Well, if you say so...
Martin Scorsese and Michael Hirst want to do a tv show called THE CAESARS, about the early rulers of ancient Rome.
I, Claudius who? Rome what? Well, okay, fine, it never stopped anyone in entertainment that there are earlier versions. And given how uninspired the first half of the latest Vikings season came across to me (which is why I haven't reviewed in these very pages, gentle reader), I'm not surprised Hirst is ready to move on. Allow me some amusement, though:
He says his dramas are not documentaries but the details are rooted in history: “Just like Shakespeare’s history plays, they only start with some historical facts, then the drama takes over. You can’t have both.”
Hirst, you're not Shakespare. (Not that he's more accurate, I'll grant you.) Your shows are at their best entertaining schlock with some compelling characters. Stand by it.
Also:
The Caesars aims to give a new insight into the young Julius Caesar: “In the movies he’s usually a middle-aged guy, struggling with political complexities. But he was fantastically interesting and ambitious when he was younger.
Because clearly, a middle aged guy struggling with political complexities is dull. (So much for you, Londo Mollari, character of characters of my heart.) Btw, the idea that Caesar grew less ambitious as he grew older would amuse everyone in Rome to no end. (Or not, depending on their political pov. And state of survival.) This said, Caesar's younger years are less covered. Basically, here are young Gaius Julius Caesars I recall from the last decades:
1) The one from Xena, played by Karl Urban. Spoiler: he's a villain.
2) The one from Spartacus: War of the Damned, where he's one of main antagonist Crassus' two sidekicks. Spoiler: he's a villain.
3) The one from Colleen McCulloughs Masters of Rome book series, volume 3, Fortunes' Favourites. Meant to be a hero, but alas, she commits the dreadful mistake of Gary Stuing him into boringness, here and in subsequent volumes. (Which is why I like the first two volumes with Marius and Sulla as main characters so much better. She didn't make that mistake with those two.) (Err, Caesar is around for many more books in that series, of course, but we're talking about young Caesar specifically.
4) The one from Waltraud Lewin's YA novel about young Servilia, written in German and so my knowledge not translated into English. For my money the most interesting of the lot, though she takes some liberties as in: young Servilia and Caesar already meet when Sulla rules, Servilia just got married to Brutus and Caesar is on the run. It's a coming of age novel about Servilia, and young C. is both charming and ambigious, more of a trickster character. Also prone to fall sick with Malaria at the worst moment.
Basically, there's room for Hirst to deliver his own version to pop culture, and he's bound to use both the on-the-run-from-Sulla episode and the interlude with the pirates, but what I really want to know is whether or not he'll use the King of Bithynia as boyfriend, and not, as Colleen McCullough in her Gary Stu tale did, as a paternal friend. More Hirst talk:
A lot of the Caesars came to power when they were young, and we’ve never really seen that on screen. It’s the energy, the vitality, the excess of a young culture that’s being driven by young people.
Um, what? Octavian/Augustus was young when coming to power, granted, but Tiberius was OLD. (Part of the problem. By the time he'd finally made it to the throne, he was too bitter not to take that out on people.) Caligula was young again, whereas Uncle Claudius was old. And then Nero rounds it off with another young Caesar as the last of the Julian-Claudian dynasty. That makes three young power reachers versus three old ones (if you count Caesar himself, who most definitely was NOT young when making it to true power in Rome.
Mind you, in the most recent season of Vikings, Hirst presents an adult Alfred (who has thus the bad luck to compete with the one from The Last Kingdom, and well, that's a tough job to live up to) who gets on the throne in a decidedly ahistorical way and at an ahistorical point in his life, so I wouldn't put it beyond him to shorten the reign of Augustus so Tiberius isn't that old and sour and keeping Claudius magically young. (I mean, Lagertha looks unchanged since season 1, which means the actor playing her son Björn now looks older than she does.) And of course, this is the producer/writer who cast Jonathan Rhys Meyer as Henry VIII and kept him from gaining weight and grey hair until the very last episodes of the last season of The Tudors. What confounds me is that that Hirsts older characters are more often than not his most interesting ones. His Cardinal Wolsey was the only one I was interested in in the first season of The Tudors. To give credit where due, Hirst was the only one who really used Chapuys the Imperial Ambassador as key supporting character through the entire show, and Chapuys isn't a youngster, either, at any point. As for Vikings, Siggy was my favourite for the first two seasons (alas), and never mind Ragnar, Ekbert was the magnificent bastard for me, as played by Linus Roache and thus no spring chicken, either.
Another thing: no one would ever dispute Martin Scorsese's cinematic eye, but the combination of the two definitely makes me think "male centric saga to the nth degree". And you know, not that Rome was feminist (au contraire), but Atia and Servilia were among the most memorable characters, and I, Claudius would never have had the impact it did without Livia in the first half. In conclusion: if I were you, Michael Hirst, I'd hire some female scriptwriters to work with me.
Lastly, on an unrelated note: tomorrow I'll be busy the entire day, so I won't get to watch the Star Trek: Discovery finale until the evening, if that. Pray remember the spoiler cut is your friend, oh fellow Disco admirers, and so am I!
