new vid - "Virgin" - Rome - Vorenus & Antony

[obsessive24]

Virgin
Fandom: Rome
Song/Artist: Virgin by Manchester Orchestra
Duration: 3:48 minutes

Summary: Vorenus and Mark Antony. We've got a long way to go.
Spoilers: Whole series.
Warning for bloodiness and some nudity.

Thanks to lolachrome for consulting and enabling.

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Password: ThisHouse

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Heard don't move unless you know someone you can move
And I bruise just like anyone would bruise
And I know we've got a long way to go
I know I've got so far

We built this house with our hands, and our time, and our blood
You build this up in one day to fall downward and rust
You built this house with your hands, and your time, and your blood
We built this up in one day to fall downward and rust

I'm gone, you tried to emphasize and side with both your ghosts
In time I swore I'd take the straight and narrow path but still won't
I hold his ear I'm only trying to do my job tonight
Kiss him on top his lips and crucify the fire

Never really feel the same
Never gonna be the same

Trust in me the same way (with your time, your blood)
Holy or inane (To fall downward and)


I make good on my promise to vid Vorenus and Mark Antony after Animal Instinct. I expected slash or character study; not sure what it turned out to be in the end. I only know that Kevin McKidd and James Purefoy are exponentially hotter when together than apart. And then the song found me and I was exceptionally seduced by the line "we built this up in one day", cos it's Rome, geddit? Bwahahaha.

In seriousness, the vid completely ran away from me. It's been stagnating on my hard drive since Augustus while better (and easier!) vids came and went, and I think one of the main reasons was because I couldn't make heads or tails of the narrative as a relationship study, either as dual character or shipper. The intention was to show how the core power dynamic between Vorenus and Antony endures, despite their constantly fluctuating roles in society, but eh, for something that I can't fully wrap my own head around, I don't fancy my chances of explaining it to the audience. I showed it to M and his immediate reaction was "you either need to have a lot more Vorenus/Antony, or a lot less." Sums up my issues in a nutshell. For all the focus on them, they remain very much ciphers to the end.

So for me the issue (or "experimental element", depending on how much I want to gloss over the issue) is "but what about Vorenus and Antony?" Is it enough of a concept to have these two - especially Vorenus - to purely act as witness to something that's much larger than themselves, and leave it at that? And most importantly, given the amount of sex and death on this show, there's the question of "Who is the virgin? Why are they the virgin?" and I think my personal answer to that is "everybody who's caught up in these huge historical tides that they can't fully control", the degree of impotence and innocence there, despite all that they've seen and done. That interpretation basically has to include everyone ever, but in the context of this vid, it's specifically Antony and Vorenus, also Caesar to some extent. The only person who feasibly could be said to have escaped that definition could be Octavian - certainly not how he is in-show or in-history, but perhaps in the context of this vid.

I framed the overall progression as one of order falling into disorder, which over-simplifies, but I think it keeps things cleaner emotionally. Maybe because the descent is more how I see Antony himself pre- and post-Caesar, rather than the Republic->Empire as a whole.

The song also has an interesting pro vid. A bit preachy, but the images are cool nonetheless.