December Talking Meme: I, Claudius
Dec. 17th, 2013 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe historical tv series all other historical tv series want to be when they grow up. Still. This includes fantasy tv series based on fantasy novels, for verily, you can tell G. R. R. Martin has read his Graves and watched his BBC series. (Tyrion Lannister wants to be Claudius when he grows up, too.)
There had been earlier attempts to film I, Claudius - notably by Josef von Sternberg, and in the dvds of the tv series, you can see the surviving fragments of Sternberg's uncompleteted attempt. (They're awesome. Charles Laughton as Claudius is as great as Charles Laughton tends to be, Sternberg sculps actors' faces like few other directors, and based on the surviving scenes, the script seems to have wrangled a successful distillation of Graves' novel into one cinematic epic.) But the tv show was the one which succeeded, and just at the right time, too. It's a BBC series of the 70s, meaning it's willing to take its time without being boring, and the actors are for the most part a later Who Is Who of the British acting scene. For Derek Jacobi, of course, Claudius would be his breakout role (and much like many a headline about Peter O'Toole's death were "'Lawrence of Arabia' dead" you can bet that when Jacobi dies, it will be some variation of "Claudius dead"). John Hurt is still the definite Caligula (all other actors who ever played insane sadistic emperors weep in envy). And Sian Phillips as Livia is the Evil Overlady to rule them all. Some of the actors are cast against the type most commonly associated with them, notably Brian Blessed as Augustus. (Anyone who believes Blessed can do nothing but SHOUT just has to watch Augustus' death scene, which Herbert Wise, who directed most episodes of the tv series, named as his favourite scene of them all. It's a jaw dropping amazing bit of acting because the camera is on Blessed's face all the time for what feels like five minutes, he doesn't say a word while the audience hears Livia talk out of sight, and not only does he facially respond to what Livia says early but you can feel the exact moment Augustus dies and the light goes out of his eyes. No special effects. The camera stays on his face (and Blessed doesn't blink) while Livia still monologues until she has finished what she had to say, and her hand moves in to close his eyes.) And of course, there is Patrick Stewart as one of the Little Bads, Sejanus, enjoying himself in a villain role. (And a wig.)
I, Claudius didn't have a big budget, which is why every time the characters are off to watch some gladiator games, the camera stays on them (i.e. we never see the masses and certainly no fighting gladiators, though in one scene we see the gladiators prepare while Livia gives her idea of a pep speech which, err, is very her). There are no battle scenes, either, though there are of course several wars being conducted through the decades. At its heart, it's the story of the Julio-Claudians as a dysfunctional family destroying itself (Breaking Rome?), with a razor sharp script full of one liners and intermittent spots of hope. Not everything about I, Claudius works, or in its thousands of imitations left a good legacy. The central premise of Claudius, while genuinely disabled with his stutter and his club foot, only faking his foolishness in order to survive while everyone else gets themselves killed carries the show to the point where Claudius becomes Emperor, but the show has some problems selling the other part of Graves' twist on history, that Claudius, after a few years of being a good Emperor, realises he's making a mistake because it means the people are now content to be in an Empire, and he'd been hoping for the Republic to return all his life. (I entirely blame Robert Graves on every "good " Emperor who really wants the Republic to return, no matter how unlikely that is - looking at you, Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator, for example.) He therefore marries the "worst woman" he can find, his niece Agrippina the Younger (Agrippinilla in the novel & show) because he counts on her son Nero being so terrible that the Romans will have had enough of the Empire once and for all. This of course means the audience (knowing Claudius is wrong there) can't root for him as an underdog anymore (the fate of all underdogs who make it to the top) and can't hope for his plans to succeed, either, while Agrippinilla isn't given the flair of the saga's earlier villains, like her brother Caligula, let alone Livia, and thus the show ends on something of an anticlimax. (Though no, I don't think they should have ended it with Claudius becoming Emperor; that would have been cheating.) Also, Augustus - one of history's sharks if ever there was one - as a mostly good natured pater familias is a quibble I have as someone interested in history, though not one from the pov of an entertainment watcher. (Where Augustus as a mostly good guy is necessary because each successive emperor gets worse which is part of the drama.)
