Clau-Clau-Clau-Claudius! (C/D if you like)

Oooh, Livia is my favorite movie character ever.

Of course, I'm a huge fan of Derek Jacobi. I love seeing even a hint of the show in other work he's done, whether playing Claudius in Hamlet (a quite different Claudius indeed) or as a senator in Gladiator, or even his stutter in Dead Again.

"Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud...hatch out."

"They say a snake bit her once. And died."

"Is there any man in Rome who has NOT slept with my daughter?"

"Mad? I think you set the standard of sanity for the whole world!"

"I wouldn't take Britain if I were you. There's nothing of value there and the people make terrible slaves."

"These games are being degraded by the increasing use of professional tricks to stay alive - and I won't have it!"

"although He is now a God, he is still the same loveable young man we've always known"

"Posterity will call you an ass, you idiot!"

"O, by Jove! Which is always to say 'by Myself'!"

Third spear carrier ho ho.

aged 12 we were require to watch this by our latin teacher

does anyone else think that the stepmother in the Disney movie of Cinderella looks SO MUCH like Livia that Livia must've provided the model?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/news/2002/01/18/john_hurt_340.jpg

(assuming you're not re-reading them)

is the first ep the one augustus dies in? (i haven't seen it since the mid-80s)

Augustus dies in Ep 5, IIRC. Overlap characters between IC and Rome are Octavian/Augustus, Livia, and Agrippa, I believe.

Oh, and Octavia.

oh cool! i must rewatch it -- i only really remember the pervy bits XD

we had to watch this in latin class. a couple years ago i rented it, as it was such an engrossing soap opera. classic.

brian blessed is augustus!

ya the rome livia is great.

Augustus dies in Ep 5, IIRC. Overlap characters between IC and Rome are Octavian/Augustus, Livia, and Agrippa, I believe.

-- Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, August 7, 2007 1:22 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

doesn't tiberius show up in rome too? i think he does.

it's not as good once blessed dies. it goes all nasty and a bit slapstick-y.

I should watch this.

YES YOU SHOULD

so good

haha i can't believe i forgot it was brian blessed

Have you ever noticed how much John Hurt's performance in "Elephant Man" borrows from Derek Jacobi in "I, Claudius"?

has anyone ever seen the documentary about the "i claudius" movie they tried to make in the 30s, with charles laughton as claudius? apparently they finished about 30-40 minutes worth of footage, and they're in the documentary.

"i am not an animal! I'M A HUMAN GOD!" (ok that is hurt borrowin from hurt)

obv the bit i remember best is when caligula answers the doors w.the blood of his sister's foetus all over his mouth -- haha YES WE CAN DO THIS ON TV, IT'S ALL CLASSICAL AND SHIT

Watched part 2. Everybody's gonna die! She's gonna murder everyone! YEEEEEEAHHHH!!

Reading I, Claudius right now. It's hilarious!

Both those books are golden. Shivery hilarious tho. They draw this world where every single character is doomed to die prematurely.

still upset i didn't make this a C-C-C-C-C/D

-- s1ocki, Tuesday, August 7, 2007 12:56 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Link

Reading Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was like the super-extended remix of this tho. Everybody that becomes Emperor I'm thinking "No don't do that! You gon' get fucked up within 3 years!!"

Wot Noodle Vague said re "shivery hilarious." I even splurged on fancy-schmantz Folio Society editions of them.

those are nice books! those folio ones. i dated someone who had sweeeet folio editions and i was jealous of them.

Graves' style is deceptively flat. The second time I read them I was thinking there was nothing "writerly" about them, almost no imagery or invention beyond a recounting of stories out of Suetonius. But then you realise that he's just using very dry humour and language and the way he arranges the plots, the barely noticeable asides and dramatic ironies are very skillful indeed.

"He thinks he's Zeus!"
"Sounds bad for us mortals."

nextt on trio: c-c-c-c-carry on claudius

I vaguely remember a Benny Hill sketch that is basically this.

Some girls are b-b-b-bigger than others.

watched the first 3 eps on DVD while i was lounging around sick today.

at times it's almost painfully theatrical and histrionic and over-wordy but 4 or 5 times in an episode there will be a moment that just smacks you hard in the face.

teenage Postumus telling his buddies he's frightened and he wants his mum and his brothers back and the sudden cut to old man Claudius watching him, in memory.

this inverted Camp is a pretty nice aesthetic i think, totally straight-faced but with this horrible black humour ruffling the surface all the time, evil or unrelatable characters gradually gnawing each other to death. i dunno if it had a contemporary relevance beyond "absolute power corrupts absolutely" etc but i feel like it touches some nerve in me beyond hypertrophied soap opera

brian blessed is fucking genius in this too, far far the best thing he's ever done.

