The Musketeers 1.01

[selenak]

Aka, the new BBC show "based on characters by Alexandre Dumas", which is a wise credit to insert in your opening titles because it tells your audience at once the show won't have anything to do do with the novel beyond using the same names and perhaps one or two vaguely similar situations. This being said, I was amused and not bored, as opposed to the abysmal Disney movie in the 90s, and some other laterday Musketeer adaptions.



First of all, I do blame the abysmal godawful Disney abomination starring Tim Curry for introducing something that subsequent adaptions seemingly can't do without, to wit, letting D'Artagnan lose his father to murder and giving him a must-avenge-dad motivation. (Meanwhile, book and earlier adaptions D'Artagnan Senior remained happily alive in Gascogny after giving his son a letter of recommendation to Treville and a horse that causes everyone to make fun of young D'Artagnan in Paris.) Why D'Artagnan needs to be a grimdark father Avenger (tm) these days is beyond me; Athos is the go to Musketeer for angsty backstory, and D'Artagnan is supposed to be a cheerful young contrast, but hey.

Anyway, this being said, I do like Milady framing Athos for murder, which strikes me as a very Milady-esque type of scheme. So far, so good. I also wonder whether the show, like the steampunk adaption shot in Bamberg two years ago, won't let Milady survive at the end, because if Athos' backstory (killing - as far as he knows - his wife upon discovering the brand that marks her a criminal upon her shoulders, complete with "I could have raped her, peasant that she was, but I MARRIED her, and then she turns out to be a criminal! Woe is me!" self pity) is tricky to convey as something that's supposed to make us feel sorry for ATHOS these days, what the Musketeers do at the end with Milady - being judge, jury and handing her over to an executioner equally leaves a questionable taste in the mouth, Milady's own murders notwithstanding. (This is true even for Alexandre Dumas, since he did let Athos brood about this in the sequel.) Purely speculating, they may let Milady switch sides upon discovering Richelieu did the same to his (invented for this show) mistress that Athos tried to do to her - killed her for his pride. Otherwise this particular plot twist seems a bit random, given that the show already established Richelieu as the villain of the tale by previous ruthless and lethal actions. Or it might be so that Aramis, too, has a Grimdark Revenge Motivation (given the fridged woman in question had an affair with him), but I try to hope she was invented and fridged for Milady's benefit, not for Aramis'.

Speaking of Richelieu, I can't tell you how relieved I am that the series did NOT adopt the STUPID STUPID DISNEY TWIST of making Richelieu an Evil Vizir Who Wants On The Throne. Instead, in an amazing nod to actual history, his main motivation seems to be to establish France as the dominant power on the continent instead of Spain. That, um, actually happened to be the case. We even get a demonstration of an actual!Richelieu ploy to make the King comply with his wishes, to wit, offering his resignation. (He did this a couple of times, but was careful not to overdo it, because there was always the danger of Louis actually accepting.) Also, Peter Capaldi is great as usual and the scene between him and Louis with its vague historical aura makes me handwave the poisoning of the minion. (My problem with the later wasn't that he did it but that he did it himself and that the minion had to be very stupid not to figure out he was about to be poisoned.)

(Incidentally: another Disney legacy - because it certainly isn't thus in the novel - is that Louis XIII is always presented as a boy king in post 1990s adaptions. While he did take power from his mother and her lover at age 15, that wasn't when Richelieu became his first minister. Far from it. Richelieu - who wasn't Cardinal Richelieu yet, but Armand du Plessis, bishop of Lucon - had been one of the Queen Mother's people, and consequently Louis banished him first thing. (To Avignon.) He later did manage to get back to court not least via courting the King's favourite who did remember the Bishop of Lucon had been the most capable man in the Queen Mother's crowd, and also Louis wanted to reconcile with his mother. Richelieu, who was 15 years older than Louis, not quite enough to be his father but too much to be part of the same generation, did become First Minister a few favourites and years and a fallout with the Queen Mother later. Anyway, the credits state that it's 1630 in this show, which means Louis should be 29 and Richelieu 44.) (They died within a year from each other, by the way. Richelieu first and then Louis.)

Let's see, what else? Oh yes, those Musketeers. Sorry, but my priorities in this saga are clear and always were. So far, so swashbuckling. I note that as opposed to a lot of American film versions which dispense with Monsieur Bonancieux in order not to make D'Artagnan an adulterer, this one keeps him around, while making Constance mysteriously an Athos fangirl. Luke Pasqualino looks as young here as he did when playing Paolo in The Borgias, so we might actually get a Constance/D'Artagnan pairing where Constance is the older one, as in the book, though nothing but this and the fact she's married so far resembles the novel. (And why no one taught the actors how to pronounce their characters' names is beyond me.)

