Casanova
I still owe wee_warrior the Casanova meta I promised, or, why that two parter is instructive on both Russell T. Davies' strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Readers of either the "Rusty die die die!" or "he can do no wrong" persuasion should consider themselves warned that this isn't something for either of them. Also, I honestly don't care whom Jack Harkness romances, and I don't 'ship the Doctor with any companion (Doctor/TARDIS all the way!) (well, okay, Doctor/Master, too, in the "it's totally doomed" way), so I'd appreciate the lack of 'shipping fervour in possible comments.
On to Casanova then, which is a two-parter Julie Gardner commissioned RTD to write for the BBC before they both went on to restart Doctor Who. Now, this was about the 1004454th screen version of Giacomo Casanova's life. Having seen only some of these (regrettably not the one starring Bela Lugosi before the later became Dracula, that would have been interesting), and having read parts of the memoirs - which btw you can read in their entirety here, thanks to Project Gutenberg, I feel vaguely qualified to conclude that there are some things most of these screen versions have in common. If they're not entirely fantasy, just using the name (see also: the Heath Ledger thing), or picking up one specific period or event in Casanova's life (there is one with Alain Delon who does this, which uses the "aging screen idol" thing to great effect because it captures Casanova at the transition of his life where he has to realize age and failure have finally caught up with him, and another one which has old Casanova making a last attempt to leave his librarian existence in Bohemia, and he ends up in France just at the outbreak of the French Revolution; again, uses the "relict from another age" element to great effect), they can be relied upon to tackle the problem of how to narrate that long life and adventures with something of a coherent story arc when it actually didn't have one by absolutely including the following elements:
- the actress mother abandoning her son
- old Casanova in Bohemia, writing his memoirs, contrasted with young Casanova living the life
- the Henriette episode as the great romance complete with "love of his life" status
- the escape from the lead chambers as the biggest action sequence
- the lottery business in France.
Anything else (either actually episodes from Casanova's life or something the screenwriters in question came up with) varies. It's pretty obvious why these elements always stay. The escape from the lead chambers is what Casanova was most famous for in his life time, other than the obvious, the lottery was probably the biggest con he ever pulled, and the first three story elements have to be there to give the audience a main character with some vulnerabilities they can identify with instead of, well, a Don Juan archetype.
RTD, for his part, actually downplayed the big prison escape; it takes far less time and has far less narrative importance than in any of the other "complete life" renditions I've seen. The overall tone is comedy mixed with melodrama, which is fairly typical for Davies as a writer. He also wisely reduces the gigantic cast of people Casanova's life contains and uses the knack he has for making characters come alive with little screentime to make the ones he keeps memorable. Not that this ever pretends to be an "authentic" biopic in the traditional sense. There is constant breaking of the fourth wall, starting with the opening sequence which has young Casanova escaping from an enraged husband (complete with a gag stolen from the Angel pilot episode, though I'm sure Joss and David Greenwalt stole it elsewhere, too - I'm referring to Angel jumping heroically into a car in pursuit of the villain, and it's the wrong car; in Casanova Casanova whistles for his horse, jumps Errol Flynn style and promptly lands on the pavement), quipping at his pursuers until he suddenly runs out of dialogue because old Casanova stops writing him. The language, music and dancing sequences are unabashedly modern, as is the colour blind casting. (You could handwave Casanova's servant/best friend Rocco being played by a black actor because Venice used to be one of the all time big slave markets, and Rocco could be a descendant of a freedman. It's trickier with Bellino being black. And suspension of disbelief breaks down with various black French aristocrats. But then, you don't have to suspend your disbelief exactly because the two-parter never claims to be that type of story.)
The serving girl Edith, whom old Casanova tells his life to, is a pretty obvious stand-in for the reader/watcher, sceptical at first (and critisizing the narration), then won over, and pretty soon starting to root, even to 'ship. RTD had the good forturne of getting Peter O'Toole as old Casanova, and Rose Byrne is excellent as Edith, but the fact these framing narration scenes never come across as dull is also due to the writing using the pathos of Casanova's old age well, meaning not too easily, as old Casanova isn't exactly a sweet old man, and blatantly manipulative even while he points out he manipulates.... until the last sequence, which is where Rusty ditches both post modern narration, comedy and balance altogether and goes for the pathos alone. As I said, strengths and weaknesses. For this ties into how the overall storyarc he chose for Casanova works as well.
