[IWE] A non-sentimental review of 'Rome'

[Ashton Brown]

(Which we cable-less ones must peruse via the VCR-kindness 
of-strangers.. or the eventual snagging of the inevitable DVD$)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/02/13/rome/index.html?source=newsletter

>
>   History that hurts
>
> Fueled by obscenity, HBO's series "Rome" shocks us back 2,000 years -- 
> and reflects the horror show in Iraq today.
>
> By Gary Kamiya
>

> Feb. 13, 2007 | In his book "Mythologies," the French theorist Roland 
> Barthes turned his jaundiced gaze on, among other things, bad movie 
> haircuts. In a chapter titled "The Romans in Films," Barthes mocked 
> the dos in Joseph Mankiewicz's 1953 film "Julius Caesar." "[A]ll the 
> characters are wearing fringes. Some have them curly, some straggly, 
> some tufted, some oily, all have them well combed," Barthes wrote. 
> "What then is associated with these insistent fringes? Quite simply 
> the label of Roman-ness ... The frontal lock overwhelms us with 
> evidence, no one can doubt that he is in Ancient Rome." For Barthes, 
> these "Roman" haircuts, along with the constant "passionate" sweat 
> that pours from everyone, are a "degraded spectacle, which is equally 
> afraid of simple reality and of total artifice." By pompously 
> pretending to be "natural," the Roman haircut is a sign of artistic 
> bad faith.
>
> Barthes' essay helped me understand why I'm addicted to HBO's series 
> "Rome." It is part of a new breed of dramas -- "Deadwood" 
> <http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2005/03/05/milch/index.html> is 
> another one -- that have found an infinitely more potent way of 
> hurling us into the outer space of history 
> <http://dir.salon.com/topics/history/> than archaic hairstyles. 
> Combining the savage realism that is now acceptable on the tube with 
> meticulous research, they use the most visceral means, including 
> strange sex and extreme violence, to shock us out of our contemporary 
> cocoons and summon up a time when human beings were profoundly 
> different from human beings today. By refusing moral judgment, they 
> allow the pastness of the past to come to shocking life. They are time 
> machines fueled by obscenity.
>
> "Rome" is based on solid historical research. But what makes it draw 
> imaginative blood is the fact that it's uncensored scholarship, 
> audacious history. "Rome" is incredibly entertaining, while also being 
> incredibly shocking. It's history porn. It dares to depict an alien 
> worldview, one untouched by Christianity and the moral ethos 
> introduced by that strange little sect. Perhaps those Catholic 
> watchdog groups should stop worrying about heretical fluff like "The 
> Da Vinci Code" 
> <http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/12/29/da_vinci_code/index.html> 
> and pay more attention to "Rome."
>
> More to the point, maybe the geniuses who brought us the war in Iraq 
> should have watched it before they decided to slap around an ancient 
> religiously based culture they knew nothing about. They thought they 
> would be getting "The Ten Commandments" -- instead they got "Rome." Or 
> "Caligula."
>
> There is no reason to believe that "Rome's" creators were thinking 
> about contemporary affairs when making the series. Nonetheless, it's 
> hard not to think of the nihilistic horror show in Iraq 
> <http://dir.salon.com/topics/iraq_war/index.html> when watching 
> "Rome." Brutal civil wars, shifting alliances, the machinations of the 
> powerful -- it's all happening again. Some historians have made an 
> explicit comparison between America at the start of the third 
> millennium and Rome at the start of the first. The distinguished 
> Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld 
> <http://www.forward.com/articles/costly-withdrawal-is-the-price-to-be-paid-for-a-fo/> 
> called Iraq "the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent 
> his legions into Germany and lost them." The uncomfortable truth is 
> that genuine history, as opposed to the kitschy, sentimental version 
> that American politicians and moviemakers alike cling to, does not 
> necessarily reward the good. Indeed, it calls into question what "the 
> good" is. Our leaders proclaim that America is a force for historical 
> good, and our commercial storytellers sing us to sleep with happy 
> fairy tales. But historians take a much colder view.
>

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