In conclusion: as far as adaptions of Dumas' novel are concerned, this one doesn't even try, see credits, and Richard Lester's two movies still reign supreme. As a series on its own, well, could be entertaining. I'll give it a few more episodes.

Comments

[king_touchy]

I watched it. I don't care how accurately it follows history, or even the book, though I do appreciate being able to recognize the characters. I'm always in for the entertainment value, and it was fun enough. I am with you on the D'Artagnan: I'm not fond of the father-revenge thing. I liked that he was indignant all the time without have REVENGE on his mind. I honestly expected "My name is Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

I should watch the Lester movies again.

[selenak]

After listening to the way Pasqualino pronounces "D'Artagnan", I can't imagine a producer willing to entrust him with "Charles de Batz-Castelmore". :) But yes, he was presented as intelligent enough to change his mind when presented with new evidence instead of being a one note revenge spouter.

[jesuswasbatman]

I was not too happy about Our Heroes threatening to shoot a man in the gut to get him to talk.

[selenak]

I must admit my first thought in that scene was "is that an actual musket we see a musketeer handling for a change"? Re: ethics, I hope they were bluffing. Mind you, I've been rewatching some Ashes to Ashes and that reminded me how Gene & Co. routinely beating up suspecs when interrogating them was presented as wrong only twice or thrice or so on either show; threatening gut shots but not actually hurting the guy looked downright harmless by direct comparison.

[jesuswasbatman]

I thought that the whole thing had an unnecessarily grotty and noirish tone to it. May have been just my mood but there was that scene, the killing of D'Artagnan's father, Richelieu getting a girlfriend just so he could kill her, Mme Bonancieux bluntly pretending to be a prostitute to distract the guard, and the scenery and costumes as well.

[muccamukk]

I enjoyed it! It kept with the spiriting of the thing, which is fun with lots of plotting and dashing about. Though I was sad to see a couple beloved story beats bite the dust. Maybe they'll show up later, who knows.

Appreciating the choice to make Porthos black, though I suppose that'll usher in the usual wank (ironically, considering). I wish they'd made Aramis blond, though. I have trouble telling him and Athos apart when they both have hats on and the scene is not well lit.

Will stick with it as well, out of curiosity if nothing else.

[jesuswasbatman]

I hope that the kind of fanboys who usually complain about seeing black people in historical Europe will have seen Django Unchained and remembered the real-world resonance.

[muccamukk]

Nah, I'm betting they'll still go with Magically Kept Out By That Invisible Barrier Between Europe and Africa that Existed Pre-Slave Trade.

[selenak]

Re: Aramis, I can't imagine Santiago Cranberra blond, so how about a blond Athos for visual differences instead, she says heretically?

re: Porthos, any fanboy (or girl) who isn't aware of Alexandre Dumas' own racial background and starts to complain about a black Porthos deserves being endlessly ridiculed!

[muccamukk]

I'd be fine with Athos too. He already doesn't look like I pictured him, so why not?

They're probably already doing 12 rounds of race wank on tumblr. I haven't looked.

[legionseagle]

I was once in a historical fiction crit group and I wanted to make it clear that the daguerrotype of a particular character showed them to be mixed race, so as to make them a possible ID to a skull which had turned up and which was causing puzzlement because "No-one had known anyone like that in the district". So I had a character mutter that the character "reminded them of the French literary lion, Dumas". No-one in the crit group got the reference AT ALL.

[nenya_kanadka]

I am coming at this from knowing almost nothing about the source material, like literally this is the firs time I've been able to keep the names straight, but I enjoyed it hugely. I suspect I will not notice many of the things that will make you and Mucca throw your hands up in despair as the show goes on, but oh well.

Richelieu--I've just realized that the first time I heard that name was when I was a wee thing in school learning about the French settlement of eastern Canada. Something something, policy re: the western hemisphere changed in the French court when he came to higher prominence. My memory is hazy after 25 years but he totally made it into our gradeschool curriculum (though the musketeers, fictional or otherwise, did not). So early Lower Canada stuff would have been contemporary with all this then, aha.

I liked the Milady seems actually competent as a conspirator. I care far less about Athos having an angsty backstory about her (though what you post is interesting! and entirely new to me) than I do about her having all kinds of plotty shenanigans with/against the Cardinal. And possibly the Musketeers can be caught up in the plots too, I guess. I just want them to swash and buckle entertainingly, especially since Aramis and D'Artagnan are so pretty. Want to know more about Porthos too. So far we know he is good at card tricks I guess.

