Drama and docudrama
Die Eiserne Zeit/Age of Iron is a docudrama miniseries in six parts, mainly a German-French co production originally shown at ARTE and now also available at Amazon Prime, about the 30 Years War. It tackles the extremely difficult task of getting across an international war with a myriad of different parties involved which kept changing goals over the decades in a way that's accessible to a tv audience which doesn't just consist of academics well read about 17th century Europe by providing the viewers with a couple of (historical) people whose personal stories they can follow through part or in a few cases all of the war. By and large, the series does this very well. Mind you, the first episode is by far the most stiff, possibly because two of the main people presented, the Winter King and Queen - Elizabeth Stuart (sister of Charles I) and Friedrich of the Palatinate), whose short lived rule in Prague kicks off the war along with the earlier defenestration - do not come across as interesting in the same way the characters later episodes will focus on. But I'd stll reccommend watching it, because it does explain the set up well, and also it introduces one of the charactes who make it through the entire war, all thirty years of it, mercenary Peter Altendorf, who is one of the few common soldiers able to read and write at the time and who kept a still preserved diary which is a great primary source on what the war was like on a day to day level. Altendorf was a Lutheran but fought mostly for Catholic armies; he was married twice, and his wives (and children, all of whom from his first marriage died when still babies or toddlers) were part of the army. (Especially the longer the war took, the more women tried to escape the fate of rape and murder by marrying a soldier and sticking with an army as part of the baggage trains.)
The other people we're mainly following: Peter Paul Rubens, painter, diplomat, spy (only the first two episodes), Père Joseph, Capuchin and Richelieu's top agent, Barbara Gseller, an innkeeper in Biberach who is so well documented because she'd end up denounced as a witch (some of the worst waves of witch prosecution happened during the 30 Years War in Germany) (and would as one of the very very few escape from this alive), and Anna Maria von Haugwitz, whose parents die in one of the notorious masacres of the war but who ends up marrying Swedish general Wrangel, one of the most influential and richest men to emerge from it. The usual 30 Years War VIPs like Catholic General Wallenstein or Swedish King Gustav Adolf, or Cardinal Richelieu also show up, but more in cameos; the series really tries for a middle-and-ground level perspective (except for the opening episode with the two royals). These storylines rarely intersect - when they do, it's briefly, like Rubens and Pere Joseph playing chess and trying to sound each other out in Paris, or the Swedes coming through Biberach which means Anna Maria and her husband are briefly in Barbara Gseller's inn - but they do succeed painting an intense picture and making you care what happens to these people. Hagendorf's relationship with his wives is surprisingly affectionate and partner-like - once when he's seriously wounded after a battle his wife goes plundering in his stead, for example, which is essential since that's what they live from, with regular salaries only rarely getting paid -, and there is a great poignancy in Barbara Gseller being the only one who is polite, even kind to the executioner whom no one else wants to sit near, let alone drink with when he comes into her inn, which pays off in the episode where she gets denounced, and when in the last episode after she incredibly (but not inventedly, I looked it up afterwards) has survived her trial, she sees him again, I caught my breath.
In between, you get interviews with various historians - Germans, French, Swedish - and close ups of documents as can be expected. Inevitably, there's a lot left out - for example, the entire literature that emerged from this war, so no mention of the original pre Brecht Mother Courage, the one by Grimmelshausen -, but it does give you a good idea of what the main causes and (shifting) goals of the war were and what it was like for the people caught up in it. If it's available in your area, I can reccomend it.
The other series I recently consumed was the BBC's radio dramatisation of all eight (at the time they did this, i.e. no Legacy of Spies) John Le Carré novels featuring George Smiley, from Call to the Dead to The Secret Pilgrim, with Simon Russell Beale as Smiley. I enjoyed it a lot, some installments inevitably more than others, and was fascinated by some of the choices caused by the medium. A key one was the way these dramatizations Smiley's wife Ann. In the novels, she's except for one scene in Smiley's People never there in the present day narration, but much thought about by Smiley, or recalled by him and other people. In the radio plays, she's performed by Anna Chancellor, and shows up as Head!Ann frequently in Smiley's thoughts, when she argues with him, teases or encourages him, and provides part of his inner voice. Which not only makes the inner monologues dialogues - good choice in an audio version - but also provides the elusive Ann with more dimension than "promiscous society girl". It also makes it understandable that Smiley can never quite let her go emotionally even when they are separated, and not just because Chancellor even in a voice only performance is able to get across she's charming, but because she's given emotional insight and an irreverent humor (taking its cue from real Ann telling George in their "Smiley's People" present day scene "I'm a comedian, George, I need a straight man"), and gets a lot of the best lines. (You can also tell the producers got fond of Anna Chancellor as Ann; in The Secret Pilgrim, which is told from Ned's pov and is basically a collection of short stories, only some of which feature Smiley, they included her one more time anyway by letting one of the stories be told by Ann to Ned when they're unexpectedly at the same party, instead of letting Ned come across it while sorting files.) Since much of the Le Carré universe is so very male, it also provides the stories with a female presence who neither ends up dead nor victimised nor is Connie Sachs, and all this without changing the stories themselves. (Since Ann is still mostly absent except in Smiley's head.)