But still, nitpicks not withstanding - I, Claudius is glorious. No matter how outrageeous events gets, the characters never feel like caricatures. Not even Caligula, who is insane and sadistic but by no means stupid, which makes him more frightening. They're rarely just one thing or the other; take Claudius' mother Antonia, who is one of the few high-minded Julians, and of those few the only one who doesn't die young. As far as anyone can be on this show, she's a good guy. She also has no sympathy whatsoever for her youngest son who embarrasses her by his stutter, clumsiness and clubbed foot, and never through several decades of show time has a kind word for him. (If you think Catelyn Stark not liking her husband's supposed bastard is cause for the fandom to condemm her ever after, I wonder what they'd make of Antonia?) When she realises her daughter Livilla has poisoned her (i.e. Livilla's) husband and was about to committ another murder, she punishes her by locking her up in a room and letting her starve there while sitting outside, listening to Livilla's desperate cries ("this is my punishment"). (Much as Livilla is an unsympathetic character when alive, this is a gruesome sequence.) Antonia, possibly the most Roman character, commits suicide in disgust of what Rome has become (and doesn't trust her son Claudius to get the arrangements for her funeral right, one last humiliation).I can't see a modern show resisting the temptation to soften her by letting her be a bit nicer to her younger son (she's loving towards her other children, until the truth about Livilla comes out, obviously, and to Herod, Claudius' best friend, who grows up as a glorified hostage in Rome) or at least give her a deathbed reconciliation with Claudius - or else to present her as a villain. But not this show.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have Livia, who is the prime villain of the show until Caligula takes over that position (with a brief Sejanus interlude), and who is responsible for a lot of the tragedies in the first third of the show, which she at no point repents. At the same time, when Livia says, off camera in the aforementioned death scene of Augustus, "I did it all for Rome" ("all" includes poisoning Augustus, which she's just told him), neither performance or script leave doubt this is exactly what she believes. The scene between her, Claudius and Caligula in which Caligula is signalled as the next prime antagonist and in which Livia and Claudius have their first honest conversation with each other is breathtaking in its emotional dynamics, not least because Claudius has feared Livia (with reason) all his life and still exits the scene having (sincerely) promised her he will make her a goddess after her death so she can escape punishment in the afterlife - and the way it's written and played makes the audience want him to keep that promise. (He does.)
The only villain who gets punished the conventional way (i.e. without the audience feeling anything but relieved and all for it) is Caligula, but then again, he's also one of the show's most memorable characters. John Hurt as mentioned is brilliant in the role, no matter whether tightly controlled sadistic (as towards the dying Livia) or barking mad (when he's convinced he's Zeus later) , and gets to play one of the most frightening scenes on tv (or any type of screen, for that matter), full stop, without the show ever needing to be explicit. Today's tv would probably show the gory results. The BBC did it all by establishing the before (Caligula's sister and lover Drusilla is pregnant; he's convinced that the kid will surpass him, since he's Zeus, you know) and the after (Claudius knocks on a door, Caligula, now with blood on his mouth, opens; we never ever see what Claudius sees behind Caligula, it's all done via Derek Jacobi's expression and John Hurt saying "I wouldn't go in, Uncle, if I were you"). And it's a complete nightmare. You can keep today's massacres, they still pale by comparison.
It occurs to me that I've made the series sound like an unreleting doom and gloom fest, and the amazing thing is, it isn't at all. As mentioned, the dialogue is very witty, even in the anticlimactic final episodes. (Take the show's version of that Juvenal anecdote about Messalina challenging one of the most successful prostitutes of Rome about who will satisfy more men in one night. The prostitute agrees, but the audience doesn't get a single sex scene. Instead it gets pointed dialogue. The men around Messalina make jokes when the prostitute wants to be paid beforehand. Says the unimpressed professional in question that Messalina might do this for fun but she's making a living that way. "My hobby happens to be gardening, for which I don't expect to be paid." With that line, a one shot character is established and real in a way prostitutes in historical or fantasy tv shows rarely get to be.
