Augustus
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Movie Reviews of Augustus
Movie Review: good history movie
Summary: 4 Stars
the story of Emperor Augustus Caesar. A small cast budget, However very well written with great acting and photography. Highly recommended for the History movie lovers or anyone who thinks Alexander, Troy or Kingdom of heaven are good movies.Movie Review: Pretty darned good, but....
Summary: 4 Stars
All in all a GREAT flick to get a good idea of who Augustus was. As movies seem to do, sadly, this one plays a little free where the time of events are concerned.Movie Review: WORTH WATCHING FOR AN HISORY BUFF
Summary: 3 Stars
The details are often inspiring. The sets, interior and exterior, are excellent and look very accurate. After a careful watch, it occurred to me that this production may be using the sets of the HBO production of a couple of years ago, ROME. One has the impression that these sets were built in and around Cinecitta if only because over the last twenty years or so the Italian government found and excavated many previously unknown interiors when the Roman subway system was being dug. Thy had to be particularly careful as they dug and blasted, and it's been documented that Fellini was inspired by the opening by engineers of an ancient house with extensive murals, which initially vivid murals began to fade once they were exposed to the air. More recently excavation has been going on near Augustus' mansion on the Palatine hill. That modest palazzo is close to what is though to be the original cave home of the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, and it is largely intact. Some decorated walls remain standing. I's likely the set used in this film mirrors the actual rooms.
The exterior sets are equally interesting and focus on public and private buildings of different kinds; on streets, alleys, doorways and galleries, demonstrating a creful knowledge of the originals. As the story is acted out on these sets, one has something of the feeling of immediacy one experienced while watching the Fellini SATYRICON. Prior to that film little effort was made to create sets that gave the viewer a convincing feeling of what it must have been like to walk through colorful Roman streets, or to live in a Roman apartment house. And the Romans themseles look the way they do in paintings; that is, a dark-skinned, dark-eyed people often with curly hair. The female extras in the film look very much like today's Indian women, because Roman women wore garments almost identical to the traditional sari.
About the story: It is based on historical fact and does indeed mirror the rise and succcess of Julius Caesar's adopted son Octavian called Augustus, who was the first Emperor. It gives us a good picture of the methods he used to acquire the position, and how he managed to keep it until the end of his life. (He died peacefully in bed, remember. Few of his successors did.) The film confounds Robert Graves' idea that he was poisoned by Julia, his wife. It's the scene when as an old man he's treated by his doctors to an extreme temperature cure: He's put in a bath of water and ice, soaked, and then taken out of it and wrapped in hot cloths and dried. This looks like an ancient attempt to treat the fevers and chills of Malaria. That's probably what killed hm. Not poison. Rome was built on a swamp, and Malaria was rampant in Rome for centuries, because people didn't know how the disease was spread. (Remember, it was only during the Spanish-American War that military doctors were able to idenify the mosquito as carrier of the illness.) In the 1400's Pope Alexander VI (de Borgia) and his son Caesare both suffered a massive attack of the disease after an evening banquet under the trees. The Pope died of it, but his son survived. The Romans of Borgia's time thought of poison, as they did in the time of Augustus. Julia, though she appears to have been a robustly unpleasant woman, may have been maligned. Probably just another Evita Peron. But all that's acted out well in this film. And though the incidents shown are less vivid than they are in the I CLAUDIUS series, the contrast between the shows is very exciting. (Much to talk about.)
The Mark Anthony/Cleopatra episodes are not good, except that the actress playing Cleopatra is beautiful and almost always nearly naked. But the sets are meagre, if not tawdry, and the dialogue crude. One can't imagine this Cleopara as an actual Madedonian heiress and ruler any more than one can imagine that Anthony as a potential Roman Emperor or an eventual Egyptian king.
