Most peoples' understanding of Julius Caesar, the 100 Years War, the Wars of the Roses and how they ended in 1485 has been almost entirely formed by 400 years of Shakespeare.
I don't think there's any record before Shakespeare that the real Julius Caesar died with 'Et tu Brute' on his lips.
I don't think there's any record before Shakespeare that the real Julius Caesar died with 'Et tu Brute' on his lips.
True, I don't think they had aftershave in those days. Sorry
Most peoples' understanding of Julius Caesar, the 100 Years War, the Wars of the Roses and how they ended in 1485 has been almost entirely formed by 400 years of Shakespeare.
I don't think there's any record before Shakespeare that the real Julius Caesar died with 'Et tu Brute' on his lips.
You'll be telling me next that 'I, Clavdivs' wasn't pure historical documentary, with just some rather good re-enactment?!
Well, his wiki page makes him out to be a psychotic sexual predator who organised Katyn. So...not very far at all?
And the movie made it out to be that his sex crimes were a major part of the reason he was executed, with his accusers reciting the names of his victims while they put him to death.
I know it's true that Beria was a sex criminal, but I'm pretty sure that scene was a fabrication.
(Not that I think you were neccessarily endorsing the factuality of that scene.)
I think there are problems with dramatized fictional versions of real life contemporary people and events that go beyond some viewers not understanding that it's fictional.
How contemporary is "contemporary"? And how far should writers go to spare the feelings of . . . let's say Lavrenti Beria?
Laventri Beria died in 1953, his widow in 1992 and his son in 2000. I don’t know if he has any living descendants.
The current series of The Crown deals with many people still living, and the siblings and children of some who have died. I think we’re talking in rather different terms.
Well, his wiki page makes him out to be a psychotic sexual predator who organised Katyn. So...not very far at all?
And the movie made it out to be that his sex crimes were a major part of the reason he was executed, with his accusers reciting the names of his victims while they put him to death.
I know it's true that Beria was a sex criminal, but I'm pretty sure that scene was a fabrication.
(Not that I think you were neccessarily endorsing the factuality of that scene.)
I see what you mean - but to me the scene hung on the idea that the rest of the politburo knew what he was, going way back, but chose to use that knowledge to hang him when it suited them. Although in reality he seems to have had more of a 'trial' than the film suggested (and the 'crimes' he was charged with were more political), it wasn't much more of a trial, and his execution on the same day seems pretty much as perfunctory.
I was surprised, reading his wiki entry, that so many of the plot points / jokes in the film were based on the history of the times. Though perhaps Iannucci just read the same wiki page
Well, his wiki page makes him out to be a psychotic sexual predator who organised Katyn. So...not very far at all?
And the movie made it out to be that his sex crimes were a major part of the reason he was executed, with his accusers reciting the names of his victims while they put him to death.
I know it's true that Beria was a sex criminal, but I'm pretty sure that scene was a fabrication.
(Not that I think you were neccessarily endorsing the factuality of that scene.)
I see what you mean - but to me the scene hung on the idea that the rest of the politburo knew what he was, going way back, but chose to use that knowledge to hang him when it suited them.
Interesting interpretation. But, would they have had the opportunity to tske Beria out earlier, ie. before Stalin died?
According to wiki, rape was among the crimes he was charged with. But I got the impression(apparently backed up by your reading) that the writers exaggerated the centrality of that particular crime, possibly to fit an early 21st Century moral outlook.
(Just to be clear, I am very glad that our moral outlook today treats sexual assault more seriously than did Stalin's inner circle in the early 1950s.)
Comments
I don't think there's any record before Shakespeare that the real Julius Caesar died with 'Et tu Brute' on his lips.
True, I don't think they had aftershave in those days. Sorry
You'll be telling me next that 'I, Clavdivs' wasn't pure historical documentary, with just some rather good re-enactment?!
And the movie made it out to be that his sex crimes were a major part of the reason he was executed, with his accusers reciting the names of his victims while they put him to death.
I know it's true that Beria was a sex criminal, but I'm pretty sure that scene was a fabrication.
(Not that I think you were neccessarily endorsing the factuality of that scene.)
The current series of The Crown deals with many people still living, and the siblings and children of some who have died. I think we’re talking in rather different terms.
I see what you mean - but to me the scene hung on the idea that the rest of the politburo knew what he was, going way back, but chose to use that knowledge to hang him when it suited them. Although in reality he seems to have had more of a 'trial' than the film suggested (and the 'crimes' he was charged with were more political), it wasn't much more of a trial, and his execution on the same day seems pretty much as perfunctory.
I was surprised, reading his wiki entry, that so many of the plot points / jokes in the film were based on the history of the times. Though perhaps Iannucci just read the same wiki page
Interesting interpretation. But, would they have had the opportunity to tske Beria out earlier, ie. before Stalin died?
According to wiki, rape was among the crimes he was charged with. But I got the impression(apparently backed up by your reading) that the writers exaggerated the centrality of that particular crime, possibly to fit an early 21st Century moral outlook.
(Just to be clear, I am very glad that our moral outlook today treats sexual assault more seriously than did Stalin's inner circle in the early 1950s.)