In conclusion: I, Claudius. If you haven't already, watch it. If you know it already, watch it again. There is nothing like it, though many try.
There had been earlier attempts to film I, Claudius - notably by Josef von Sternberg, and in the dvds of the tv series, you can see the surviving fragments of Sternberg's uncompleteted attempt. (They're awesome. Charles Laughton as Claudius is as great as Charles Laughton tends to be, Sternberg sculps actors' faces like few other directors, and based on the surviving scenes, the script seems to have wrangled a successful distillation of Graves' novel into one cinematic epic.) But the tv show was the one which succeeded, and just at the right time, too. It's a BBC series of the 70s, meaning it's willing to take its time without being boring, and the actors are for the most part a later Who Is Who of the British acting scene. For Derek Jacobi, of course, Claudius would be his breakout role (and much like many a headline about Peter O'Toole's death were "'Lawrence of Arabia' dead" you can bet that when Jacobi dies, it will be some variation of "Claudius dead"). John Hurt is still the definite Caligula (all other actors who ever played insane sadistic emperors weep in envy). And Sian Phillips as Livia is the Evil Overlady to rule them all. Some of the actors are cast against the type most commonly associated with them, notably Brian Blessed as Augustus. (Anyone who believes Blessed can do nothing but SHOUT just has to watch Augustus' death scene, which Herbert Wise, who directed most episodes of the tv series, named as his favourite scene of them all. It's a jaw dropping amazing bit of acting because the camera is on Blessed's face all the time for what feels like five minutes, he doesn't say a word while the audience hears Livia talk out of sight, and not only does he facially respond to what Livia says early but you can feel the exact moment Augustus dies and the light goes out of his eyes. No special effects. The camera stays on his face (and Blessed doesn't blink) while Livia still monologues until she has finished what she had to say, and her hand moves in to close his eyes.) And of course, there is Patrick Stewart as one of the Little Bads, Sejanus, enjoying himself in a villain role. (And a wig.)
I, Claudius didn't have a big budget, which is why every time the characters are off to watch some gladiator games, the camera stays on them (i.e. we never see the masses and certainly no fighting gladiators, though in one scene we see the gladiators prepare while Livia gives her idea of a pep speech which, err, is very her). There are no battle scenes, either, though there are of course several wars being conducted through the decades. At its heart, it's the story of the Julio-Claudians as a dysfunctional family destroying itself (Breaking Rome?), with a razor sharp script full of one liners and intermittent spots of hope. Not everything about I, Claudius works, or in its thousands of imitations left a good legacy. The central premise of Claudius, while genuinely disabled with his stutter and his club foot, only faking his foolishness in order to survive while everyone else gets themselves killed carries the show to the point where Claudius becomes Emperor, but the show has some problems selling the other part of Graves' twist on history, that Claudius, after a few years of being a good Emperor, realises he's making a mistake because it means the people are now content to be in an Empire, and he'd been hoping for the Republic to return all his life. (I entirely blame Robert Graves on every "good " Emperor who really wants the Republic to return, no matter how unlikely that is - looking at you, Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator, for example.) He therefore marries the "worst woman" he can find, his niece Agrippina the Younger (Agrippinilla in the novel & show) because he counts on her son Nero being so terrible that the Romans will have had enough of the Empire once and for all. This of course means the audience (knowing Claudius is wrong there) can't root for him as an underdog anymore (the fate of all underdogs who make it to the top) and can't hope for his plans to succeed, either, while Agrippinilla isn't given the flair of the saga's earlier villains, like her brother Caligula, let alone Livia, and thus the show ends on something of an anticlimax. (Though no, I don't think they should have ended it with Claudius becoming Emperor; that would have been cheating.) Also, Augustus - one of history's sharks if ever there was one - as a mostly good natured pater familias is a quibble I have as someone interested in history, though not one from the pov of an entertainment watcher. (Where Augustus as a mostly good guy is necessary because each successive emperor gets worse which is part of the drama.)
