Like your standard costume drama, they go back and forth for approximately 800 years before they get together. By the end of the show he’s financially ruined despite all his hard work, and the experience has broken many of his tightly-held conceptions about life. And this is symbolized in him appearing in public with his shirt undone, which shouldn’t be that big a deal and yet it is, because Armitage releases some weapons-grade smolder.
Hats! Cravats! Emotional turmoil! Heaving bosoms!
Miniseries time!
I am going through a breakup, and so what better time to obsessively fixate on an unattainable ideal? And who better than Richard Armitage, who is SO HOT right now! YAY!!! *takes another shot*
Armitage first showed up on my radar when he appeared as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit. I hadn’t heard of him, and looked for more of his work, preferably the smutty kind.
My friend, another Armitage fan, recommended the show to me. I gave it a try a while ago but couldn’t quite get into it. A snail with a twisted ankle could outstrip it when it comes to pacing.
The story is actually fascinating: Margaret Hale is a young woman from the South of England who moves with her family to the North. Her father is a rector who has lost his faith, and so chose to move to the North and be a teacher, which will cause his family to live “in reduced circumstances,” which is British Dramatic Speak for “no longer wealthy.” Margaret, while scouting for a new house to rent, overhears some men gossiping about her father’s recent social descent and speculating that it might have been due to something scandalous. She demands to be taken to their boss, Mr. Thornton the factory owner (Armitage) who has taken it upon himself to help the family find a house.
She meets our luscious hero just when he is in the midst of lurid exhortations, which sounds sexy but really means “beating the shit out of a factory worker.” It transpires Thornton has lost his temper because the worker was smoking in the middle of a COTTON MILL, which is only slightly less flammable than a Chinese firework marinated in lamp oil, and he has seen the result of gruesome factory fires before. He considers his position as the factory owner as a kind of steward of his employees, even if he begrudges them their salaries.
SMOLDER!!
There are some interesting moments where worlds collide; Thornton, a member of the emergent bourgeoisie, carries a chip on his shoulder about having been born poor, as does his Mother, although his sister is delighted at having “gone up” in the world. Hale has a bad moment where she is engulfed in a crowd of rough working class folks, who jeer and frighten her before she is rescued by Nicholas Higgins, played by Brendan Coyle (who is best known as Mr. Bates from Downtown Abbey). The working class have power, they aren’t afraid to pick on an unattended upperclass lady and both of them know it. Ever after there little moments of socioeconomic overlap, sometimes overt and sometimes very subtle, but still there.
It began to dawn on me somewhere in the second episode that this was how the show was going to be. There would be no rogering or nudity, and since I didn’t know how long the show was I was very concerned that I would spend 25 hours of my life for the privilege of watching someone loosen their cravat. Luckily the show was only 4 episodes, and I was having fun with it, so I watched the rest.
And MAN.
Tenderness! WOOO TOUCH HER HAIR!!!
Margaret is a likeable enough character, but I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t really moved by her plight, possibly because she didn’t launch herself crotch-first at Thornton upon his first appearance like any sensible person would. She puts him off and insists she doesn’t like him, even when he approaches her with an offer of marriage.
Like your standard costume drama, they go back and forth for approximately 800 years before they get together. By the end of the show he’s financially ruined despite all his hard work, and the experience has broken many of his tightly-held conceptions about life. And this is symbolized in him appearing in public with his shirt undone, which shouldn’t be that big a deal and yet it is, because Armitage releases some weapons-grade smolder.
Oops, there go my pants! INTO FLAMES.
Trends come and go. Currently we are stuck in a “actors and actresses barely wear clothes” cycle. I’m not advocating we all wrap ourselves up in layers and layers of shamecloth, but there’s something to be said for a less is more approach, sometimes. It’s nice to have to use your imagination now and then.
When it’s done right, with the right performers and good direction, an undone button can butter more crumpet than a pile of porn mags. But maybe it’s just me.
North and South is available on Instant Watch. If you already watch a lot of these types of shows you might enjoy it, and the history is very interesting. Watch the first episode and see what you think!
*finishes off the bottle, goes to sleep in the empty bathtub*
I was recently rewatching my all-time most favorite TV show, HBO’s Rome, and realized I had a perfect opportunity for a blog entry. Unfortunately, Rome is not available on Instant and by all accounts may not be for a long time; HBO offers its own streaming for its content, so we won’t see its programming streamed anywhere but the HBO site anytime soon. So you can only get it on DVD.