Casanova is written both as a picaresque adventure story - Casanova, here nicknamed Jack, literally as the Jack of all trades (and master of none), a con man charming his way through life and society until both lash back at him irreversably - and a star-crossed romance. And the star-crossed romance part is where it gets tricky. As mentioned, RTD wasn't the first writer who felt the need to hone in on the Henriette episode, though he basically took little more than the name (which was a pseudonym Casanova gave her for the memoirs at any rate), Casanova's assertion that he truly loved her ("people who believe that a woman is not enough to make a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of a day have never known an Henriette", writes the historical C.) and the fact she left him; everything else - notably Henriette as an Italian con woman instead of a French aristocrat, her marriage to Casanova's enemy Grimani, her as the true reason for Casanova's stint in prison and the reason for their separation not her decision but Grimani blackmailing her into marriage - is pure RTD. And there you have it. On the one hand, he does his best to sell Henriette as an equal, though at least the dreaded word "soulmate" is never used; she and Casanova both start as young and poor and determined to make it in Venetian society, and the scenes where they communicate via sign language (shrugs, grimaces, smiles etc.) during events do convey something of that, and have an effective pay-off in part II, the last time they see each other. On the other hand... on the other hand, there is a lot, and just a part of it is that the actress, Laura Fraser, doesn't come across as that gifted or charismatic. But more problematic is that whole "separation by cruel fate" business. The script does its best to make Henriette a pure victim here, only marrying Grimani when Casanova is in prison because she needs the financial support for her family (whom we have never seen), and then into a noble martyr (watching over Casanova from afar). Which actually undoes the earlier, more human and more interesting characterisation of her as a con woman, who like Casanova himself uses what she has to make it in society and is determined, a la Scarlett O'Hara, not to be hungry again. And then there is the placement of her brief period of happiness with Casanova (before cruel fate (tm) intervenes). Because that comes directly after the Bellino sequence, and here we run straight into RTD creating unintentional subtext again.
I'm not surprised Davies used the Bellino episode at all (though as opposed to the Henriette episode, most film/tv versions I've seen didn't); it's one of the most interesting segments in the memoirs. The RTD version is highly fictionalized but retained all of the important elements save one. Here's what he had to base it on in the Histoire de ma vie: Casanova is introduced to a supposed eunuch singer named Bellino. He is intrigued, powerfully attracted, confused by the idea he could have fallen for a man and insists Bellino has to be a girl. He tries to get Bellino to admit as much, pointing out the breasts. Bellino refuses, pointing out eunchs develop these, too. We get about 25 pages of Casanova struggling with the idea that he's in love with another man, and a eunuch at that, and spirited declarations from Bellino like:
“Oh no,the male would not evoke a feeling of repulsion in you. I am convinced of it. Your hot temper would triumph over your reason and your reason would even serve your passion.” ... “You shall not have any peace, you shall seek what cannot be found. How can you believe that you will stop to love me when I prove that I am a man? Will the beauty and the charm you find in me disappear? You shall be able to convince yourself that you can change me into a woman or, worse still, you will imagine that I myself can change my sex.”
Then finally they get to the point where Casanova doesn't care anymore and promptly finds out that yes, he is in fact a she, Bellino is a woman. He proposes. And then he basically runs away, telling her she shouldn't sacrifice her career as a singer for him, and admitting he doesn't want to be the husband of an actress/singer. (Insert your Freudian theories here, considering the mother who ditched him as a child was one.)
