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Rome, HBO’s ambitious, and expensive, series revolving around the events leading up to the assassination of Julius Caesar (Ciaran Hinds), is a spy to witness. Created and filmed by a plethora of talented individuals (including legendary film maverick John Milius), Rome is brought to life with a unbelievable place get that must be seen to be believed; it’s as if the city is breathing. The legend follows two of Caesar’s soldiers (Ray Stevenson and Trainspotting’s Kevin McKidd) who secure themselves throughout many events in Roman history, beginning with inadvertantly rescuing Octavian (Max Pirkis), being lost at sea, assisting Cleopatra (in more than one device, this episode will leave you laughing) and Caesar’s struggle with Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham) . Despite some historical inaccuracies, Rome is everything you’d reach to demand from an HBO series: rich characterizations, an captivating memoir, and a superbly assembled, astronomical cast (including James Purefoy as Marc Antony, Kerry Condon, and Polly Walker as the scheming Atia), Rome is compulsively addictive viewing, made even more so by the climax and of the season finale, which will have you begging for more.
Many people here have talked about the quality of this series, which opinions I agree with. The reveal is sumptuous not only in its depiction of apt Rome, but also that of accepted Rome, the people whose lives and work made the Republic possible. The characters are well-drawn and excellently acted, and the production is respectable, especially considering it as a TV production, which usually advance off as less polished to me.
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The theme I would like to talk about is the depiction of religion in Roman life. It is rare to view a pagan culture portrayed as well as this one is, and in as detailed a manner. Not that the religious aspects of the culture are harped on; they’re not. But the gods are ever-present in impartial the blueprint that gods are in any culture that is centered on its religious beliefs and practices. There are paintings, murals, mosaics and figures; shrines and priests and rituals; blessings exchanged between spouses and curses thrown between enemies; all of them with the ring of historical authenticity.
And it’s not impartial the fact of their presence that impressed me, but also the attitude shown towards this section of Roman life by the filmmakers, one of complete, factually based acceptance. Unlike so many films, these people are not in the slightest map looked down on or demonized for believing as they do. There is no tinge of “bad deluded fools” or “godless heathens” here. On the contrary, everything about their religious life is taken objective as seriously as one could hope for. (Or at least, as seriously as the characters themselves purchase it, which of course varies depending on whom one is watching, impartial as it would if the film were about original people in a fresh world.)
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This theme becomes apparent from the very first moments, during the magnificently clever credit sequence. The gods and beliefs of Rome are literally brought to life in shots of the streets, walls, pillars, and passageways of the city, where the ever-present chalk and paint grafitti (yes, the name really IS that aged) open to dance to the haunting, sensual Mediterranean musical theme. (I certainly hope to scrutinize a soundtrack album soon!) It’s an fascinating, slightly unnerving short film in and of itself, a exiguous meditation on how the stories we beget in are constantly around, gradual, above and beneath us, engrossing and supporting our daily lives. The snake painting slithering on the walls, the chalk lion roaring in the shadows, the posthaste sketched Birth of Athena with its attendant bloody exhibit, the fast slashed outline of Priapus (Romans were very centered on the primacy of the phallus, a fact which is not ignored in this exhibit), Medusa’s serpent hair writhing and hissing from a mosaic - all of these charming and disquieting images flash past us and place a world stout of depth and mystery. And that’s objective the first manifestation of this theme in the series.
There are serious, weighty scenes of solemn ritual, private moments of prayer from individuals to their personal gods, the occasional philosophical exchange about the whims and possible intentions of the gods, and other such touches to the scripts, which seat the people and the culture squarely within the framework of a religious worldview, and that’s something that I rarely net in films about bygone eras. Usually, if a culture isn’t Christian, its religious realities are either ignored, glossed over, trivialized, or exaggerated in some grotesque, ignorant procedure to prop up the prejudices of our have day, that wish to occupy our dominant religions are the only possible ones for “civilized” people. It’s exceedingly rare to witness this one handled in such a matter-of-fact diagram.
As an instance, I was especially glad by the moment when Vorenus is bidding his wife goodbye before marching off to battle. They embrace, and Niobe murmurs, “Bellona protect you.” To which Vorenus answers, “And Juno preserve you.” Bellona was the Roman goddess of war and bloodshed, and Juno was the matron goddess of wives and marriage. To hear those two names old in such a natural and tender scene, and extinct CORRECTLY, was quite touching and very satisfying. (The only other time I can remember a scene of pagan religion so well handled was in another film about Rome - Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator”, where the limited scene of Russell Crowe’s character praying in private to his household gods was played so naturally and so reverently that it literally brought tears to my eyes.) There are several moments like this tiny exchange between husband and wife, and other ways in which we learn how considerable religion was to Rome and its people, such as Caesar’s sponsoring of Octavian to the College of Pontiffs.
Now, I don’t want to give the impression that this is a major share of the point to. The whole point to its effectiveness is that the religious themes are in the background, only sometimes at a level where they actually influence events. But in another procedure, they’re influencing events constantly. Honest like today, religion was woven throughout both politics and daily life in Rome, and this series helps us understand how and why. And again, the filmmaker’s non-judgmental attitudes about the presence of such things really helps to give the film credibility in its portrayal of Roman life as a living, breathing reality, rather than some white marble stereotype, both sterile and used. And for that they are to be commended, which I do most heartily.
Oh, and in reponse to the criticism below of the portrayal of Cleopatra and her court: the portrayal here is, in fact, quite good. Lots of people get the mistake of equating Cleopatra with Nefertiti, but the Ptolemies were not native Egyptians. They were of Greek stock, and took over the throne of Egypt rather than inheriting it. Cleopatra did NOT live in Pharaonic times; her family reigned centuries after the last of the Pharoahs had died. Historical accounts of the period recount her as a pale-skinned, red-haired woman with freckles, and there are images of her extant from the period, in which we can leer she was no relation at all to the shaded, long-necked beauties of the Pharoahs’ courts. It’s moral that the Ptolemies did try to revive the archaic Pharaonic styles, mostly in order to get the people obtain them better (and, to be determined, partly because it was all very frosty and made them feel worthy and godlike), but it was an attempt to bring encourage a time and culture that was gone, rather than a hereditary continuation of it.
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