Filmography
Apr. 16th, 2007 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyThe Fall of the Roman Empire
This was watched mainly on the advice of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
purple_pen, and golly, what a lot of things have been stolen from it! Starwars nicked the whole galaxy-paternity deal, and Gladiator walked off with the skeleton of the plot, and I'm pretty sure Life of Brian recycled the Forum scenery. Is there some kind of jumble sale for the bits of overexpensive yet terribly epic films that Hollywood puts on in order to try and recoup the losses a bit?
Because that's one overbearing feature of this film, its pagentry. The palaces are lavishly decorated with all sorts of frippery, the Roman forum is bloody huge, the Roman winter quarters of 'the north' are pretty darn impressive and full of columns, there are loads of march-pasts of cavalry and soldiers and generals in shiny uniforms, that sort of thing. Then there are the battles. Real 1964 epic battles, which seem to go on forever, where you can identify the baddies by their clothing (Persians have yellow cloaks, 'Northern barbarian' types have really bad wigs, that sort of thing). However, this is slightly its downfall - there could have been at least 30 minutes, if not a whole hour, cut off this somewhat ungainly monster by some judicious editing of battle/travelling/procession scenes. It's all just a bit much, to be quite frank, and the attention does drift a bit.
However, there are good bits. The chariot chase between Commodus and Livius! The poisoning of Marcus Aurelius by a blind man! The rather comic auctioning of the empire at the end! Sophia Loren generally being busomy and dressed in fabulous colours! Christopher Plummer being a fantastic and utterly nutty Commodus! All the programmatic contradictory statements about 'this is Rome'! Stephen Boyd's Livius (the loyal soldier character) has a bit of a poker up his bottom, but that's only to be expected. Alec Guinness does a nice line in monologue and general reflectiveness for Marcus Aurelius. The love story is a bit sickly in places, but what does one expect? Again, 1964.
Four stars; not quite five because of the unevenness of pacing, but definitely a spectacle, and worth a look if you're into this sort of thing.
This was watched mainly on the advice of
purple_pen, and golly, what a lot of things have been stolen from it! Starwars nicked the whole galaxy-paternity deal, and Gladiator walked off with the skeleton of the plot, and I'm pretty sure Life of Brian recycled the Forum scenery. Is there some kind of jumble sale for the bits of overexpensive yet terribly epic films that Hollywood puts on in order to try and recoup the losses a bit?Because that's one overbearing feature of this film, its pagentry. The palaces are lavishly decorated with all sorts of frippery, the Roman forum is bloody huge, the Roman winter quarters of 'the north' are pretty darn impressive and full of columns, there are loads of march-pasts of cavalry and soldiers and generals in shiny uniforms, that sort of thing. Then there are the battles. Real 1964 epic battles, which seem to go on forever, where you can identify the baddies by their clothing (Persians have yellow cloaks, 'Northern barbarian' types have really bad wigs, that sort of thing). However, this is slightly its downfall - there could have been at least 30 minutes, if not a whole hour, cut off this somewhat ungainly monster by some judicious editing of battle/travelling/procession scenes. It's all just a bit much, to be quite frank, and the attention does drift a bit.
However, there are good bits. The chariot chase between Commodus and Livius! The poisoning of Marcus Aurelius by a blind man! The rather comic auctioning of the empire at the end! Sophia Loren generally being busomy and dressed in fabulous colours! Christopher Plummer being a fantastic and utterly nutty Commodus! All the programmatic contradictory statements about 'this is Rome'! Stephen Boyd's Livius (the loyal soldier character) has a bit of a poker up his bottom, but that's only to be expected. Alec Guinness does a nice line in monologue and general reflectiveness for Marcus Aurelius. The love story is a bit sickly in places, but what does one expect? Again, 1964.
Four stars; not quite five because of the unevenness of pacing, but definitely a spectacle, and worth a look if you're into this sort of thing.