Now, in the RTD Casanova, we basically get a condensed version of this, without Bellino's family and various travels together, and a significantly different reason for the separation. Here, Bellino spots Casanova and Henriette together doing one of their sign language communication things during a ball, comes to the conclusion that they're meant for each other and magnanimously tells Casanova she wants to devote herself to her career, and that he deserves to be "a husband, not a wife", so they better part. Handwaving historical sexism, this still leaves us with girl B nobly giving up central character because he's truly meant to be with girl A, expecting the audience to feel the same way. I can't speak for the rest of the audience, but I inevitably found Bellino far more interesting, and hence rolled my eyes at the blatant audience manipulation. (Also, as with Henriette being freed of all decision blame regarding the Grimani marriage later, here you have Bellino freeing Casanova from decision blame by saying goodbye first. This annoys, though a bit less than in the Henriette case because otherwise the script does take Casanova to task for his not so endearing traits. The second part could be subtitled "Consequences". More about that in a moment.) And of course, by casting Nina Sosanya (who went on to play Chloe's mother in Fear Her, the season 2/29 Doctor Who episode) as Bellino, RTD made it black girl B nobly resigning in favour of white girl A. Actually I think that's the least problem with this storyline - if Bellino had been played by a white actress, we'd still have the problem of star-crossed romance superceding more interesting romance and the script basically cheating - but it's there.
Here's the part of the RTD invented Henriette saga that really works, though: Grimani. The name comes from the aristocratic family who were the patrons of Casanova's actress-mother and her husband (and he suspected one of them might have been his biological father), but the character, like Rusty's version of Henriette, is entirely made up for this tv version. In RTD's Casanova, Grimani is introduced as a young aristocrat who snubs Giacomo on the later's first arrival on the society scene and is annoyed when Casanova quips back. They soon proceed to hate each other on sight because of Henriette. Part I has Grimani scoring by getting Casanova arrested and blackmailing Henriette into marriage, part II has them reencounter each other in England where Grimani is the Venetian ambassador where there is much mutual showing off and finally a duel. Why does this work instead of being trite? Because RTD avoids making Grimani into a moustache twirling villain by making him sincerely in love with Henriette, and because, Davies being Davies, he confronts the possible homoerotic subtext of the whole rivalry/ arch nemesis business head-on.
On to other matters. Something that I thought was an inspired authorial choice was picking one of the galores of illegitimate children Casanova was bound to have and making him the living embodiment of those consequences I talked about. As I said at the start, pretty much all the screen versions that go for an entire life of Casanova use the story of his mother the actress ditching him. Our Mr. Davies, however, chose to mirror this with "Jack" (the second), Casanova's illegitimate son. Just as child!Casanova is introduced to us silently staring at his mother, child!Jack is introduced silently staring at Casanova. Who never even considered all his shenanigans could result in offsprings, and can't connect to this one any more than his mother could to him. We see this in a series of scenes alternatingly serious and funny (for example, Casanova and Rocco strolling through Paris while Casanova talks about how Jack's existence now gives him a new center while completely ignoring the kid and missing entirely that the boy is in sequence drenched in piss, covered with waste and chased by a dog), until it segues into one of the most sinister scenes of the two-parter. A scene, btw, based on a description of the torture and execution of Damiens, a would be assassin of Louis XV, which Casanova gave in his memoirs, but I don't recall it being used in any of the other screen versions of his life that I saw. The sight of a man being torn apart limb by limb was treated, as executions were at the time, as a fun spectacle to watch, and one of the most revolting aspects of said scene in the memoirs is that most members of the aristocratic party Casanova was with were sexually turned on by the sight, and one of them (not Casanova himself, btw) did have sex with another spectator. In the RTD Casanova, Rocco the servant suggests this isn't a sight the boy should see, Casanova carelessly ignores this, the execution starts, and then he and we the audience see the excited and aroused faces of the aristocratic party. Ending in the gleeful expression of Casanova's son. He takes the boy away, but it's too late.
(The film then cuts to Old Casanova commenting that every single one of the French party-goers who watched that execution ended up beheaded by the revolution, which reminds me of the way Christopher Hampton ends the stage version of Les Liasons Dangereuses (something not in the film; the Marquise de Merteuil raises a glass to a defiant toast to the next year - 1789, and the curtain falls to the sound of the guilllontine). It's not exactly deep analysis, but as a pointed comment of what kind of society the French Revolution ended, it works.)