'don't let livia cook your supper' is the most important takeaway, imho

kinda loved this when I saw it as a kid and much later as an adult (10+ years ago?) but ugh video

i like it when Sian Phillips holds a pose for a couple of seconds and you think "yeah ok credibly she was the most beautiful woman in the world once" and then she moves and it crumples into wicked stepmother mode again

laughed so hard in ep 6 of this when someone's like "but he wouldn't do that!" (doesn't matter who, doesn't matter what) and agrippina says "WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO YOU THINK WE'RE LIVING IN???"

(b-cuz truthbomb)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wNQ-Xys3LAg/UPa7B4VTj8I/AAAAAAAABBQ/nl8-8X6jMvQ/s400/livia-drusilla-roman-empress-marble-c-20-ad-roman.jpg

Livia represented as the goddess Ops, with sheaf of wheat and cornucopia, 1st century

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2010/2/24/1267008238443/Derek-Jacobi-001.jpg

Ops I did it again

been watching again on DVD, never get tired of it, i think it gets better with each viewing

even tho i have read some modern historians who are all Cap'n Save-a-Livia

It takes a looooong time to get to Caligula, and the first two eps are just ferocious with exposition (unavoidably I guess, tho it could probably have been defter). Apart from Tiberius, I think all the front-line name actors are still around and working (maybe not working). I see Sian Phillips now and then in Islington.

xp not that surprising, since Suetonius is like the Perez Hilton of historians. And IRL Claudius did actually make her a god.

IRL Claudius <-- help yrselves

still think Blessed is magnificent in this, he reins it in and gives you the real sense how this avuncular, fuddy-duddy father of the nation can also be a bawhair from savagery at any moment

Yes, he's great. Also good on illustrating how someone who basically seized total control in a smart, violent, dynamic polity can be pretty much a total dimwit when it comes to close-up family politics. One of the things you don't quite get clearly -- I mean it's clearer in a wikipedia entry than spread across several IC eps -- is the reality of the problem he actually was facing, finding an heir. All the people with the right qualities (ie the right kind of similar to him) he'd defeated and killed or sent into exile: and obviously his children/grandchildren/adopted relatives had all formed their qualities (and more to the point flaws) in relationship to him, growing up adapting to who/what he favoured, and who he exiled, executed etc. IC puts this mainly on Livia, and her passion for Tiberius to be emperor (which he doesn't want to be) (Tacitus or someone called him the World's Gloomiest Man). But if only negatively, it was always also on Augustus, for using the restoration/non-restoration of the Republic as a manipulative tool of state.

Have you ever noticed how much John Hurt's performance in "Elephant Man" borrows from Derek Jacobi in "I, Claudius"?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 7 August 2007 08:45 (5 years ago) Permalink

Bad form to OTM oneself but, having watched it last night, OTM

that "sloo" sound Hurt makes is a straight copy, yeah

laughed so hard in ep 6 of this when someone's like "but he wouldn't do that!" (doesn't matter who, doesn't matter what) and agrippina says "WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO YOU THINK WE'RE LIVING IN???"

Antonia! Children & Siblings & Parents & Friends scattered dead all around her and still she's like "I can't believe that of a Roman Emperor" (casually ignoring the massive stack of psycho perve evidence she's had to suck up) - horrible grim dark comedy portrayal of the limits of servitude

just started watching this again for the first time in i guess... 11 years? if this thread which i started (eep) is anything to go by!

Need to do a rewatch at some point too. Suddenly thinking about what specific elements in this track completely with any number of current series and their gruesome/shocking moments. (Perhaps GoT almost by default but not just that.)

the series' director has died at 90

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/aug/12/herbert-wise

He did a great job given the limits of the medium at the time.

I enojoyed it when I watched it a couple of years ago. Need to see it again i think.

He did a great job given the limits of the medium at the time.

The limits were not with the medium but with the budget of the BBC Drama Department.

the documentaries on the DVD set say that the stylistic decisions were deliberate within the constraints they had. i find the over-ripeness of parts less and less of an issue over time, and when it pays off - Augustus's death for example - you wouldn't really want it any other way

The late 2010 radio adaptation, with Jacobi returning as Augustus, is pretty good too (and better for car trips).