I miss Rome. (The HBO series). It was supposed to go for a few more seasons. Watching the second season, you could see they were opening up the story for the war with Marc Antony and the Jewish Rebellions. The series had a lot of potential in it before it finally got canned. I read somewhere that HBO was surprised by the numbers they received on the second season, but by the time they had the final count, the scenery and props had already been destroyed. The delay and the cost was too much to continue on.
Since the series ended I’ve read Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of Rome and few sundry things. I still miss seeing the history enacted using more modern media. The stories are just as timeless as anything Shakespeare had going for him and the history has a strange way of seeming apropos.
I Claudius came across my path sometime in the last few weeks. I still haven’t read the books, but the miniseries (staring a young Derek Jacobi) was found easily enough.
Knowing enough of the history, I should hardly be surprised, by the sheer scope of the miniseries is impressive. It follows the titular Claudius, a stammering gimp, from a few years prior to his birth to his death some seventy years (and four emperors) later. It encompasses everything from Sejanus’ revolt to the jewish rebellions to Caligula’s delusion. The family plots and betrayals almost become tiresome, they’re so numerous, but despite the moving history and revolving door cast, there is a humanity to the series that was impressive, even more so than Rome.
I cannot attest to the overall accuracy. The scenery in particular seems wooden and cliche. The political nuances are sometimes lost and there is no action whatsoever, but Claudius place in a horrific world is even more pronounced than Octavian’s awkwardness in Rome. The cruelty and debauchery is much more visceral. To be truthful, it’s probably a far less accurate depiction than Rome, but I found myself oddly moved by the stammering Claudius trying to survive amongst a panoply of death, madness, and abject bestiality. I, Claudius makes Shakespeare out of Rome and does a better job than he did.
It’s a rare sort of story and I found myself startled quite frequently. It’s actually quite profane. There’s a small bit of nudity and lots of implied violence, but very little is actually seen. In place of more visual conclusions, the characters react to events that are almost always mentioned in passing. It only works because the motivations are explored so throughly whether it be madness, greed, or ambitious and because the reactions of those involved are given just as much play. The intensity of the characters and the lengths they go to furfill their aims is incredibly offputting. I don’t need to see Caligula disembowel his incestuously impregnated sister. The event is shocking without it, more so infact, because he manages to rule for quite a while afterwards. The seemingly endless injustice of the world is perhaps what makes it so different from a modern story.
Further, there is no physical action. At times it makes the plot plodding, but it also forces the characters to…well…act for one, but also the plot has to be constructed to make everything fit together. Too many modern stories tell a loose story, but hide the cracks in action sequences. It’s not that the action sequences are especially unpleasant; I can actually enjoy them sometimes, but they are used to hide grievous plot errors. In a verbal drama, but those tricks aren’t available. The character’s have to have motivations and their methods of acting have to have purpose. The continuity of purpose shows more craft than I’m willing to give more movies I’ve seen credit for. I might still be reeling from Avatar, as big a block of swiss-cheese as I’ve ever seen, but it seems to be a reoccurring complaint of mine.
Mostly and lastly, the movie took itself seriously. I suppose this is always my complaint. There seems to be a certain brand of flippancy and I’m not sure when it started. Plenty of movies are gritty, but that doesn’t make them serious per se and I’m not using serious in quite the normal manner. A movie like The Dark Knight is serious, in a sense. It is a ‘gritty’ remake in that it’s meant to be realistic and plausible, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s about a man dressed like a bat. And that’s a good movie. Something avatar is basically just CGI porn with a story tacked on, but the stories it’s serious in the slightest. The character’s are not made plausible in the slightest and the whole thing hangs on a few lines of motivation given at the beginning of the film.
I don’t miss visual or logical seriousness, but emotional serious seems so terrible lacking. The movies that go for the more introspective angle always seem to flop on wasted melodramatics or postmodern humor. There is little room for drama, which I will define as a realistic appraisal and reaction to an event, which does not necessarily have to be plausible. Dark Knight is actually quite close in that sense, but somehow I just can’t make it fit.
Rome and I Claudius fall more in line with Band of Brothers in that character’s react and respond based on their reactions, but they are more constrained. The victim does not therefore have the motivation to become more than they really could. No one is so smart or rich or powerful than they can bend the realities of a world built to be intrinsically unfair. Good does neither wins nor loses on any grand sense, but a story is told, with both the good and the bad being rewarded as it fits the story. Moral engagement with moral neutrality. That is my final definition of seriousness and it is a startling thing to see on film.
No more babbling from me. I just hit 1000 words and that’s morally devastating. No reason to right half so much. Until next time, adieu!
