Fall of Eagles
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Movie Reviews of Fall of Eagles
Movie Review: Beware Production Values
Summary: 3 Stars
This review is written as a corrective to the glowing reviews for a mini-series I mostly enjoyed.
I'm a student of history and found much pleasure in the historical drama to the runup to the collapse of the Hapsburgs in Austria-Hungary, the Romanovs in Russia and the Hohenzollern in Germany. The casual, part-time approach these monarchs used to rule their states, left virtually all the governing to ministries, including the foreign ministries, which led to the conflaguration in 1914, despite correspondence between cousins Nicky (Czar) and Willie (Emperor) with their declarations of peace to each other. The backdrop of the drama is compelling in itself as these three monarchs stumble their way into a vast catastrophic war that becomes their coup-de-gras; the demise of some 15 hundred years of monarchial style rule and political thinking that shortly led to inconceivably violent authoritarian Nazi and Communist regimes.
But the thirteen part series has many disabilities the average viewer will find offputting. The production values are not sub-par; they are amateurish. Thirty five years ago these may have been acceptable but today one cringes at the sight of some of this. Good editing is occassionally lacking, for example a quiet dialogue is jarringly interrupted with blarring music. Video is used to record indoor set scenes whch always belies art; we begin to see behind the art to the production. Additionally, outdoor scenes are suddenly switched to use "fuzzy" film(versus all too see-through video). Poorly fashioned graphics are used to depict large scale military and political events (riots and demonstrations): period line sketches quickly panned with dramatic music. Scenes drag as well, such as the opening of the Dress Rehersal episode, where several pointless minutes are taken to wake an aged Franz Joseph out of bed.
First episode, Death Waltz, begins with the Hapsburgs dynasty of Austrian Empire, with the aforementioned production defects plus stilted acting. The Empress dowager, purported to be able to dominate all around, seems no more menacing than an average mother-in-law not the forbidding woman that her son, the Emperor and all else fears. Sisi, the 16 year old ingenue, lacks the charm and innocense that would have captured the heart of an Emperor. Mercifully, we don't see any of these characters when some decades later they've been removed from the picture and Franz Joseph, in need of waking up as mentioned before, is now alone except for a female confidante. Unfortunately, we miss dramatic events with the fatal stabbing of Sisi by an Italian anarchist and the double-suicide of the couples son, Prince Rupert and his mistress in the interim. So the first episode gives an introduction but the characters are left to go nowhere.
The Production is redeemed in the next episode by the dramatic character of Bismark (played by Curt Jurgens), who was responsible, for good or bad, of the creation of modern Germany, fighting first Austria in 1866 and then France in 1870 to secure its existence: we see a most dramatic political character played expertly. Other fine performances, mentioning a few, Lenin (Patrick Stewart), Czarina Alexandria (Gayle Hunnicutt) and Kaiser Wilhelm II (Barry Foster). So overall the acting performances are excellent (excepting the initial episode). Political events are depicted with dramatic insight, especially interesting was Lenin forging the Bolshevik party at the 2nd Social Democratic Party Congress at London in 1903. He's seen as a Robespierre style manipulator, willing to sacrifice everyone to his goal of a revolutionary cadre bent on overthrow of the Czarist regime. Even Trotsky is seen betrayed, later a prominent member of the Communist leadership.
Bottom line the folks behind the production doesn't fully understand the medium of TV or Movies. This is a badly video'd/filmed theatre production of an amazing period of History. Watch and share the tragedy of the fall of several hundred years old monarchies; beware you must look beyond shoddy production.
Movie Review: Fair -to- good, not excellent, production
Summary: 3 Stars
FALL OF EAGLES is a dramatization of the personal histories of Emperor Franz Joseph II & Empress Elizabeth; Emperor Frederich III and Victoria of Prussia, the Emperor Wilhelm II of Prussia, and Tsar Nicholas and Alexandra of Russia. It covers the time period of 1855-1918.
For the history "buff", there is realistically scripted dialogue which is culled from various letters and biographies of the historical personages depicted here. Yet, there are inaccurate interpretations (no doubt misinterpreted for television-dramatic purposes, but even so, really annoying). These historical misrepresentations are, for example: the writers depict Queen Victoria as being supportive of the marriage between Princess Alix of Hesse and the Tsarvich Nicholas (when in fact she dreaded and opposed it), and, after the death of Tsar Alexander III, Grand Duchess Serge (Ella) telling Alix to go home and to marry Nicholas later, because the Russian people would consider it bad luck that she came to be Tsarina after a funeral.
And then again, in "Death Waltz" (the dramatization of the early married life of Francis Joseph and Elizabeth of Austria) you have Franz Joseph being angry because Elizabeth gave birth to two daughters before they had a son. Which, who knows, maybe he was secretly disappointed and/or worried but I've never read in any source I've consulted about their marriage that he was really FURIOUS at the birth of each daughter (the way he's depicted here - actually yelling with rage), or, that he thought they would never have a son. I didn't think enough of Francis Joseph's loving fascination with Elizabeth was depicted. In the teleplay he came across as a fairly rotten husband, cheating on her from the beginning (another mistaken interpretation - he was unfaithful at later times but not in the beginning of their marriage).