It kind of goes without saying that there will be spoilers in this entry; I mean, if you haven’t watched the show and don’t want anything spoiled then perhaps you should give today’s entry a miss. On the other hand, if you are able to read English at all and are surprised to find Julius Caeasar to be a character who dies, then I congratulate you on your ability to filter information at such an astounding rate.
5. Vercingetorix, King of the Gauls
Vercingetorix’s death itself, a gruesome strangling, is not so interesting as what it signified.
When first we meet Vercingetorix, he has been defeated in battle by Julius Caesar, and is being ceremoniously stripped of his clothing and crown (a pretty bitching little number with pheasant feathers on it). A tall, striking man, he is forced to kneel and kiss Caesar’s standard as a sign of submission, and is then thrown in the dungeon.
There he stays for most of the first season, until he’s taken off the shelf and presented to Caesar one day, who offers a chilling ‘Goodbye, old friend,’ before instructing his minions to clean up the now-decrepit, broken man. As was made clear in the Princess Bride, you should be healthy (or at least look it) before you are broken.
Which is ironic, as he is being trotted out in order to be executed in front of the ravening crowd at Caesar’s triumph.
In the history of Public Relations, the Romans were goddamn rocket scientists. They knew better than anyone before or after (except the Nazis) of the power of perception over rational thought. Show a once-powerful person broken, in the right context, and the might of Rome doesn’t just become an idea to the people, it becomes sacrosanct. ‘THIS is what the power of Rome can do,’ such an event demonstrates. ‘Serve Rome, or fall.’ It’s perfectly illustrated by how the people cheer after Vercingetorix is strangled to death, and how his mouldering corpse is considered just another piece of decoration to be swept up, afterwards. Never mind what it signified to the other side (the decimation of the Celts and Gauls, and how Rome would now become rich beyond measure as a result of the massive gold reserves of Gaul and Britain); for the average Roman citizen, it was just so much confirmation that they were on the winning team.
4. Eirene
Being dragged behind a wagon is an excellent exfoliant. Look at that skin!
Eirene’s death was startling not just because of how surprising it was, but because it seemed unnecessary.
In a historical show where people are dying left and right, it seems almost unfair that a character who falls in the ‘not really based on anyone specific but more a composite of other people and is just kind of a fun side character’ group should die. Especially given the circumstances: while pregnant with Pullo’s baby, she is poisoned by a jealous Gaia. But the abortifacient seems to go awry, and Eirene dies, instead of just miscarrying (or maybe that was Gaia’s intent all along; then again, the apothecary seemed assured that the potion would be fairly straightforward).
I liked Eirene, although she didn’t have much to do, storywise. She functioned as a vehicle to show that Pullo was capable of gentleness instead of just violence, but that character trait came out anyway, through his interaction with the children. And Pullo as a doting father was a lovely counterpoint to the darker goings-on of the show. But Eirene as a character was kind of quietly awesome- she was strong, hardworking, and inpatient with slaves who did not know their place or did not work as hard as they should have. This last is because she herself was a slave; along with that comes all kind of complicated character building. She holds other slaves to her own high standard–or perhaps takes a special small joy in being the one doling out beatings.
3. Julius Caesar
"Can't wait to get home and kick back with my boy, Brutus!"
Caesar’s death is kind of a given that it would be on this list; after all, it’s the penultimate moment of the first season, and sets into motion almost all of the events of the second.
The event itself is ugly, and brutal. It probably also wasn’t clean or short enough, if you ask Caesar himself: a veteran of many wars, he probably knew how to kill a man more efficiently than the indolent, privileged members of the Senate who did him in. Additionally, what appears to be an epileptic attack occurs, which both prevents him from properly defending himself and reveals his condition to the whole of the senate. His last act is an attempt to hide his contorting face, as Brutus looks on in horror.
I’m sure the Liberatores (as they are historically known) thought they were doing Rome a favor, but considering the chaos that ensues in the wake of Caesar’s death, it’s clear he proved a very stabilizing force, both politically for the city, and personally for its inhabitants. Historians still fume and foam over this murder; was he a tyrant, or a visionary with Rome’s best interests at heart? Unless a secret diary is unearthed in which he declares himself God and discloses his plans to personally molest and murder every inhabitant of Rome, we’ll never know.
