Gaskell’s novels and Wives and Daughters is probably the best (and I’m very fond of both, esp. W&D) I think Cranford is the one I enjoy the most. I admit, though, that a lot of that is that it’s Judi Dench and a bunch of older BCC actresses who usually get pushed to the side to support The Pretty Young Things being the leads, while The Pretty Young Things support them. (Mind you, I’m quite fond of The Pretty Young Things in most cases, but, you know…) I liked it a lot, and it had the charm of the first mini, but wasn’t quite as good. Most of the material from the book was in the first mini, so this has the few bits that weren’t, some original material, and then incorporates Moorland Cottage, which I’m not familiar with.
Victoria and Albert and Young Victoria: Two productions about Queen Victoria that I probably watched too closely together. Victoria isn’t really one of my favorite historical women, but anyone who has years and years of a happy marriage and has something resembling a “normal” family with a tons of kids while ruling a country is awesome in my book. I thought both were well cast (I freely confess that a lot of my interest in Young Victoria was that it had Emily Blunt and Miranda Richardson) but neither quite worked for me. Victoria and Albert focused heavily on the early conflict between Victoria and Albert, and annoyed me by clearly siding with him, despite being sympathetic to Victoria. Young Victoria meanwhile, tried to cram too many politics into too short a movie, and seemed to think that Victoria herself was boring. Despite my natural shunning of that, I think anything that assumes its main character isn’t interesting is going to have problems from the start. But Emily the movie was very pretty.
Agora: A Spanish movie about the Greek philosopher, Hypatia. See this trailer?
Click to viewDoesn’t that look awesome? Isn’t Rachel fabulous? She is, IT ISN’T. I’m not sure what’s strong: the way it made my obsessed with Hypatia (books, fiction or non-fiction, rec them to me), or my utter hatred of this movie. See the guy shoving her against a pillar about ¾ through? That’s Davus, a slave who’s in love with her. He helps burn down the Library of Alexandria, and then almost rapes her. He’s also the POV character. Yes, this movie’s POV character is a book burning attempted rapist. It actually made me utterly unsympathetic to slaves. I mean, serious, how do you create a character so repulsive and unsympathetic that the viewer can’t sympathize with slaves. The movie isn’t even about Hypatia, anyway. It’s a movie about the Greek men and the Christian men pontificating with random religious zealotry thrown in, and Hypatia shows up sometimes to be amazingly awesome.
The movie is made even worse by the fact that the acting is amazing, as are the visuals and almost every bit of cinematography. It just highlights how awful the plot is, and how good it could have been.
Beulah Land: I’ve seen this referred to as a “P.C. Gone With the Wind,” which is fairly accurate. And has Leslie Ann Warren, a rather subtle, secondary lesbian pairing, a nice unrequited, mostly one-sided romance (I was sad that it never happened!). The attitudes of the protagonists were a bit modern at times (well, 1980s modern) but not too annoyingly so, and it was largely pretty fun. Sadly, I’ve never been big on the glories of the Old South (though the series itself is also a bit jaded on that)
Duchess of Duke Street: Series 1-2 : A 70s BBC series about Louisa Leyton, a fictional mistress of King Edward VII when he’s still the Prince of Wales. The first few episodes are about Louisa’s early years as an apprentice chef and Edward’s mistress, and most of the series is about her life and the mistress of the exclusive Bentinck Hotel, and the lives of her staff. It shares a producer with Upstairs, Downstairs, and this shows strongly in both the formatting and the focus on the differences and bonds between employers and servants. Louisa isn’t always easy to like, but she’s a pure force of nature. I liked all the characters, including Louisa’s off-and-on love, Charlie, who I expected to really dislike at first.
Lillie: Complete Series: Another 70s BBC series about a mistress of Edward VII, but a real one. Specifically, Lillie Langtry. I really liked the first half (maybe closer to 2/3?) after the rather slow first episode (which has a 5 second cameo of Anthony Head as one of Lillie’s brothers) but was a little less engrossed by the later parts. Partly because I didn’t care as much for who Lillie later became (though it seems to be fairly accurate for her in history) but also because, since the series roughly 60 years, characters tend to come and go without explanation, and some of the later parts felt more like a collection of scenes than a cohesive story.
Miss Austen Regrets: Part of BBC’s “The Jane Austen Season” from a couple years back, this stars Olivia Williams as Austen late in her life (beginning just after she finished Emma, and ending with her death). I think even people who aren’t fans of Austen would like this, as long as they were interested in historical women, or the situation and frustrations of authoresses of the past. A clip:
I warn to avoid the intro if you find a version that includes it, as it annoys and sets a tone that jars with the movie itself. Also, press I’ve seen for this insists on talking about Austen’s Lost True Love of something, which is about as far from the theme of the movie as possible.
Return to Cranford: A sequel to my precious the Cranford mini from a couple years ago. While North and South is the most popular adaptation of Gaskell’s novels and Wives and Daughters is probably the best (and I’m very fond of both, esp. W&D) I think Cranford is the one I enjoy the most. I admit, though, that a lot of that is that it’s Judi Dench and a bunch of older BCC actresses who usually get pushed to the side to support The Pretty Young Things being the leads, while The Pretty Young Things support them. (Mind you, I’m quite fond of The Pretty Young Things in most cases, but, you know…) I liked it a lot, and it had the charm of the first mini, but wasn’t quite as good. Most of the material from the book was in the first mini, so this has the few bits that weren’t, some original material, and then incorporates Moorland Cottage, which I’m not familiar with.
Victoria and Albert and Young Victoria: Two productions about Queen Victoria that I probably watched too closely together. Victoria isn’t really one of my favorite historical women, but anyone who has years and years of a happy marriage and has something resembling a “normal” family with a tons of kids while ruling a country is awesome in my book. I thought both were well cast (I freely confess that a lot of my interest in Young Victoria was that it had Emily Blunt and Miranda Richardson) but neither quite worked for me. Victoria and Albert focused heavily on the early conflict between Victoria and Albert, and annoyed me by clearly siding with him, despite being sympathetic to Victoria. Young Victoria meanwhile, tried to cram too many politics into too short a movie, and seemed to think that Victoria herself was boring. Despite my natural shunning of that, I think anything that assumes its main character isn’t interesting is going to have problems from the start. But Emily the movie was very pretty.