viewing catch-up: historical dramas and movies

[meganbmoore]

Comments (and a couple youtube vids) on a bunch of historical movies and miniseries I’ve watched recently, mostly biopics of historical women, in an attempt to catch up on posting.

Comments

[alexandral]

I am so with you on "Agora" - it is like a movie that looks so good, has these lovely actors, but in reality - it is all about "evil Slaves" (oh yes, the masters were sooo good and kind but evil slave revolvers tried to kill them all!!!!! What??) and "evil Christians" .

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, I bought the "good master" part with Hypatia herself, as it revolved around how she judged people, and seems to fit with her philosophy, and I could buy it influencing her students as well, but the "they're all really nice masters and are just a bit rude sometimes" thing was too much, and killed pretty much everything related to the slaves.

[rainmage]

Oh man, Agora had a lot of advertising here in Spain so I was looking forward to watch it one day. Then again, I had only hear about the plot that it was all about Hypatia's life. What a load of lies! Avoiding it like the plague, then.

[meganbmoore]

If some kind person edits it down to the scenes with Hypatia and the few scenes where Orestes tries to defend her, watch that. There'll still be enough of the RAGE bits to understand the RAGE, but not enough to cause frothing.

[keelieinblack]

That’s Davus, a slave who’s in love with her. He helps burn down the Library of Alexandria, and then almost rapes her.

No lie, I just let out an enraged half-shriek of protest. How dare they do that to Hypatia?

And I was so looking forward to seeing Rachel Weisz in another "awesome bookish woman" role, too. Way to fail AGAIN, filmmakers. Nice job passing over what could have been an interesting, unusual biopic for a bunch of clichéd and offensive plots.

(I seem to remember this 1996 bio of Hypatia being good! There's a more recent biography out, but I haven't read it.)

[meganbmoore]

Yes. it sounds like the most awesome movie ever. And then you actually watch it.

[sisterjune]

Daaamn :( I havent seen this yet but was excited about it and it's different from another review on the flist I read, but then that girl likes merlin, which I hate so I suspect you might be more on the money here. I'll probably see it anyway just so I can enjoy what little good there is in it. I mean it's so rare to see important female figures from history in a film that doesnt focus on their love lives, so when I heard this movie doesnt do that I was like all like YAY and I just found some links to dl it this morning and then the sad realities of it all -_-. It's good I got a warning though, now when I do see it (probably not soon though) I'll approach it with a cautious skepticism, so any failings wont be too devastating for me.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, it doesn't focus on her love life (though it does expect us to mourn the attempted rapist's epic tragic love) which is a plus, but the rest kinda detracts from that. Meanwhile, Miss Austen Regrets is all about how "no, it really isn't all about the romance, thanks."