There are more consequences to come. If the first part concentrated on the joyful, liberating aspects of sex, the second part tackles the darker aspects, the seeking out the next sensation, the next thrill as sheer nihilism. The execution party in France is just the purgatory, and after the interlude in England (already mentioned, as it's mostly about Casanova and Grimani, and also offers Rusty the opportunity to get in as many jokes at the expense of his country as he can), we get into the true underworld sequence, taking place in Naples. At which point the costumes have said goodbye to history altogether and are completely in fantasy land, which is part of the nightmarish quality of the scene, which is pretty much Poe's Red Death story, a doomed society waiting for their death as the ultimate kick and trying as many other sensations as they can in the meantime. Casanova meets Bellino again, and as they talk, she realises that having everything she ever wanted leaves her with nothing to look forward to. She then tells him that her daughter is also his daughter. Since his son has just made off with said daughter, Casanova is worried and then gets shocked because Bellino doesn't seem to mind the prospect of the two having sex, pointing out that he taught her that breaking rules is what it's all about. Casanova heads off to find them, and hears exactly the same thing from his son. What else, challenges the son, did he expect him to learn? It's all about the next sensation, and incest at least is something new. His daughter asks him whether he wants to join. It's the last scene using the younger Casanova and, we're given to understand, the reason why he ended up bitter and alone in Bohemia; being presented with a mirror he had himself created, an alter ego emptied out of everything that made Casanova more than a walking penis. (The two parter has been careful to show us the man having non-sexual relationships proving his capacity for loyalty and kindness, such as the one with his servant or with the old priest whose life he saves, to show us him liking the women he sleeps with beyond the sex and that for all his self-centered thoughtlessness in the past and occasionally acid peevishness in old age, he's not malicious .) Other than Fellini, I can't recall a Casanova getting that dark.
(Mind you, in comparison with the historical source, it's still using the incest incident in a milder manner: in the memoirs, it's Casanova himself who sleeps with his daughter - not by Bellino, btw, by another mistress, Lucrezia, and according to the memoirs he slept with both of them at the same time when meeting Lucrezia agan 17 years later.)
Of course, RTD can't leave it there. Edith the servant girl - who has found out Casanova is ill during the time he told his life to her - is able to give him a peaceful, hopefull death by making him believe that Henriette, now widowed, is returning to him at last, while she and the audience know the letter she intercepted said in fact that Henriette is dead. She also, stand-in for the audience that she is, does what every writer hopes his audience will do: validates the narrative by confessing she fell for his younger persona with all his flaws, even knowing that results they had, and offers absolution. It's all beautifully played and I'm as much a sop as anyone; I do feel touched when I'm watching. But it's one of those RTD things that doesn't bear too much thinking about. Well, perhaps. I mean, you could interpret it as Edith taking over the role of the (somewhat manipulative) narrator, giving Casanova a happy ending of sorts after he gave her his story first, and that would fit with the whole fourth wall breaking going on from the start, but it still depends on the star-crossed lovers arc and its believability. After a two parter demonstrating, for all its wit and comedy along with the melodrama, that there was far more messed up in Casanova's life than the lack of marriage to Henriette (and making it doubtful that if he had married Henriette, he'd have remained in married bliss with her for the rest of his life), the death-believing-his-true-love-will-come just feels like a narrative dea-ex-machina device. Admittedly I'm not sure whether ending the story with, say, a living Old Casanova in conversation with Edith would have been better - it wouldn't have been as definite an ending-and-return-to-the-beginning as the actual ending - but it would have avoided another reminder of my problem as a viewer: that Henriette as a character simply did not have enough impact on me to go along with the main character's feelings for her, and that, in the end, we're asked to believe, to quote the Beatles, that all you need is love, when the story itself rather made a point to show us no, it isn't.
Lastly: casting and acting - other than Laura Fraser as Henriette, the Gardner/Davies team showed the same knack it later proved on DW. Everyone is very good, and despite the fact they don't look anything alike, you do believe David Tennant is going to become Peter O'Toole. Also, if Christopher Eccleston in RTD's The Second Coming practiced for the Ninth Doctor, Tennant here has a trial run for the lighter side of the Tenth. (It's interesting that he plays the darker scenes - i.e. when Casanova is grieving - quite differently, though. Still, imo if one wants to see either actor doing something completely unlike their DW work, one should look for non-Davies-written stuff. Recovery for Tennnant would be my choice - he plays a brain-damaged man there -, and Cracker for Eccleston because it's one of the few examples where he's not an angry notherner (tm).)
