Augustus

Augustus
by Roger Young

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DVD details

Actor: Benjamin Sadler, Charlotte Rampling, Ken Duken, Peter O'Toole, Vittoria Belvedere
Director: Roger Young
Brand: Sony
Cinematographer: Giovanni Galasso
Editor: Alessandro Lucidi
Producer: Corrado Trionfera
Producer: Ferdinand Dohna
Producer: Luca Bernabei
Producer: Salvatore Morello
Writer: Eric Lerner
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); French (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 178 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-01-04
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures

DVD Reviews of Augustus

DVD Review: 2 stars out of 4
Summary: 2 Stars

The Bottom Line:

Overlong, poorly-acted (accomplished British thespians O'Toole and Rampling excluded) with terrible dubbing of the Italian actors and a low-budget feel, Augustus is not worth watching when the HBO series Rome does so much better with similar material: stay away.

DVD Review: WORTH WATCHING FOR AN HISORY BUFF
Summary: 3 Stars

The details are often inspiring. The sets, interior and exterior, are excellent and look very accurate. After a careful watch, it occurred to me that this production may be using the sets of the HBO production of a couple of years ago, ROME. One has the impression that these sets were built in and around Cinecitta if only because over the last twenty years or so the Italian government found and excavated many previously unknown interiors when the Roman subway system was being dug. Thy had to be particularly careful as they dug and blasted, and it's been documented that Fellini was inspired by the opening by engineers of an ancient house with extensive murals, which initially vivid murals began to fade once they were exposed to the air. More recently excavation has been going on near Augustus' mansion on the Palatine hill. That modest palazzo is close to what is though to be the original cave home of the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, and it is largely intact. Some decorated walls remain standing. I's likely the set used in this film mirrors the actual rooms.

The exterior sets are equally interesting and focus on public and private buildings of different kinds; on streets, alleys, doorways and galleries, demonstrating a creful knowledge of the originals. As the story is acted out on these sets, one has something of the feeling of immediacy one experienced while watching the Fellini SATYRICON. Prior to that film little effort was made to create sets that gave the viewer a convincing feeling of what it must have been like to walk through colorful Roman streets, or to live in a Roman apartment house. And the Romans themseles look the way they do in paintings; that is, a dark-skinned, dark-eyed people often with curly hair. The female extras in the film look very much like today's Indian women, because Roman women wore garments almost identical to the traditional sari.

About the story: It is based on historical fact and does indeed mirror the rise and succcess of Julius Caesar's adopted son Octavian called Augustus, who was the first Emperor. It gives us a good picture of the methods he used to acquire the position, and how he managed to keep it until the end of his life. (He died peacefully in bed, remember. Few of his successors did.) The film confounds Robert Graves' idea that he was poisoned by Julia, his wife. It's the scene when as an old man he's treated by his doctors to an extreme temperature cure: He's put in a bath of water and ice, soaked, and then taken out of it and wrapped in hot cloths and dried. This looks like an ancient attempt to treat the fevers and chills of Malaria. That's probably what killed hm. Not poison. Rome was built on a swamp, and Malaria was rampant in Rome for centuries, because people didn't know how the disease was spread. (Remember, it was only during the Spanish-American War that military doctors were able to idenify the mosquito as carrier of the illness.) In the 1400's Pope Alexander VI (de Borgia) and his son Caesare both suffered a massive attack of the disease after an evening banquet under the trees. The Pope died of it, but his son survived. The Romans of Borgia's time thought of poison, as they did in the time of Augustus. Julia, though she appears to have been a robustly unpleasant woman, may have been maligned. Probably just another Evita Peron. But all that's acted out well in this film. And though the incidents shown are less vivid than they are in the I CLAUDIUS series, the contrast between the shows is very exciting. (Much to talk about.)