Agree that that minion should have seen it coming re: poison. Was 99% sure the musketeers threatening to shoot the guy was a bluff, given how they were being contrasted with people who *would* do that, but of course the guy himself did not know. Wish the woman sleeping with Aramis and Capaldi had survived; that is a dangerous position to find herself in and getting killed seemed likely, but at least they could have given her a few more episodes. Maybe lots of secret shenanigans and plotting! That could have been nice. I like Mme Bonacieux so far, though, and hope that her being bffs with the three-now-foursome will mean another woman onscreen.

Also, more France vs Spain politics and more of the queen having Opinions! And Capaldi stalking about, that was v nice. Makes me want to see him play Vetinari, tbh.

[selenak]

She's not in the novel at all, but historical Richelieu's favourite niece and closest confidante, Marie d'Aiguillon, was a big supporter of early French settlers in Canada. She was an interesting person all around; Corneille dedicated the "Cid" to her, and she probably saved her uncle's position and/or his life on the "Day of Dupes" (= day when virtually all of the King's family and the nobility teamed up to get rid of Richelieu). Richelieu's last words when he died were addressed to her ("My niece, I always loved you more than any other person in this world; it is not seemly that you should see me thus, so go"). But like I said - Dumas never included her in any of his novels, and so of course neither do any of the not-quite-adaptions.

Considering this is a series, not a movie, they will hopefully find the time to flesh out each of the Musketeers & Constance Bonancieux & the Queen. Constance is basically D'Artagnan's love interest in the novel, but off stage for two thirds of it for plot reasons, and though she makes a good active entrance by using D'Artagnan's attraction to her in order to make him help out the Queen whom in the novel she serves as a seamstress & washerwoman, she ever after for what few scenes she has is solely a damsel. The Queen more or less is one as well. Milady, otoh, is one of the best villains ever, male or female, but alas the only dominant female character in the novel. The fourth female character with a name and personality is her maid, Kitty, who is actually shades of grey - she has it in for her mistress for understandably reasons, but isn't a damsel, either - but Kitty is usually left out of any non-French adaptions because of the light she throws on D'Artagnan. See, in the novel, D'Artagnan, despite being in love with Constance (btw he has absolutely no problem with the fact she's married), also sleeps with Milady and has sex with Kitty as a way to spy on Milady once he figures out Milady might be lying to him and up to villainous activities.

[skywaterblue]

Hm. Capaldi as Richelieu? I could be into this. (Tim Curry probably did more to inspire a Richelieu-fan-love in America than you'd be entirely comfortable with...) The Richelieu-as-Vizer puzzled me even then, however, as I didn't understand how a Cardinal thought he could make heirs. Heh.

Black Porthos is also a fun idea, since this is one of the few historical European fandoms where the author may possibly not have imagined the characters as whitey-McWhiterson. ;)

Is this the only French language classic adapted more into English for English-audiences than French?

[selenak]

Oh, as far as I know, there are plenty of French adaptions of the Musketeers (and Spanish adaptions, and Russian adaptions, and... etc.); they just don't make it to the English speaking tv and cinema market. But I take your meaning. Well, Dumas' own "Count of Monte Christo" should be a runner up, and there is always his rival-and-buddy Victor Hugo whose "Les Miserables" and "Hunchback of Notre Dame" surely bring in the English language numbers? And since "La Belle et le Bete" is actually a tale composed and written by a Frenchwoman, any Beauty-and-the-Beast adaption might count as well.

I have other beefs with the Disney abomination than their Richelieu (when they executed Milady one third into the movie after letting her declare her unending love to Athos, I walked out of the cinema, I kid you not, and like I said in the post, I blame it for setting D'Artagnan up with a dead father to avenge instead of a living one waving him off after giving him a fun horse), but what the attraction of Tim Curry is supposed to be is beyond me.

re: Porthos - you know, come to think of it, Dumas, looking twenty or thirty years younger than he does here:



...would have made a great Porthos.

[skywaterblue]

I've heard it argued that D'Artagnan should be played by a black man, by the way, by a Frenchman whose opinion is that the fictional character owes more to family legend of Dumas's famous grandfather than the real-life musketeer. His opinion is that this is much more obvious if you're French and reading it in the French.

[selenak]

That's the famous father - Alexandre, the revolutionary general - Dumas' (known) grandfather was the white aristrocrat who sold his black grandmother but kept the kid.

[skywaterblue]

The pere/fils thing always trips me up. I really should read the book about the entire family to knock it into my brain.