Of primary interest, to me anyway, is the demonstration of how Augustus kept control over the state for so very, very long. It was fear, of course. First, like Napoleon, he came to power after years of war and like Hitler, after years of civil and financial anarchy. Like Napoleon, he encouraged fear of invasion and civil war, and encouraged the Senate to essentially declare Marial Law and to put him in sole charge of the military. Rather than have himself crowned, he ruled from term to term, preserving an outward show of democracy, with the Senate voting him one extension after another, the way the U.S. voted FDR 4 terms in office. Only Augustus served longer because he began at a younger age. No election. This was before the age of political parties, don't forget. Like Napoleon III, he was not royal, but a military Dictator. Though there were a number of plots to kill him and to overthrow the hold his aristocratic wife's family had on government, his service was marked by ostentatious clemency. After the initial bloodbath following Julius' assassination, Octavian changed tactics and sought to make friends with the Senatorial Oligarcy. He did it shis way: First, he terrified them, then he encouraged them to believe he wanted them as friends. This form of paternalism is not gone into in sufficient detail, to my way of thinking. As far as I know, the only clear picture of Octavian/Augustus' method of control over his opponents appears in Corneille's play, CINNA. (Two years ago I completed a translation.) That neglected dramatic masterpiece -- never seen in English -- shows the Dictatator's psychological skll at its height. He was a superlative manipulator. He ruled not by his own strength, but by the weaknesses of his opponents.
Cicero was murdered not because he opposed Octavian, but because he believed in the integriy of the Republic.
Augustus did exile his beloved daughter to a small, barren island, and she died there under house arrest. The movie has her return to Augustus' bedside at the time of his death. My recollecton says no.
O'Toole plays his Old King role well enough here. He's done several versions lately, he most memorable being Priam in the Pitt TROY. The actor playing him as a young man is plausible.
Low point: Presenting the youngest and shortest member of the Triumverate as a flaming poufter in the style of Anthony Blanche in the BBC version of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. Overkill. At least they didn't give him a boa!
Movie Review: "Did I play my part well in this comedy called life?"
Summary: 3 Stars
I must confess that when I was at school, I was a Juno-Claudian junkie. It all started when I watched the acclaimed mid-seventies television series, I Claudius. I went onto to study this historical period at college, and found myself constructing elongated family trees of all the Emperors, in an effort to keep track of the whole family. Augustus is a glamorous made for television production, filmed in Tunisia with Italian financial backing. The series is certainly no I Claudius, although it is pretty effective in giving the lay-viewer some rudimentary historical details of the time. Peter O'Toole, however, doesn't come anywhere close to playing Augustus with the same intensity as Brian Blessed did, and Charlotte Rampling as Livia, while a fine actress, just doesn't have the veneer of malevolency that the wonderful Sian Phillips had.
There are parts of Augustus that are absolutely terrible: the acting is often forced and over-dramatized, the incidental musical score doesn't fit, the scene construction resembles a stage play or a screenplay shot on a small soundstage, rather like something from Lego-land, and there are some absolutely cringe inducing soap opera moments. While I admire the producers' intent - which was obviously to produce the battle scenes on a large scale - however, in reality, these scenes come across as manufactured and lacking in scope. For much of the series, it just looks as though people are walking around dressed up in pretty, period costumes - you never get the impression that you have actually been transported to ancient Rome. The series has also more than its fair share of anachronisms.
The story starts out with Augustus on his deathbed, surrounded by Livia and her son Tiberius. As he drifts in and out of consciousness, he remembers his life as an idealistic young man, who is getting ready to leave his adoring mother and sister to fight with Julius Caesar. Julius has been calling for Octavius (Augustus) to join him in Spain. After fighting, Octavius steadily becomes beloved by his legions and soon takes on the name that his great-uncle bestowed upon him: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, though he would become known as Caesar Augustus. As his popularity and power builds, he also becomes the first master of public relations, discovering that to succeed he must get the people to love him.
Helped by his two friends Agrippa (Ken Duken), the general, and the politician, Maecenas (Russell Barr, who plays him as a kind of blousy flamer), Octavius manages to win control of the Senate and beguile the people of Rome by becoming a master of the political. Much of the action takes place in the present, where Augustus, surviving an assassination attempt, is forced to share parts of his life with his daughter, Julia (Vittoria Belvedere). He tells Julia of his efforts to maintain stability and bring peace to Rome by becoming part of a second triumvirate with Marc Antony (Massimo Ghini). He also tells Julia of his attempts to discredit Antony by painting the general as a traitor and subservient to the Queen of Egypt Cleopatra (Anna Valle, dressed provocatively in some kind of sexy thong).