But still, nitpicks not withstanding - I, Claudius is glorious. No matter how outrageeous events gets, the characters never feel like caricatures. Not even Caligula, who is insane and sadistic but by no means stupid, which makes him more frightening. They're rarely just one thing or the other; take Claudius' mother Antonia, who is one of the few high-minded Julians, and of those few the only one who doesn't die young. As far as anyone can be on this show, she's a good guy. She also has no sympathy whatsoever for her youngest son who embarrasses her by his stutter, clumsiness and clubbed foot, and never through several decades of show time has a kind word for him. (If you think Catelyn Stark not liking her husband's supposed bastard is cause for the fandom to condemm her ever after, I wonder what they'd make of Antonia?) When she realises her daughter Livilla has poisoned her (i.e. Livilla's) husband and was about to committ another murder, she punishes her by locking her up in a room and letting her starve there while sitting outside, listening to Livilla's desperate cries ("this is my punishment"). (Much as Livilla is an unsympathetic character when alive, this is a gruesome sequence.) Antonia, possibly the most Roman character, commits suicide in disgust of what Rome has become (and doesn't trust her son Claudius to get the arrangements for her funeral right, one last humiliation).I can't see a modern show resisting the temptation to soften her by letting her be a bit nicer to her younger son (she's loving towards her other children, until the truth about Livilla comes out, obviously, and to Herod, Claudius' best friend, who grows up as a glorified hostage in Rome) or at least give her a deathbed reconciliation with Claudius - or else to present her as a villain. But not this show.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have Livia, who is the prime villain of the show until Caligula takes over that position (with a brief Sejanus interlude), and who is responsible for a lot of the tragedies in the first third of the show, which she at no point repents. At the same time, when Livia says, off camera in the aforementioned death scene of Augustus, "I did it all for Rome" ("all" includes poisoning Augustus, which she's just told him), neither performance or script leave doubt this is exactly what she believes. The scene between her, Claudius and Caligula in which Caligula is signalled as the next prime antagonist and in which Livia and Claudius have their first honest conversation with each other is breathtaking in its emotional dynamics, not least because Claudius has feared Livia (with reason) all his life and still exits the scene having (sincerely) promised her he will make her a goddess after her death so she can escape punishment in the afterlife - and the way it's written and played makes the audience want him to keep that promise. (He does.)
The only villain who gets punished the conventional way (i.e. without the audience feeling anything but relieved and all for it) is Caligula, but then again, he's also one of the show's most memorable characters. John Hurt as mentioned is brilliant in the role, no matter whether tightly controlled sadistic (as towards the dying Livia) or barking mad (when he's convinced he's Zeus later) , and gets to play one of the most frightening scenes on tv (or any type of screen, for that matter), full stop, without the show ever needing to be explicit. Today's tv would probably show the gory results. The BBC did it all by establishing the before (Caligula's sister and lover Drusilla is pregnant; he's convinced that the kid will surpass him, since he's Zeus, you know) and the after (Claudius knocks on a door, Caligula, now with blood on his mouth, opens; we never ever see what Claudius sees behind Caligula, it's all done via Derek Jacobi's expression and John Hurt saying "I wouldn't go in, Uncle, if I were you"). And it's a complete nightmare. You can keep today's massacres, they still pale by comparison.
It occurs to me that I've made the series sound like an unreleting doom and gloom fest, and the amazing thing is, it isn't at all. As mentioned, the dialogue is very witty, even in the anticlimactic final episodes. (Take the show's version of that Juvenal anecdote about Messalina challenging one of the most successful prostitutes of Rome about who will satisfy more men in one night. The prostitute agrees, but the audience doesn't get a single sex scene. Instead it gets pointed dialogue. The men around Messalina make jokes when the prostitute wants to be paid beforehand. Says the unimpressed professional in question that Messalina might do this for fun but she's making a living that way. "My hobby happens to be gardening, for which I don't expect to be paid." With that line, a one shot character is established and real in a way prostitutes in historical or fantasy tv shows rarely get to be.
In conclusion: I, Claudius. If you haven't already, watch it. If you know it already, watch it again. There is nothing like it, though many try.
