Briefly
Watched: I finished The Great (first season), and my general impression hasn't changed - it's funny, entertaining and as unlike history as possible, with the odd actual factoid thrown in to make us jump, such as Catherine pushing variolation in Russia (with a correct explanation what variolation is) as a measure against small pox and volunteering herself, though in rl this happened decades later. I share the wish of one of my commenters that they'd put the whole story into space, since clearly the show makers had zero interest in actual 18th centuryl Russia (and the rest of Europe). I could so this as a sci fi show!
Where I think the show wanted to have its cake and eat it is by it mostly going with comic book violence - i.e. lots of murder and torture without any emotional repercussions - but then turning around and giving Catherine scenes every three episodes or so where she reacts to what happens the way someone not in a black comedy but in a normal drama would, such as when she sees all the dying soldiers. Pick one or the other, show, this is confusing me.
Voltaire's guest starring in the season finale was, despite the fact rl Voltaire was a) too old to make trips to Russia at this point, b) after his experience with Frederick the Great knew better than to come near any despot, no matter how fannish they were about him, but kept it at corresponding and compliment exchanging from afar with Catherine, and c) hat an international hatedom to rival his fandom (one reason Europe had watched the Voltaire/Frederick trainwreck with popcorn glee a decade earlier was that everyone thought, with reason, that they totally deserved each other), so even or especially a fan of his wouldn't have described him as light and life or would have been shocked by him handing out paraphrased Candide quotes - despite all that, it was actually one of the more realistic feeling interludes. Not least because rl Voltaire, when asked how he was okay being pen pals with husband killer Catherine, basically said that he'd heard nothing about Peter to make him believe Catherine wasn't the better ruler on the throne, and also the more interesting one.
On the other end of the vaguely resembling history scale: the fictional King and Queen of Sweden. When it was clear there'd be an episode with Peter and Catherine having a summit with the Swedish royals, I had a second where I was wondering whether the show would do a version of Frederick the Great's sister Ulrike, who was the real Queen of Sweden at the time, but no, here they faithfully followed the general "as unlike history as it is possible to get" principle, including inventing a King ond Queen who never were named Olaf and Agnes.
Since I had the dvds, I watched the montage of interviews with writer and cast, and was somewhat bewildered hearing Tony MacNamara declare that he made the show because the only thing he'd known about Catherine the Great before was that she maybe had sex with a horse, and finding out that not only that this wasn't true but that she had accomplished X, Y and Z as a ruler wanted to do the series to teach the audience likewise what an amazing woman she was. Is that what he thinks he's doing? Because no. My impression as a viewer was the exact opposite - that he looked at the life of Catherine and decided he didn't find it interesting in the least so he had to make up a new one from scratch.
Read: The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock by Edward White. Definitely one of the best things I've seen written about Hitchcock - basically twelve essays, each focusing on a different aspect of Hitchcock the person and Hitchcock the creator. None of which play the either/or game, and go for a "both/and" approach instead. (I.e. for example he was abusive to Tippi Hedren and he and his wife Alma (editor, scriptwriter, director's assistant) Reville had one of the most intriguing and lasting partnerships in the film business.) One of the twelve essays is titled "The Londoner" and makes a case that Hitchcock's Englishness - aside of the performative aspect of it for Americans once he was in the US - was specifically tied to London, and defined by it, hence Hitchcock's English films from the 20s and 30s portraying then-current day London with a vitality and accuracy not easily equaled by other British films of the same period, but when he comes back there near the end of his career in Frenzy, the London portrayed is a weird, technologically updated version of the city of his youth, not like the London of the early 1970s at all. Another essay is called "The Fat Man", and lays out how the (US) press was focused on Hitchcock's physicality (typical example: 1943 article "300-Pound-Prophet Comes To Hollywood") in a way that it usually was only with female actors (and in the opposite direction), which remained true through his remaining life, and how he both played into that in a very telling way (making the "fat" jokes first before anyone else could) and how it informed how he related to the two male actors often called his fantasy selves, Cary Grant and James Stewart. The last essay is a thorough examination of Hitchcock's Catholic faith that manages to be more than just the repetition of a few childhood anecdotes and a look at the movie I Confess.