There's political intrigue everywhere because, as always, the throne and the stability of Rome is at stake. The film stays pretty close to the basic historical facts about Augustus' life, but leaves out an earlier marriage and, unlike I Claudius, there's much less of Livia's poisonous machinations. This is probably better; as it allows for Augustus' swift rise to power, and concentrates on his efforts to control the Senate, bringing peace instead of war to the republic. There's lots of clichéd, ridiculous moments, and most of the dialogue spoken is inappropriately contemporary. But this hardly matters, as Augustus, for the most part, is a reasonably enjoyable viewing experience, and most viewers will probably find something to like in it. Mike Leonard March 05.
Movie Review: Average
Summary: 3 Stars
Roger Young's attempt to follow in the BBC's earlier production of 'I, Claudius' but focusing on Rome's first emperor instead of its fourth. A noble attempt cut short by significant historical distortions, a poor script, bad editing, and shallow acting by most of the cast.
The film goes in reverse chronology as the older Augustus (Peter O'Toole) reminisces on his youth (where he is played by Benjamin Sadler) when he was a supporter of Caesar. It follows his friendship with Marcus Agrippa (Ken Duken) and his later rivalry with Marcus Antonius (Massimo Ghini.) The film also covers (poorly) the exile of his daughter Julia (Vittoria Belvedere) and Livia's (Charlotte Rampling) machinations to put her son Tiberius (Michele Bevilacqua) on the throne. The film has all the feel of a badly written T.V. miniseries that tries to round off its main characters to make them appealing to the norms and values of the contemporary audience. Augustus didn't exile Julia because she loved one man, he exiled her because she was fornicating with virtually every Roman nobleman. Julia's sons were killed at different times: one died of fever and the other drowned. Augustus never recalled Julia from banishment: she died in exile. Marcus Antonius never hid his dislike for either Octavian or Agrippa as both were commoners with no noble lineage. Marcus Antonius was treated as an enemy after Caesar's death and Cicero sought to join Octavian and the tyrannicides together against him. Also, Cicero was killed after Phillippi and not before as the movie shows and he wasn't ambushed: Cicero chose not to take the ship from Italy and stoically waited for Marcus Antonius' men to come and kill him. The film is also false in that Octavian/Augustus never brought his soldiers in the Senate to pass his agendas in the style of Sulla. As for the details on the legions, the armor, weapons, and costumes were pretty faithful although the tactical reenactments were not. The clothing is a mix of historical and fantasy such as the skirts Julia and Cleopatra wore that seemed more out of a modern cabaret. The film however did make made pretty decent attempts at being faithful to the architecture, clothing, and some customs of the period even though the dialogue and scene arrangements were mostly anachrnonistic.
The acting in the film was rather second rate apart from Peter O'Toole. All of the actors seem detached from their poor script and act as if they don't want to be there. Benjamin Sadler was a reasonable choice to play a weak and sickly young Octavian. Ken Duken was actually a good choice for Marcus Agrippa as there is a strong physical resemblance between them. Massimo Ghini as Marcus Antonius was also a decent choice but certainly doesn't outshine the outstanding performance by Richard Burton in 'Cleopatra.' Vittoria Belvedere as Julia was O.K. and her feeble performance had more to do with the lousy script she had to work with. Charlotte Ramplin as Livia was a good choice as her acting and appearance always seems cold and removed but it certainly doesn't match Sian Phillips' performance in "I Claudius." Michele Bevilacqua as Tiberius played a decent role as the frustrated son of Livia but his role is a limited one in this film.
This was a decent film but hardly compares to the direction or acting in the BBC's 'I Claudius.' This may be a good film to rent but its quality and shallowness leaves much to be desired in terms of buying it. This is essentially Rome Light in terms of films a little above 'Caesar: His Time Has Come' with Jeremy Sisto and is a decent film for those who aren't too demanding in terms of historical faithfulness. If you liked the previous film, you will probably like this one too.