Simon Russell Beale is very good in the main part, and so are the other actors, though not for the first time, I wished German characters wouldn't be portrayed by actors faking German accents when the dialogue in-story isn't in English (since Smiley is fluent, and so is Alec Leamas). Though I can forgive htis more easily in a radio version, where an accent immediately signals to the listener where the character in question is supposed to come from without this having to be described.) Listening to the stories themselves, I was struck by the fact that as early as The Looking Glass War, Le Carré had a go at the poisonous nature of British WWII nostalgia. Having finished listening, I wondered whether anyone ever wrote a Le Carré/The Americans crossover, but after some superficial checking, I don't think so. Hm. Note to self: try it, at some hypothetical point in the future when you have the time again. This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1448975.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
The other people we're mainly following: Peter Paul Rubens, painter, diplomat, spy (only the first two episodes), Père Joseph, Capuchin and Richelieu's top agent, Barbara Gseller, an innkeeper in Biberach who is so well documented because she'd end up denounced as a witch (some of the worst waves of witch prosecution happened during the 30 Years War in Germany) (and would as one of the very very few escape from this alive), and Anna Maria von Haugwitz, whose parents die in one of the notorious masacres of the war but who ends up marrying Swedish general Wrangel, one of the most influential and richest men to emerge from it. The usual 30 Years War VIPs like Catholic General Wallenstein or Swedish King Gustav Adolf, or Cardinal Richelieu also show up, but more in cameos; the series really tries for a middle-and-ground level perspective (except for the opening episode with the two royals). These storylines rarely intersect - when they do, it's briefly, like Rubens and Pere Joseph playing chess and trying to sound each other out in Paris, or the Swedes coming through Biberach which means Anna Maria and her husband are briefly in Barbara Gseller's inn - but they do succeed painting an intense picture and making you care what happens to these people. Hagendorf's relationship with his wives is surprisingly affectionate and partner-like - once when he's seriously wounded after a battle his wife goes plundering in his stead, for example, which is essential since that's what they live from, with regular salaries only rarely getting paid -, and there is a great poignancy in Barbara Gseller being the only one who is polite, even kind to the executioner whom no one else wants to sit near, let alone drink with when he comes into her inn, which pays off in the episode where she gets denounced, and when in the last episode after she incredibly (but not inventedly, I looked it up afterwards) has survived her trial, she sees him again, I caught my breath.
In between, you get interviews with various historians - Germans, French, Swedish - and close ups of documents as can be expected. Inevitably, there's a lot left out - for example, the entire literature that emerged from this war, so no mention of the original pre Brecht Mother Courage, the one by Grimmelshausen -, but it does give you a good idea of what the main causes and (shifting) goals of the war were and what it was like for the people caught up in it. If it's available in your area, I can reccomend it.
The other series I recently consumed was the BBC's radio dramatisation of all eight (at the time they did this, i.e. no Legacy of Spies) John Le Carré novels featuring George Smiley, from Call to the Dead to The Secret Pilgrim, with Simon Russell Beale as Smiley. I enjoyed it a lot, some installments inevitably more than others, and was fascinated by some of the choices caused by the medium. A key one was the way these dramatizations Smiley's wife Ann. In the novels, she's except for one scene in Smiley's People never there in the present day narration, but much thought about by Smiley, or recalled by him and other people. In the radio plays, she's performed by Anna Chancellor, and shows up as Head!Ann frequently in Smiley's thoughts, when she argues with him, teases or encourages him, and provides part of his inner voice. Which not only makes the inner monologues dialogues - good choice in an audio version - but also provides the elusive Ann with more dimension than "promiscous society girl". It also makes it understandable that Smiley can never quite let her go emotionally even when they are separated, and not just because Chancellor even in a voice only performance is able to get across she's charming, but because she's given emotional insight and an irreverent humor (taking its cue from real Ann telling George in their "Smiley's People" present day scene "I'm a comedian, George, I need a straight man"), and gets a lot of the best lines. (You can also tell the producers got fond of Anna Chancellor as Ann; in The Secret Pilgrim, which is told from Ned's pov and is basically a collection of short stories, only some of which feature Smiley, they included her one more time anyway by letting one of the stories be told by Ann to Ned when they're unexpectedly at the same party, instead of letting Ned come across it while sorting files.) Since much of the Le Carré universe is so very male, it also provides the stories with a female presence who neither ends up dead nor victimised nor is Connie Sachs, and all this without changing the stories themselves. (Since Ann is still mostly absent except in Smiley's head.)
Simon Russell Beale is very good in the main part, and so are the other actors, though not for the first time, I wished German characters wouldn't be portrayed by actors faking German accents when the dialogue in-story isn't in English (since Smiley is fluent, and so is Alec Leamas). Though I can forgive htis more easily in a radio version, where an accent immediately signals to the listener where the character in question is supposed to come from without this having to be described.) Listening to the stories themselves, I was struck by the fact that as early as The Looking Glass War, Le Carré had a go at the poisonous nature of British WWII nostalgia. Having finished listening, I wondered whether anyone ever wrote a Le Carré/The Americans crossover, but after some superficial checking, I don't think so. Hm. Note to self: try it, at some hypothetical point in the future when you have the time again. This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1448975.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.