Rome: The Complete First Season
by Michael Apted, Allen Coulter, Timothy Van Patten
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Actor: Ciaran Hinds, Indira Varma, James Purefoy, Lindsay Duncan, Polly WalkerDirector: Allen Coulter, Michael Apted, Timothy Van Patten
Brand: Rome
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Unknown
Running Time: 619 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2012-01-17
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 92848
Studio: HBO Home Video
DVD Reviews of Rome: The Complete First Season
DVD Review: Above average
Summary: 4 Stars
First off, unlike most of the recent sword and sandal epics, I am happy it was made. It is a decent thing. It most certainly isn't a magnificent thing, and I'll tell you why. But first, I will say nice things.
Where they went right:
First off, not only did they follow the actual history of events which happened, they managed to do lots of little things properly. Statues and buidings are not bone-white marble, they are colorful and garish, just like they really were. Rome in this series doesn't look like a bunch of greek philosophers running around with olive leaves in their hair; it looks like Calcutta. Methinks this look is closer to reality than the standard picture of Rome brought to us by the cinema and touristic post cards. This sort of attention to detail makes amateur history nerds like me deleriously happy, as we recognize they hired someone at least as smart as we are to consult for the thing. I was particularly impressed that many of the Roman matrons had hair dyed red/orange, which was, in fact, a popular hair coloring in those days which has to my knowledge never been portrayed in a Rome movie. As such, those who made this series are on par with Fellini's movie "Satyricon" and the unique "Caligula" -both of which were insanely clever films in their historical veracity. In this series they even went so far as to make the two main plebian characters based on real historical personages who had a brief mention in Ceasar's Gallic War chronicles. I always liked that sort of attention to detail.
Another thing they did right was involve John Milius in the production. Milius is the only man in Hollyweird physiologically capable of making films which are epic and manly. No other director or producer alive today is capable of making a film portraying heroes without degenerating into parody. This wasn't true as recently as the 1970s when movies like "The Man Who Would be King" got made, but the Baby Boomer generation (and my own generation thus far) has absolutely no film makers who can make a movie involving swords that doesn't involve tasteless references to homosexuality (not that there is anything wrong with that), self parody or smirky nods to the Vietnam War. I blame it on the baleful influence of soy products in the modern diet. Milius, as such, is in a class by himself. He made the all time greatest sword and sandal epic, "Conan the Barbarian." Supposedly he is making another Conan epic, which I am very much looking forward to. His influences in the production are obvious, though insufficient to my mind (probably because he has been in Turkey scouting locations for the next Conan).
Ray Stevenson's performance as plebian ne'er do well, Titus Pullo was quite amusing; he displays much elan and clowning character, and even manages to occasionally animate the horrible Kevin McKidd in some of the fightin' scenes. If I were a movie maker, he'd be my hero in everything. He's genuinely a strong guy (the traps give it away) and has great charisma. Polly Walker is a fairly delightfully sleasey, greasy harlot of an Atia of the Julii and mother to Max Pirkis' excellent rendition of Octavian. I was particularly impressed with the latter's performance at such a young age. He got Octavian exactly right. I also enjoyed this young man's wonderful performance as the one armed young hero in Master and Commander (I only realized it was so now that I am looking at IMDB) -I thought he far outshone Russell Crowe in that film. I look forward to his developing career with some eagerness; he is someone to be watched for certain.
I will give special mention to my favorite performance thus far in the thing, James Purefoy's Mark Antony. I never liked the historical Mark Antony as a man; he was a weak, venal, stupid oaf who let a woman ruin his life. Mark Antony the character in this movie is also a weak, venal, stupid oaf, but he is utterly charming. He is a happy go lucky fun-loving little grease ball of a man. I want to go drinking veeeeno with him and picking up loose women. Seriously; this is a fun guy! This takes some genius to portray this way. Purefoy does attempt to be a little bit of Marlon Brando (Brando played Antony in the 50s Shakespearean "Julius Caesar" movie scored by Miklos Rosza), but that's better than a lot of things he could have done with the part. Oddly, the imbeciles at the UK Independent (there are spoilers here, so just take my word for it) characterized his portrayal as "swishy." Unless this word means something like "really Italian acting oinker of a man's man" to British liberals, the author must have been smoking crack.