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1272644.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
I, Claudius who? Rome what? Well, okay, fine, it never stopped anyone in entertainment that there are earlier versions. And given how uninspired the first half of the latest Vikings season came across to me (which is why I haven't reviewed in these very pages, gentle reader), I'm not surprised Hirst is ready to move on. Allow me some amusement, though:
He says his dramas are not documentaries but the details are rooted in history: “Just like Shakespeare’s history plays, they only start with some historical facts, then the drama takes over. You can’t have both.”
Hirst, you're not Shakespare. (Not that he's more accurate, I'll grant you.) Your shows are at their best entertaining schlock with some compelling characters. Stand by it.
Also:
The Caesars aims to give a new insight into the young Julius Caesar: “In the movies he’s usually a middle-aged guy, struggling with political complexities. But he was fantastically interesting and ambitious when he was younger.
Because clearly, a middle aged guy struggling with political complexities is dull. (So much for you, Londo Mollari, character of characters of my heart.) Btw, the idea that Caesar grew less ambitious as he grew older would amuse everyone in Rome to no end. (Or not, depending on their political pov. And state of survival.) This said, Caesar's younger years are less covered. Basically, here are young Gaius Julius Caesars I recall from the last decades:
1) The one from Xena, played by Karl Urban. Spoiler: he's a villain.
2) The one from Spartacus: War of the Damned, where he's one of main antagonist Crassus' two sidekicks. Spoiler: he's a villain.
3) The one from Colleen McCulloughs Masters of Rome book series, volume 3, Fortunes' Favourites. Meant to be a hero, but alas, she commits the dreadful mistake of Gary Stuing him into boringness, here and in subsequent volumes. (Which is why I like the first two volumes with Marius and Sulla as main characters so much better. She didn't make that mistake with those two.) (Err, Caesar is around for many more books in that series, of course, but we're talking about young Caesar specifically.
4) The one from Waltraud Lewin's YA novel about young Servilia, written in German and so my knowledge not translated into English. For my money the most interesting of the lot, though she takes some liberties as in: young Servilia and Caesar already meet when Sulla rules, Servilia just got married to Brutus and Caesar is on the run. It's a coming of age novel about Servilia, and young C. is both charming and ambigious, more of a trickster character. Also prone to fall sick with Malaria at the worst moment.
Basically, there's room for Hirst to deliver his own version to pop culture, and he's bound to use both the on-the-run-from-Sulla episode and the interlude with the pirates, but what I really want to know is whether or not he'll use the King of Bithynia as boyfriend, and not, as Colleen McCullough in her Gary Stu tale did, as a paternal friend. More Hirst talk:
A lot of the Caesars came to power when they were young, and we’ve never really seen that on screen. It’s the energy, the vitality, the excess of a young culture that’s being driven by young people.
Um, what? Octavian/Augustus was young when coming to power, granted, but Tiberius was OLD. (Part of the problem. By the time he'd finally made it to the throne, he was too bitter not to take that out on people.) Caligula was young again, whereas Uncle Claudius was old. And then Nero rounds it off with another young Caesar as the last of the Julian-Claudian dynasty. That makes three young power reachers versus three old ones (if you count Caesar himself, who most definitely was NOT young when making it to true power in Rome.
Mind you, in the most recent season of Vikings, Hirst presents an adult Alfred (who has thus the bad luck to compete with the one from The Last Kingdom, and well, that's a tough job to live up to) who gets on the throne in a decidedly ahistorical way and at an ahistorical point in his life, so I wouldn't put it beyond him to shorten the reign of Augustus so Tiberius isn't that old and sour and keeping Claudius magically young. (I mean, Lagertha looks unchanged since season 1, which means the actor playing her son Björn now looks older than she does.) And of course, this is the producer/writer who cast Jonathan Rhys Meyer as Henry VIII and kept him from gaining weight and grey hair until the very last episodes of the last season of The Tudors. What confounds me is that that Hirsts older characters are more often than not his most interesting ones. His Cardinal Wolsey was the only one I was interested in in the first season of The Tudors. To give credit where due, Hirst was the only one who really used Chapuys the Imperial Ambassador as key supporting character through the entire show, and Chapuys isn't a youngster, either, at any point. As for Vikings, Siggy was my favourite for the first two seasons (alas), and never mind Ragnar, Ekbert was the magnificent bastard for me, as played by Linus Roache and thus no spring chicken, either.
Another thing: no one would ever dispute Martin Scorsese's cinematic eye, but the combination of the two definitely makes me think "male centric saga to the nth degree". And you know, not that Rome was feminist (au contraire), but Atia and Servilia were among the most memorable characters, and I, Claudius would never have had the impact it did without Livia in the first half. In conclusion: if I were you, Michael Hirst, I'd hire some female scriptwriters to work with me.
Lastly, on an unrelated note: tomorrow I'll be busy the entire day, so I won't get to watch the Star Trek: Discovery finale until the evening, if that. Pray remember the spoiler cut is your friend, oh fellow Disco admirers, and so am I!
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1272644.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.