2. Marc Antony
"What? I can't, I don't even. . . is that a boob hubcab?"
Somewhere in the depths of freshman level Psychology, I learned that while women are twice as likely to attempt suicide, men are five times more likely to succeed. My data may be skewed, but the logic is this: Women are more likely to make suicidal gestures, like cutting and pills, but men tend to choose more final methods, like blowing their heads off with shotguns, or throwing themselves off cliffs. This could also be complete bullshit, but it’s oen of those little interesting facts I filed away.
When Antony decides to off himself, it is after a long downward spiral of drugs and debauchery. Guilt-ridden over Caesar’s death, he makes a series of political missteps (and a few small victories) that eventually land him in Egypt, presiding over a court of sycophants and whores. He goes native, declaring himself the god Osiris to Cleopatra’s Isis, gets a boss snake tattoo, and decks himself out in the latest in celebritry Egyptian fashion, which looks kind of like something Liberace’s pool boy might have deemed ‘too much.’
Antony’s death was as much a character death as a theme death. The show afterwards felt less like a denouement than a few loose ends being tidied up, as nothing that occurs afterwards seems as important or interesting. Sure, Cleopatra had her big moment, and Lucieus Vorenus and Pullo had their wrap-up, but it felt a little tacked on. Antony killing himself, with Vorenus’s help, was the end of both the Caesare story arc and the direction of the show. It’s almost a shame it wasn’t the last, last minute of the show, as it would have been easier to accept the show’s cancellation, then. Showing us Octavian’s triumph and everything else that occurred jsut reminds we, the viewer, of everything that we WON’T get to see.
1. Cicero
"I believe I shall go home and stupify myself with wine." -Actual quote from the show
You’re surprised, aren’t you?
Certainly, many characters had more exciting deaths than Cicero, but his was the most poignant to me.
Perhaps it was because Cicero, while a Patrician, was not as established within that class as other highborn Roman characters, and it always felt as if he were eternally chasing that brass ring, all the while struggling to maintain a moral center. Cicero had to work hard to get where he did. He isn’t courageous by his own admission, but still manages to stand up for what he believes in when he declares Antony a ‘wreck.’
Cicero’s death, when it comes, is a strange peak in the show. The pacing slows down a great deal; he observes a single bird overhead, and seems to be reflecting on not how little he has done with his life, but that it should end this way, in his garden, while his slave weeps hysterically in the background. The sun is bright and a soft wind is blowing, rustling the leaves of his peach tree. It’s a beautiful day, the rest of which he will not see.
Cicero’s resignation to his fate is only part of the greatness of this scene; the other half is Titus Pullo’s gentle, self-assured assistance as he helps walk Cicero through his last moments. He asks permission to take peaches from Cicero’s garden. It’s clear that Cicero is thinking of other, much loftier concepts, but the import of this small concession is not lost on him. In five minutes, they won’t belong to anyone, after all, and Pullo could do as he likes. He’s no mindless thug, come to humiliate Cicero, loot his house and commit violent murder; he’s simply carrying out orders.
The other interesting thing about this scene is its small flirtation with the concept of mortality. Cicero mentions that he will be immortalized in all the history books, and so will his killer. Pullo mistakenly takes this to mean that he will be immortalized, physically, before the matter is cleared up. Their names and deeds will live on, if nothing else.
Rome is a show I include in a group filed under ‘Great Humanist Dramas.’ Sure, many of the characters invoke the names of their gods as they go about their business, occasionally even putting importance into that god’s opinion of their actions, but ultimately it’s a show about humans.
“I defy you to do your worst. It can hardly be my worst. Mine has already and often happened to me. You cannot touch me now. I am one of the “stately homos of England”.”
There is a moment in 1975’s The Naked Civil Servant that beautifully summarizes the entire film.