The Mark Anthony/Cleopatra episodes are not good, except that the actress playing Cleopatra is beautiful and almost always nearly naked. But the sets are meagre, if not tawdry, and the dialogue crude. One can't imagine this Cleopara as an actual Madedonian heiress and ruler any more than one can imagine that Anthony as a potential Roman Emperor or an eventual Egyptian king.

Of primary interest, to me anyway, is the demonstration of how Augustus kept control over the state for so very, very long. It was fear, of course. First, like Napoleon, he came to power after years of war and like Hitler, after years of civil and financial anarchy. Like Napoleon, he encouraged fear of invasion and civil war, and encouraged the Senate to essentially declare Marial Law and to put him in sole charge of the military. Rather than have himself crowned, he ruled from term to term, preserving an outward show of democracy, with the Senate voting him one extension after another, the way the U.S. voted FDR 4 terms in office. Only Augustus served longer because he began at a younger age. No election. This was before the age of political parties, don't forget. Like Napoleon III, he was not royal, but a military Dictator. Though there were a number of plots to kill him and to overthrow the hold his aristocratic wife's family had on government, his service was marked by ostentatious clemency. After the initial bloodbath following Julius' assassination, Octavian changed tactics and sought to make friends with the Senatorial Oligarcy. He did it shis way: First, he terrified them, then he encouraged them to believe he wanted them as friends. This form of paternalism is not gone into in sufficient detail, to my way of thinking. As far as I know, the only clear picture of Octavian/Augustus' method of control over his opponents appears in Corneille's play, CINNA. (Two years ago I completed a translation.) That neglected dramatic masterpiece -- never seen in English -- shows the Dictatator's psychological skll at its height. He was a superlative manipulator. He ruled not by his own strength, but by the weaknesses of his opponents.

Cicero was murdered not because he opposed Octavian, but because he believed in the integriy of the Republic.

Augustus did exile his beloved daughter to a small, barren island, and she died there under house arrest. The movie has her return to Augustus' bedside at the time of his death. My recollecton says no.

O'Toole plays his Old King role well enough here. He's done several versions lately, he most memorable being Priam in the Pitt TROY. The actor playing him as a young man is plausible.

Low point: Presenting the youngest and shortest member of the Triumverate as a flaming poufter in the style of Anthony Blanche in the BBC version of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. Overkill. At least they didn't give him a boa!

DVD Review: Augustus Review
Summary: 2 Stars

Not a particularly good production. It does not have the fine qualities of "I, Claudius" or the recent HBO "Rome" series. More like a spaghetti western.

DVD Review: Augustus/DVD
Summary: 5 Stars

You sent the DVD for a zone 1 showing/I'm in zone 2: Thus not possible to play on my system.Thanks! T. Johnson

DVD Review: Wretched
Summary: 2 Stars

I couldn't finish this. It was full of cliche, clumsy exposition and had no real sense of humor. Steer clear of this one.

Description of Augustus

The desperate struggle for power in the world of ancient rome is on. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 07/25/2006 Starring: Peter Otoole Run time: 178 minutes Rating: R

Augustus is equal parts history lesson and soap opera, and thoroughly engaging at all levels. Peter O'Toole plays Octavius/Augustus, heir to his doomed uncle Julius Caesar's command of the far-flung Roman empire. Surviving an assassination attempt and struck by news of the death of his old friend and ally, Agrippa (Ken Duken), in the same day, Octavius waxes nostalgic about his youthful exploits in Caesar's army (Benjamin Sadler plays the young Augustus in flashbacks) and his unprepared immersion in the deadly politics of the Mark Antony (Massimo Ghini) era. More immediate are Octavius' problems trying to stave off conspiracies by his wife Livia (Charlotte Rampling) to set up the emperor's stepson, Tiberius (Michele Bevilacqua), as heir, and talk his dutiful daughter Julia (Vittoria Belvedere) into a marriage she doesn't want. Roger Young (Jesus) directs this highly watchable costume drama, and O'Toole's golden presence makes the ancient intrigues tragically human. --Tom Keogh

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