On to Casanova then, which is a two-parter Julie Gardner commissioned RTD to write for the BBC before they both went on to restart Doctor Who. Now, this was about the 1004454th screen version of Giacomo Casanova's life. Having seen only some of these (regrettably not the one starring Bela Lugosi before the later became Dracula, that would have been interesting), and having read parts of the memoirs - which btw you can read in their entirety here, thanks to Project Gutenberg, I feel vaguely qualified to conclude that there are some things most of these screen versions have in common. If they're not entirely fantasy, just using the name (see also: the Heath Ledger thing), or picking up one specific period or event in Casanova's life (there is one with Alain Delon who does this, which uses the "aging screen idol" thing to great effect because it captures Casanova at the transition of his life where he has to realize age and failure have finally caught up with him, and another one which has old Casanova making a last attempt to leave his librarian existence in Bohemia, and he ends up in France just at the outbreak of the French Revolution; again, uses the "relict from another age" element to great effect), they can be relied upon to tackle the problem of how to narrate that long life and adventures with something of a coherent story arc when it actually didn't have one by absolutely including the following elements:
- the actress mother abandoning her son
- old Casanova in Bohemia, writing his memoirs, contrasted with young Casanova living the life
- the Henriette episode as the great romance complete with "love of his life" status
- the escape from the lead chambers as the biggest action sequence
- the lottery business in France.
Anything else (either actually episodes from Casanova's life or something the screenwriters in question came up with) varies. It's pretty obvious why these elements always stay. The escape from the lead chambers is what Casanova was most famous for in his life time, other than the obvious, the lottery was probably the biggest con he ever pulled, and the first three story elements have to be there to give the audience a main character with some vulnerabilities they can identify with instead of, well, a Don Juan archetype.
RTD, for his part, actually downplayed the big prison escape; it takes far less time and has far less narrative importance than in any of the other "complete life" renditions I've seen. The overall tone is comedy mixed with melodrama, which is fairly typical for Davies as a writer. He also wisely reduces the gigantic cast of people Casanova's life contains and uses the knack he has for making characters come alive with little screentime to make the ones he keeps memorable. Not that this ever pretends to be an "authentic" biopic in the traditional sense. There is constant breaking of the fourth wall, starting with the opening sequence which has young Casanova escaping from an enraged husband (complete with a gag stolen from the Angel pilot episode, though I'm sure Joss and David Greenwalt stole it elsewhere, too - I'm referring to Angel jumping heroically into a car in pursuit of the villain, and it's the wrong car; in Casanova Casanova whistles for his horse, jumps Errol Flynn style and promptly lands on the pavement), quipping at his pursuers until he suddenly runs out of dialogue because old Casanova stops writing him. The language, music and dancing sequences are unabashedly modern, as is the colour blind casting. (You could handwave Casanova's servant/best friend Rocco being played by a black actor because Venice used to be one of the all time big slave markets, and Rocco could be a descendant of a freedman. It's trickier with Bellino being black. And suspension of disbelief breaks down with various black French aristocrats. But then, you don't have to suspend your disbelief exactly because the two-parter never claims to be that type of story.)
The serving girl Edith, whom old Casanova tells his life to, is a pretty obvious stand-in for the reader/watcher, sceptical at first (and critisizing the narration), then won over, and pretty soon starting to root, even to 'ship. RTD had the good forturne of getting Peter O'Toole as old Casanova, and Rose Byrne is excellent as Edith, but the fact these framing narration scenes never come across as dull is also due to the writing using the pathos of Casanova's old age well, meaning not too easily, as old Casanova isn't exactly a sweet old man, and blatantly manipulative even while he points out he manipulates.... until the last sequence, which is where Rusty ditches both post modern narration, comedy and balance altogether and goes for the pathos alone. As I said, strengths and weaknesses. For this ties into how the overall storyarc he chose for Casanova works as well.