The fighting sequences were acceptable, though much too derivative of the cinematography of "Gladiator." I should not complain when people rave about the sword fighting sequences in the Lord of the Rings movies, which were abysmally horrible (slow motion does not make anything more exciting, ever; neither does spinning around like a ballerina). But since I actually know a bit about how to fight with knives and swords, I have to complain that they were not the ones to get it right. Closest thus far, FWIIW, was any of Toshiro Mifune's performances, probably due to his involvement with the 800 year old Tenshen Shoden Katori shinto ryu dojo.
Where they went insanely wrong:
The musical score is horrifically bad. Since when does Roman music sound like the music of imaginary romanticized arabs, a la latter day Dead Can Dance or Enya? Let me tell you: it does not. It never did. We know what Roman music sounded like, and that wasn't it (example which comes close is Hermann Nitsch's Taraboulium theme). Such music evokes dumb newage belly dancers, not Rome. This has sadly become standard in movies with swords. Both Lord of the Rings, Troy and Gladiator had such garbage. They were all bad movies, so I don't care so much (except Gladiator, which quite good in action scenes and where the score was used appropriately). In this series, I kind of care. Mostly because it is so bad it distracts. Roman music should be cruel, brash and military, like the musical scores the genius Miklos Rosza composed for the Roman movies of his day: Julius Caesar and Ben Hur. At the very least, glorious music like Basil Poledouris made for Conan (taken in part from Prokofiev's movie scores) should be considered. The utter nonsense which was used isn't worthy as the soundtrack to a snake charmer or a middle eastern themed stripper, though it would be more appropriate for this use than it would for the story of Caesar. Words really can't describe what an atrocity the soundtrack is. Why?
The plot is most soap operatic. It didn't have to be that wretched. The subject is as grand and dramatic as can be, and it was reduced to at best a cheap Brazilian soap opera. Not that I have anything against Brazilian soaps; they are actually quite fantastic in their own way. But with reducing such a huge and epic tale to such a sordid and grubby thing takes a special kind of maliciousness and depravity, rather beyond anything portrayed in the annals of ancient Rome. Only people from Los Angeles could mess up a story this good, this badly. Over all, you could describe this mini series as "Rome as Los Angeles."
There wasn't a single grand moment. Not when Caesar gets his Triumph, not in any of the battles. It just never happens. Grandeur is what Rome movies are all about, (or at least, they should be). How can they make a glorious thing like a Roman Triumph more boring than a Macy's thanksgiving day parade?
The acting is mostly insanely bad. All the characters in this story offer all manner of opportunity for hammy goodness, or genuine acting. Most of the actors are insanely incompetent. Tobias Menzies Brutus was a neurotic wimp; so far unlike the real Brutus (or even the Shakespearean Brutus) as to be, well, kind of confoosling to history nerd me. While the plot scrambles desperately to provide a rationale for Brutus betrayal, it seems to boil down to sour grapes at losing a game of checkers.
Kevin McKidd's Lucius Vorenus was a stumbling uptight ogre, incapable of expressing any emotion on his face but confused rage. It would be a great portrayal of a fundamentalist christian soccer hooligan, but it was horrific as First Spear of the Legions. What a miserable cretin. Both as an actor, and the (supposed to be heroic) character he portrayed.
All of the females portrayed are vicious, evil and incredibly stupid harlots. While this isn't so bad in itself, only Polly Walker's character is vaguely sympathetic or amusing, or even fleshed out in something resembling a two dimensional surface. Compare this to the magnificent women in I, Claudius, or even Caligula (which was ostensibly a pornography movie) and, well, it will make you very sad. Even Cleopatra is portrayed by an actress trying really hard to be a druggie kookoopants Angelina Jolie rather than, well, anything resembling Cleopatra.
Cato, an amazing historical figure, was reduced to a crabby little chicken-chested alkie-looking "back in the day" old coot. And he was the best of the portrayals of the Republican rivals of Caesar, at least he had a vaguely recognizable type. All the rest; mighty Scipio, Pompey and Cicero were reduced to lame and incredibly vague "old man" stereotypes. Didn't any of these actors read the chronicles of the day? The real guys had insanely strong characters that shine down from the mists of time. The actors portraying them made them look like aging interchangeable marketing executives involved in the wrong end of a hostile take over.