It's a very recent book - published 2021 - , but it was at my library already, and I can very much reccommend it. This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1479639.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Where I think the show wanted to have its cake and eat it is by it mostly going with comic book violence - i.e. lots of murder and torture without any emotional repercussions - but then turning around and giving Catherine scenes every three episodes or so where she reacts to what happens the way someone not in a black comedy but in a normal drama would, such as when she sees all the dying soldiers. Pick one or the other, show, this is confusing me.
Voltaire's guest starring in the season finale was, despite the fact rl Voltaire was a) too old to make trips to Russia at this point, b) after his experience with Frederick the Great knew better than to come near any despot, no matter how fannish they were about him, but kept it at corresponding and compliment exchanging from afar with Catherine, and c) hat an international hatedom to rival his fandom (one reason Europe had watched the Voltaire/Frederick trainwreck with popcorn glee a decade earlier was that everyone thought, with reason, that they totally deserved each other), so even or especially a fan of his wouldn't have described him as light and life or would have been shocked by him handing out paraphrased Candide quotes - despite all that, it was actually one of the more realistic feeling interludes. Not least because rl Voltaire, when asked how he was okay being pen pals with husband killer Catherine, basically said that he'd heard nothing about Peter to make him believe Catherine wasn't the better ruler on the throne, and also the more interesting one.
On the other end of the vaguely resembling history scale: the fictional King and Queen of Sweden. When it was clear there'd be an episode with Peter and Catherine having a summit with the Swedish royals, I had a second where I was wondering whether the show would do a version of Frederick the Great's sister Ulrike, who was the real Queen of Sweden at the time, but no, here they faithfully followed the general "as unlike history as it is possible to get" principle, including inventing a King ond Queen who never were named Olaf and Agnes.
Since I had the dvds, I watched the montage of interviews with writer and cast, and was somewhat bewildered hearing Tony MacNamara declare that he made the show because the only thing he'd known about Catherine the Great before was that she maybe had sex with a horse, and finding out that not only that this wasn't true but that she had accomplished X, Y and Z as a ruler wanted to do the series to teach the audience likewise what an amazing woman she was. Is that what he thinks he's doing? Because no. My impression as a viewer was the exact opposite - that he looked at the life of Catherine and decided he didn't find it interesting in the least so he had to make up a new one from scratch.
Read: The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock by Edward White. Definitely one of the best things I've seen written about Hitchcock - basically twelve essays, each focusing on a different aspect of Hitchcock the person and Hitchcock the creator. None of which play the either/or game, and go for a "both/and" approach instead. (I.e. for example he was abusive to Tippi Hedren and he and his wife Alma (editor, scriptwriter, director's assistant) Reville had one of the most intriguing and lasting partnerships in the film business.) One of the twelve essays is titled "The Londoner" and makes a case that Hitchcock's Englishness - aside of the performative aspect of it for Americans once he was in the US - was specifically tied to London, and defined by it, hence Hitchcock's English films from the 20s and 30s portraying then-current day London with a vitality and accuracy not easily equaled by other British films of the same period, but when he comes back there near the end of his career in Frenzy, the London portrayed is a weird, technologically updated version of the city of his youth, not like the London of the early 1970s at all. Another essay is called "The Fat Man", and lays out how the (US) press was focused on Hitchcock's physicality (typical example: 1943 article "300-Pound-Prophet Comes To Hollywood") in a way that it usually was only with female actors (and in the opposite direction), which remained true through his remaining life, and how he both played into that in a very telling way (making the "fat" jokes first before anyone else could) and how it informed how he related to the two male actors often called his fantasy selves, Cary Grant and James Stewart. The last essay is a thorough examination of Hitchcock's Catholic faith that manages to be more than just the repetition of a few childhood anecdotes and a look at the movie I Confess.
It's a very recent book - published 2021 - , but it was at my library already, and I can very much reccommend it. This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1479639.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.