Casanova is written both as a picaresque adventure story - Casanova, here nicknamed Jack, literally as the Jack of all trades (and master of none), a con man charming his way through life and society until both lash back at him irreversably - and a star-crossed romance. And the star-crossed romance part is where it gets tricky. As mentioned, RTD wasn't the first writer who felt the need to hone in on the Henriette episode, though he basically took little more than the name (which was a pseudonym Casanova gave her for the memoirs at any rate), Casanova's assertion that he truly loved her ("people who believe that a woman is not enough to make a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of a day have never known an Henriette", writes the historical C.) and the fact she left him; everything else - notably Henriette as an Italian con woman instead of a French aristocrat, her marriage to Casanova's enemy Grimani, her as the true reason for Casanova's stint in prison and the reason for their separation not her decision but Grimani blackmailing her into marriage - is pure RTD. And there you have it. On the one hand, he does his best to sell Henriette as an equal, though at least the dreaded word "soulmate" is never used; she and Casanova both start as young and poor and determined to make it in Venetian society, and the scenes where they communicate via sign language (shrugs, grimaces, smiles etc.) during events do convey something of that, and have an effective pay-off in part II, the last time they see each other. On the other hand... on the other hand, there is a lot, and just a part of it is that the actress, Laura Fraser, doesn't come across as that gifted or charismatic. But more problematic is that whole "separation by cruel fate" business. The script does its best to make Henriette a pure victim here, only marrying Grimani when Casanova is in prison because she needs the financial support for her family (whom we have never seen), and then into a noble martyr (watching over Casanova from afar). Which actually undoes the earlier, more human and more interesting characterisation of her as a con woman, who like Casanova himself uses what she has to make it in society and is determined, a la Scarlett O'Hara, not to be hungry again. And then there is the placement of her brief period of happiness with Casanova (before cruel fate (tm) intervenes). Because that comes directly after the Bellino sequence, and here we run straight into RTD creating unintentional subtext again.
I'm not surprised Davies used the Bellino episode at all (though as opposed to the Henriette episode, most film/tv versions I've seen didn't); it's one of the most interesting segments in the memoirs. The RTD version is highly fictionalized but retained all of the important elements save one. Here's what he had to base it on in the Histoire de ma vie: Casanova is introduced to a supposed eunuch singer named Bellino. He is intrigued, powerfully attracted, confused by the idea he could have fallen for a man and insists Bellino has to be a girl. He tries to get Bellino to admit as much, pointing out the breasts. Bellino refuses, pointing out eunchs develop these, too. We get about 25 pages of Casanova struggling with the idea that he's in love with another man, and a eunuch at that, and spirited declarations from Bellino like:
“Oh no,the male would not evoke a feeling of repulsion in you. I am convinced of it. Your hot temper would triumph over your reason and your reason would even serve your passion.” ... “You shall not have any peace, you shall seek what cannot be found. How can you believe that you will stop to love me when I prove that I am a man? Will the beauty and the charm you find in me disappear? You shall be able to convince yourself that you can change me into a woman or, worse still, you will imagine that I myself can change my sex.”
Then finally they get to the point where Casanova doesn't care anymore and promptly finds out that yes, he is in fact a she, Bellino is a woman. He proposes. And then he basically runs away, telling her she shouldn't sacrifice her career as a singer for him, and admitting he doesn't want to be the husband of an actress/singer. (Insert your Freudian theories here, considering the mother who ditched him as a child was one.)
Now, in the RTD Casanova, we basically get a condensed version of this, without Bellino's family and various travels together, and a significantly different reason for the separation. Here, Bellino spots Casanova and Henriette together doing one of their sign language communication things during a ball, comes to the conclusion that they're meant for each other and magnanimously tells Casanova she wants to devote herself to her career, and that he deserves to be "a husband, not a wife", so they better part. Handwaving historical sexism, this still leaves us with girl B nobly giving up central character because he's truly meant to be with girl A, expecting the audience to feel the same way. I can't speak for the rest of the audience, but I inevitably found Bellino far more interesting, and hence rolled my eyes at the blatant audience manipulation. (Also, as with Henriette being freed of all decision blame regarding the Grimani marriage later, here you have Bellino freeing Casanova from decision blame by saying goodbye first. This annoys, though a bit less than in the Henriette case because otherwise the script does take Casanova to task for his not so endearing traits. The second part could be subtitled "Consequences". More about that in a moment.) And of course, by casting Nina Sosanya (who went on to play Chloe's mother in Fear Her, the season 2/29 Doctor Who episode) as Bellino, RTD made it black girl B nobly resigning in favour of white girl A. Actually I think that's the least problem with this storyline - if Bellino had been played by a white actress, we'd still have the problem of star-crossed romance superceding more interesting romance and the script basically cheating - but it's there.
