3 Replies to “Has This Guy Ever Made A Movie Before?”
I taught Cicero’s In Catilinam and Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae every year for about fifteen years, so there’s no way I won’t go see this. I’d go anyway. I saw Apocalypse Now in its first theater run when I was in college. I loved it, but it was not universally admired. I had a particularly idiotic professor who called it “A Pack of Lies Now.” Critics were divided, but time has been kind to it. Megalopolis looks similarly controversial. I probably won’t be around to see how it fares over the long haul, though.
HBO’s Rome had to cram the whole first triumvirate into Season One while incorporating a “low plot” of common soldiers and throwing in enough salacious detail to keep people watching. The Catilinarian conspiracy wasn’t salacious or central to the struggles between the triumviri. (Caesar and Crassus tried to use Catiline to their advantage, but quickly hung him out to dry as soon as he became politically toxic. Pompey was off fighting the pesky Mithridates.) Using the Catilinarian conspiracy in the HBO series might have come off as dry historical detail that distracted from the central power struggles.
But imagine someone losing an election then trying to undo it via rebellion. Ridiculous.
I really liked HBO’s Rome. It managed to be good, trashy fun while having a good historical and cultural backbone. It was originally supposed to run five seasons. It was getting too expensive, so they crammed the whole second triumvirate into Season Two, a tall order. Do I wish it had run five seasons? Hell yes.
I taught Cicero’s In Catilinam and Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae every year for about fifteen years, so there’s no way I won’t go see this. I’d go anyway. I saw Apocalypse Now in its first theater run when I was in college. I loved it, but it was not universally admired. I had a particularly idiotic professor who called it “A Pack of Lies Now.” Critics were divided, but time has been kind to it. Megalopolis looks similarly controversial. I probably won’t be around to see how it fares over the long haul, though.
I checked to see if the Catiline storyline made it into HBO´s Rome – no such luck. Plenty of written literature though.
HBO’s Rome had to cram the whole first triumvirate into Season One while incorporating a “low plot” of common soldiers and throwing in enough salacious detail to keep people watching. The Catilinarian conspiracy wasn’t salacious or central to the struggles between the triumviri. (Caesar and Crassus tried to use Catiline to their advantage, but quickly hung him out to dry as soon as he became politically toxic. Pompey was off fighting the pesky Mithridates.) Using the Catilinarian conspiracy in the HBO series might have come off as dry historical detail that distracted from the central power struggles.
But imagine someone losing an election then trying to undo it via rebellion. Ridiculous.
I really liked HBO’s Rome. It managed to be good, trashy fun while having a good historical and cultural backbone. It was originally supposed to run five seasons. It was getting too expensive, so they crammed the whole second triumvirate into Season Two, a tall order. Do I wish it had run five seasons? Hell yes.