All the performances, however, are first rate, really A+, typical of most British productions. Pamela Brown gives a perfect performance as Duchess Sophie, the mother of Franz Joseph. Patrick Stewart makes a particularly cold and calculating Lenin, a wonderful performance. And I love Rachel Gurney as the Empress Elizabeth (in later years). The production values; the hairstyles and period clothing, are excellent. None of the stories are in the least boring or draggy, but it could be said that the narrated bits (by Michael Hordern) are a little stodgy. Overall, for a television production from 1974, it looks great, and all the stories are invariably interesting, if a bit flawed in terms of biographical information and the writers' interpretation of it. My personal favorite episode is "Requiem for a Crown Prince" (the story of Crown Prince Rudolf's death at Mayerling) as I think it was probably the most historically accurate.
So overall, given my picky demand for more historical accuracy, I have to give this a solid 3. I liked it, but I'm glad I didn't go to the expense of purchasing it, instead renting it from my local library.
Movie Review: Very irregular
Summary: 3 Stars
In general the series is very boring. It can put you to sleep in a matter of minutes. But there are some great and intense episodes: the one that tell the Bolshevik Revolution, centered around the character of Lenin. I found these few episodes very interesting. The man who plays Lenin really steals the show.
The stories about the Russian family of Romanov aren't that exciting but they hold well enough. The rest of the monarchies... I just had to fast forward those episodes. At the beginning of one of these I remember that 5 complete minutes had passed and the only thing that had happened was that somebody got out of bed and went to have breakfast, then a conversation started with the servant.
I think this series was aiming too high. It should have focused on one of the monarchies, no, rather on one of the countries. Watching those royal persons strutting around like peacocks is extremely boring. The product smells rancid, but I believe it still has some educational value. We have to thank the BBC for the try.
Movie Review: History as Soap Opera
Summary: 3 Stars
History as soap opera. From the Brits, so the acting and production values are first rate. But it only counts as a history lesson if you think history at the time was determined by which in-bred royal ninny married which of his (her) cousins. (And despite what the History Channel tells you, it was not and is not.) The events of the period (from the revolutions of 1848 through the Great War) happen mostly elsewhere and are merely referred to in perfect Royal Shakespeare Company accents. And there are never more people in the frame than the director could cram into an opera box or a ball room. Read a book instead. Start with "The Proud Tower" by Barbara Tuchman and go from there.Movie Review: Fall to pieces
Summary: 2 Stars
It's hard to explain the central idea behind this 1974 BBC miniseries, which points right away to the general problem: there's just too much here to cover and make it cohere together adequately. The basic idea was to show key events in the lives of the main figures of three great imperial dynasties of nineteenth-century Europe--Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, and Romanov--and show how all three marched towards their own downfall in the first World War, where all three nations they represented were pitted in battle in part due to their own failings. Well over 65 years of history is covered, and most episodes center upon one particularly dynasty, which makes for quite a lot of hopscotching from one period and one court to another. Making things even more confusing is that the producers decided to devote considerable space (including an entire episode!) to the early careers of Vladimir Lenin and his wife, which doesn't fit in at all. (The Lenin episode, by the distinguished playwright Trevor Griffiths, seems like part of a different miniseries altogether.) There are guiding ideas, however, that tend to help hold things together: one is that the liberals in these empires, such as the Austrian Empress Elisabeth of Bavaria and the German Empress Victoria of the United Kingdom, tended to be squashed down by the reactionary forces of their courts hoping to hold on to power as tightly as possible. Another is that the tendency for the heirs to the throne to be forced to marry foreign princesses for reasons of snobbery and potential blood alliance tended to exacerbate tensions in their marriages and breed suspicion among the people towards their foreign empresses. While these are interesting observations, they hardly help to make this giant mishmash of incidents cohere. The whole thing seems too loose and fragmentary, and it's often quite hard to keep track of who's who unless you're really up on your royal, military, and political nineteenth-century European history.
Usually these long historical BBC miniseries are worth seeing just for the superb performances, and there is particularly excellent work from Barry Fosters as the headstrong and strutting Kaiser Wilhelm II, Curt Jurgens as the splenetic and politically ruthless (but surprisingly personally kindly) Otto von Bismarck, and Gayle Hunnicutt as the fanatical Russian Empress Alexandra of Hesse-Darmstadt, who becomes more and more scarily unhinged as the series progresses. Be warned, however, that there are also a surprising number of mediocre performances, and an awful lot of British stage actors who are far too fond of dramatically trilling their "R" sounds (Rachel Gurney, Charles Gray, and Freddie Jones are among the worst offenders, and Patrick Stewart, as the young Lenin, does tend to be pretty overripe here himself.) There are also perhaps really great dramatic scenes of the kind that these sorts of series usually feature at their heart: there's only one, of the new Kaiser Wilhelm II marching in to his parents' palace with his troops, to the disgust of his mother, just moments after his father has died in order to impound their letters and personal papers, that's as dramatically memorable as some of the best scenes from "I, Claudius" or even "The First Churchills." But the series does have great costumes and palace interiors, and several superb British and European stately homes beautifully double for the great palaces of the various dynasties.