Finally, the actor who played Julius Caesar, Ciarán Hinds. It was an insanely good makeup and acting job. The problem was, they made a very irish looking guy look and act exactly like a (very jewish) Warner Brothers executive with indigestion and piles. Julius Caesar is probably hands down the most interesting man in all of human history, and they made him look like a slimey corporate dude with a bad case of the piles.
I also could have done without the egregious sex scenes. I like sex. I like Roman sex. Caligula is still one of the most brilliant portrayals of Roman depravity I have yet seen (not to mention a beautiful view into ancient Rome). I even vaguely appreciated the ickyness in Fellini's Satyricon (hey, it was in the real book; that's how things were in them days). The sex in this movie is just lame soap operatic soft porn, designed to appeal to the maximum cross section of people who watch it. Lame, lame, lame. Chaste I, Claudius was sexier and far more evocative of the decadence of Rome. The way they made these sex scenes, they made pedophiliac lesbianism, mothers pimping their sons to studio executives, erm, emperors, and incest look like viable lifestyle choices, rather than signs of a degenerate culture. I suppose this is Los Angeles talking again. They didn't even look like they were enjoying their depravity; they were just going through the motions -like a dowager doing her swedish exercises. In Claudius, a guffaw here, and a twirl there were much more evocative of debauchery than all the brutish nude gropings and grindings in this series.
I guess as lame soft porn goes it was vaguely all right, but it was very obviously pasted into the plot as an after thought, as in "hey, this is Rome, we need to show hot sex action! Woo woo!"
Anyway, that said, the show was still worth watching.
Description of Rome: The Complete First Season
(HBO Dramatic Series) Four hundred years after the founding of the Republic, Rome is the wealthiest city in the world, a cosmopolitan metropolis of one million people; epicenter of a sprawling empire. The Republic was founded on principles of shared power and fierce personal competition, never allowing one man to seize absolute control. But now, those foundations are crumbling, eaten away by corruption and excess. After eight years of war, two soldiers, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo unwittingly become entwined in the historical events of ancient Rome. A serialized drama of love and betrayal, masters and slaves, husbands and wives, ROME chronicles a turbulent era that saw the death of the republic and the birth of an empire.Family dysfunction. Treachery. Betrayal. Coarse profanity. Brutal violence. Graphic (and sometimes brutal) sex. No, it's not The Sopranos, it's Rome, HBO's madly ambitious series that bloodily splatters the glory of Rome just as savagely as Monty Python and the Holy Grail soiled the good name of Camelot (but with far fewer laughs; very few funny things happen on the way to this forum). Set in 52 B.C. (Before Cable), Rome charts the dramatic shifts in the balance of power between former friends Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham), leader of the Senate, and Julius Caesar (Ciaran Hinds), whose imminent return after eight years to Rome after conquering the Gauls, has the ruling class up in arms. At the heart of Rome is the odd couple friendship between two soldiers who fortuitously become heroes of the people. Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) is married, honorable, and steadfast. Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) is an amoral rogue whose philosophy is best summed up, "I kill my enemies, take their gold, and enjoy their women." Among Rome's most compelling subplots is Lucius's strained relationship with his wife, Niobe (Indira Varma), who is surprised to see her husband alive (but not as surprised as he is to find her upon his homecoming with a newborn baby in her arms!) Any viewer befuddlement over Rome's intrigues and machinations, and determining who is hero and who is foe, disappears the minute Golden Globe-nominee Polly Walker appears as Atia, Caesar's formidable niece and a villainess for the ages. In the first hour alone, she offers her already married daughter as a bride to the recently widowed Pompey. One eagerly awaits to see what (or who) she'll do next as much as we anticipate her comeuppance in the final episode.
Rome is a painstakingly mounted production that earned eight well-deserved Emmy nominations in such categories as costumes, set design, and art direction. Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter) was honored with a Director's Guild Award for the first episode, "The Stolen Eagle." But artistic considerations aside, instantly addicted viewers will agree with Atia, who notes at one point, "I adore the secrecy, the intrigue. It's most thrilling." --Donald Liebenson
Stills from Rome (click for larger image)
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