Here's the part of the RTD invented Henriette saga that really works, though: Grimani. The name comes from the aristocratic family who were the patrons of Casanova's actress-mother and her husband (and he suspected one of them might have been his biological father), but the character, like Rusty's version of Henriette, is entirely made up for this tv version. In RTD's Casanova, Grimani is introduced as a young aristocrat who snubs Giacomo on the later's first arrival on the society scene and is annoyed when Casanova quips back. They soon proceed to hate each other on sight because of Henriette. Part I has Grimani scoring by getting Casanova arrested and blackmailing Henriette into marriage, part II has them reencounter each other in England where Grimani is the Venetian ambassador where there is much mutual showing off and finally a duel. Why does this work instead of being trite? Because RTD avoids making Grimani into a moustache twirling villain by making him sincerely in love with Henriette, and because, Davies being Davies, he confronts the possible homoerotic subtext of the whole rivalry/ arch nemesis business head-on.
On to other matters. Something that I thought was an inspired authorial choice was picking one of the galores of illegitimate children Casanova was bound to have and making him the living embodiment of those consequences I talked about. As I said at the start, pretty much all the screen versions that go for an entire life of Casanova use the story of his mother the actress ditching him. Our Mr. Davies, however, chose to mirror this with "Jack" (the second), Casanova's illegitimate son. Just as child!Casanova is introduced to us silently staring at his mother, child!Jack is introduced silently staring at Casanova. Who never even considered all his shenanigans could result in offsprings, and can't connect to this one any more than his mother could to him. We see this in a series of scenes alternatingly serious and funny (for example, Casanova and Rocco strolling through Paris while Casanova talks about how Jack's existence now gives him a new center while completely ignoring the kid and missing entirely that the boy is in sequence drenched in piss, covered with waste and chased by a dog), until it segues into one of the most sinister scenes of the two-parter. A scene, btw, based on a description of the torture and execution of Damiens, a would be assassin of Louis XV, which Casanova gave in his memoirs, but I don't recall it being used in any of the other screen versions of his life that I saw. The sight of a man being torn apart limb by limb was treated, as executions were at the time, as a fun spectacle to watch, and one of the most revolting aspects of said scene in the memoirs is that most members of the aristocratic party Casanova was with were sexually turned on by the sight, and one of them (not Casanova himself, btw) did have sex with another spectator. In the RTD Casanova, Rocco the servant suggests this isn't a sight the boy should see, Casanova carelessly ignores this, the execution starts, and then he and we the audience see the excited and aroused faces of the aristocratic party. Ending in the gleeful expression of Casanova's son. He takes the boy away, but it's too late.
(The film then cuts to Old Casanova commenting that every single one of the French party-goers who watched that execution ended up beheaded by the revolution, which reminds me of the way Christopher Hampton ends the stage version of Les Liasons Dangereuses (something not in the film; the Marquise de Merteuil raises a glass to a defiant toast to the next year - 1789, and the curtain falls to the sound of the guilllontine). It's not exactly deep analysis, but as a pointed comment of what kind of society the French Revolution ended, it works.)