John Hurt, playing English gay icon and protomartyr of pride Quentin Crisp, gazes into a mirror in his little flat, carefully prodding the bruised, beaten face that stares back at him. Caught unawares by himself in a rough part of London in the 1940’s, he was beaten mercilessly by a group of toughs when they spotted that he was a man dressed as a woman. He flags down a cab, but when the cabbie, too, realizes he’s a man, he throws Quentin out of the cab and leaves him to the roughs. As he looks over the bruises and cuts, the scene cuts to an earlier image of Quentin as a child dressed in his mummy’s fanciest clothes and waltzing alone before a mirror.
Loneliness only hurts if you know what you're missing out on.
The scene of the boy dancing was the real Quentin’s own suggestion to open the film. What better way to illustrate the inherent idea of the film–that the interior self is the only way a person should be judged, that the happiness of the individual (and by extension their friends, who are just as accepting) should be one’s only concern in life? That loneliness only hurts if you can’t be happy alone? What happened to the happy little dancing boy? Hurt’s soulful eyes wonder. Who could possibly do this to him over such a stupid thing?
In 1975, John Hurt (best known to American audiences, including me, as the guy whose chest exploded in Alien) won a Bafta for his portrayal of Quentin Crisp, one of the ‘grandfathers’ of the modern gay pride movement.
The made-for-TV movie would largely be forgotten if not for Hurt’s captivating and charismatic performance; although it had more flair and style in its direction than other films of the time, it is Hurt’s moving, soulful portrayal of a man decades ahead of his time that makes the film stick. Crisp, who realized from a very young age that he didn’t care for women (WAY back in the 1920s) was delighted when he found a group of like-minded fellows one night, all dressed in women’s clothes. Unfortunately, the group were mostly composed of rent-boys, and were treated as the lowest form of life on the London streets, beaten and attacked when they weren’t being solicited for sex by closeted gay and bisexual men.
As he grew older, Crisp realized he didn’t want to pretend he was something he wasn’t–it was a time where gay men’s options were either do as you please as a rentboy (and probably die of a venereal disease or violence), or marry a beard and then sneak out a few times a week for rentboys or to go dancing with other men at secret gay clubs. Crisp, with his garish red hair and penchant for women’s clothing and makeup, on being seen entering such a secret club, would ‘ruin it for the rest’ of the closeted men, and his membership card to the club is torn up and he is asked to leave. He attempts to join the army, but is rejected on the grounds of ‘suffering from a sexual perversion.’
His decision to live out of the closet as an effeminate homosexual (as he identifies himself) costs him very dearly, in terms of friends, family, his job, and sometimes even his own safety and freedom as some officers accuse him of soliciting (he wasn’t, just saying hello to a friend).
It would be easy for the outre, witty, and fearless Crisp to overshadow the real man, with his fears, disappointments, and deep alienation from others. After all, with a sharp tongue and droll remark, he wafts through life as much as possible, even though he carries more than his share of the average life’s burdens.
And though Crisp was surrounded by friends his entire life, it’s entirely possible he never realized what loneliness felt like since he’d never been in a crowd of his own ‘kind.’ He had no kind, he was a singular individual ahead of his time, who never found his muse, his soul mate (or so the film would claim). Can one recognize true isolation if one has never known anything else?
'Never call the police liars.' - QC
This echoing division between himself and others is addressed–at the end of the film, he remarks that he was fabulously happy ‘just once.’ One night in his twenties, he was alone at the waterfront, and a group of sailors ran across him. Rather than brutalize him, they treated him fondly, flirting with him and making much of him, treating him as the lady he was while fully knowing he was a man, and this most heartbreaking of moments is beautifully played by Hurt, who is at the center of the group beaming with joy even as his eyes sparkle with tears–he’ll never be this happy again, he fears.
This is a quote from it that I’ve always loved–in the scene, some kids are harassing the now-middle aged Quentin, threatening to tell a policeman he’s been ‘fiddling’ with them if he doesn’t give them money–middle-school extortionists.
“I defy you to do your worst. It can hardly be my worst. Mine has already and often happened to me. You cannot touch me now. I am one of the “stately homos of England”.”
Though disappointment and tragedy follow Crisp wherever he goes, the film itself is lighthearted most of the time, almost a romp. Most of the ugliness occurs off-camera, which does sanitize the story much of the time, but also gives Crisp his dignity–not necessarily a bad thing, but also very progressive for the time it was being filmed.
After all, in the US our movies about gay culture were forward-thinking, open-minded projects like ‘Cruising.’