There are more consequences to come. If the first part concentrated on the joyful, liberating aspects of sex, the second part tackles the darker aspects, the seeking out the next sensation, the next thrill as sheer nihilism. The execution party in France is just the purgatory, and after the interlude in England (already mentioned, as it's mostly about Casanova and Grimani, and also offers Rusty the opportunity to get in as many jokes at the expense of his country as he can), we get into the true underworld sequence, taking place in Naples. At which point the costumes have said goodbye to history altogether and are completely in fantasy land, which is part of the nightmarish quality of the scene, which is pretty much Poe's Red Death story, a doomed society waiting for their death as the ultimate kick and trying as many other sensations as they can in the meantime. Casanova meets Bellino again, and as they talk, she realises that having everything she ever wanted leaves her with nothing to look forward to. She then tells him that her daughter is also his daughter. Since his son has just made off with said daughter, Casanova is worried and then gets shocked because Bellino doesn't seem to mind the prospect of the two having sex, pointing out that he taught her that breaking rules is what it's all about. Casanova heads off to find them, and hears exactly the same thing from his son. What else, challenges the son, did he expect him to learn? It's all about the next sensation, and incest at least is something new. His daughter asks him whether he wants to join. It's the last scene using the younger Casanova and, we're given to understand, the reason why he ended up bitter and alone in Bohemia; being presented with a mirror he had himself created, an alter ego emptied out of everything that made Casanova more than a walking penis. (The two parter has been careful to show us the man having non-sexual relationships proving his capacity for loyalty and kindness, such as the one with his servant or with the old priest whose life he saves, to show us him liking the women he sleeps with beyond the sex and that for all his self-centered thoughtlessness in the past and occasionally acid peevishness in old age, he's not malicious .) Other than Fellini, I can't recall a Casanova getting that dark.
(Mind you, in comparison with the historical source, it's still using the incest incident in a milder manner: in the memoirs, it's Casanova himself who sleeps with his daughter - not by Bellino, btw, by another mistress, Lucrezia, and according to the memoirs he slept with both of them at the same time when meeting Lucrezia agan 17 years later.)
Of course, RTD can't leave it there. Edith the servant girl - who has found out Casanova is ill during the time he told his life to her - is able to give him a peaceful, hopefull death by making him believe that Henriette, now widowed, is returning to him at last, while she and the audience know the letter she intercepted said in fact that Henriette is dead. She also, stand-in for the audience that she is, does what every writer hopes his audience will do: validates the narrative by confessing she fell for his younger persona with all his flaws, even knowing that results they had, and offers absolution. It's all beautifully played and I'm as much a sop as anyone; I do feel touched when I'm watching. But it's one of those RTD things that doesn't bear too much thinking about. Well, perhaps. I mean, you could interpret it as Edith taking over the role of the (somewhat manipulative) narrator, giving Casanova a happy ending of sorts after he gave her his story first, and that would fit with the whole fourth wall breaking going on from the start, but it still depends on the star-crossed lovers arc and its believability. After a two parter demonstrating, for all its wit and comedy along with the melodrama, that there was far more messed up in Casanova's life than the lack of marriage to Henriette (and making it doubtful that if he had married Henriette, he'd have remained in married bliss with her for the rest of his life), the death-believing-his-true-love-will-come just feels like a narrative dea-ex-machina device. Admittedly I'm not sure whether ending the story with, say, a living Old Casanova in conversation with Edith would have been better - it wouldn't have been as definite an ending-and-return-to-the-beginning as the actual ending - but it would have avoided another reminder of my problem as a viewer: that Henriette as a character simply did not have enough impact on me to go along with the main character's feelings for her, and that, in the end, we're asked to believe, to quote the Beatles, that all you need is love, when the story itself rather made a point to show us no, it isn't.
Lastly: casting and acting - other than Laura Fraser as Henriette, the Gardner/Davies team showed the same knack it later proved on DW. Everyone is very good, and despite the fact they don't look anything alike, you do believe David Tennant is going to become Peter O'Toole. Also, if Christopher Eccleston in RTD's The Second Coming practiced for the Ninth Doctor, Tennant here has a trial run for the lighter side of the Tenth. (It's interesting that he plays the darker scenes - i.e. when Casanova is grieving - quite differently, though. Still, imo if one wants to see either actor doing something completely unlike their DW work, one should look for non-Davies-written stuff. Recovery for Tennnant would be my choice - he plays a brain-damaged man there -, and Cracker for Eccleston because it's one of the few examples where he's not an angry notherner (tm).)