Mark Antony, the most Dramatic Actor of the Last Century BC

The Shakespeare Play that is named after Julius Caesar is primarily about Brutus and Cassius, yet in all its Hollywood movie adaptations top billing always seems to go to whoever plays Mark Antony.  He is also much more conventionally a main character of another Shakespeare Play.

And back in the Golden Age of Hollywood Historical Epics some of the biggest movies set during this century tended to be movies about Cleopatra where inevitably Mark Anthony becomes the male lead.

Something about Mark Antony, or the popular perception of the kind of person he was, makes him the character of this era Actors of a certain caliber most want to perform.  A compelling combination of Honor and Hedonism, Impulsiveness and Cunningness, Rage and Romance.

As someone who’s often very cynical about the more gritty and “realistic” approach usually taken by more modern fictionalizations of the Ancient World, Antony is a character I particularly fear would lose his appeal.  I can admit how a character like Caesar could benefit from a more three dimensional modern writer.  Antony however is a character I tend to cynically presume will just be turned into a caricature.

Not to mention my more complex feelings on how the art of acting has changed. I don’t consider any actors you commonly see in contemporary Movies and TV to be bad, but the style of acting I enjoy the most has gone out of fashion in Hollywood.  I can’t picture any MCU actor competing with Marlon Brando, Carleton Heston and Richard Burton.  In contemporary acting I'm most a fan of the Voice Acting you hear in English Dubs of Anime. So it's Crispin Freeman, John Michael Tatun and Dan Green who I’d love to hear play Mark Anthony.

So imagine my surprise when during this last week I almost 20 years late to the party finally watched HBO’s Rome TV series and James Purefoy completely blew me away.  Now I have to admit he kinda seemed like what I was cynically expecting early on, but by the end of episode 6 I was suddenly sold, but it’s in season 2 that he really gets to shine.  He’s distinct from the classic takes I referred to above, yet still inline with them in a way I didn’t expect from something so modern.

This show takes historical liberties already in season 1 but they become more significant in season 2.  But I don’t care about that when I’m being entertained by what I’m watching.  And this show was entertaining all around.  I’ve seen complaints about how Cleopatra is depicted but I found it refreshing, not how I’d write her but refreshing nonetheless.

But I made this post to talk about Mark Antony's fictionalizations.  I titled it “Dramatic Actor” rather than “leading Actor” because he’s never been the sole title character, he’s Cleopatra’s Lover and Caesar’s Avenger, and an Antagonist in the more rare works that portray this history with Octavian as the Protagonist.

And all this meaty dramatic material comes from still drawing on only select portions of his life and career.  HBO's Rome and the 80s BBC Cleopatras miniseries cover some stuff not usually covered but missed plenty of other opportunities. 

Only two of the five wives he had have ever been on screen characters. I’d really like to actually see Fulvia onscreen for a change, she sounds like a compelling potential Anime Girl, as does her first husband Clodius.

As a Christian who likes to look at at least all BC History through a lens of revolving around Israel and Jerusalem it’s notable that he had been in Judaea at least twice, as a young man under Gabinius in the 50s and then in 37 BC during the Triumvirate when he defeats the Parthians and Mattathias Antigonus.  Maybe there have been Israeli movies depicting at least the latter of those, I wouldn’t at this time know.

Since I have been a pretty vocal critic of the Great Man Theory of History I can imagine some who miss the point of that debate would find it weird for me to then make a long ramble about one of those titular great men.  The dispute between Great Man Theorists and Materialists is about what drives History.  And the story of someone viewed as a Great Man of History even though he ultimately lost in the end is a great opportunity to demonstrate how Material Conditions can doom anymore no matter how capable or “Heroic” they are.

It’s possible the real Marcus Antonius had little in common personality wise with the idea of Mark Antony I’ve been talking about.  Those who criticize the adage “History is written by the winners” are often taking it too literally, the point is to pay attention to the biases of who’s writing.  If it was 100% literally true all the time we’d still popularly view Antony and Cleopatra based on the utterly demonized portrait Octavian's propagandists tried to paint.  However the positive depictions however indirectly eventually go back through that propaganda.

However in my view Historical Fiction needs to be viewed the same as other adaptations, the desire of some people to moralize about getting history wrong in fiction I find annoying.  People shouldn't be using fiction to actually learn history in the first place.  Mark Antony the character I like watching so much should on some level be viewed as a Legend inspired by History just like King Arthur.

I've now seen the Live Action Lady Oscar movie

I had binged all 40 episodes of The Rose of Versailles on Hulu fairly recently when I started this blog.

I knew this movie existed back then, but I did not know it was in English, I assumed as a French production it would have been in French.  That assumption isn't why I didn't watch it right away, I watched the Anime in Japanese with Subs and already had experience watching movies in French thanks to my BlackCoatPress interests (which was itself a factor in why this was one of the first Anime I watched when I decided to start truly diving into Anime).

What I had also assumed was that it would be pretty much impossible for me to find to watch without spending a lot of money just like most old French movies based on Paul Feval, Ponson du Terril and Eugene Sue novels.  However recent events on Twitter had brought knowledge of where to watch it to my attention.

I consider the movie overall good, but in a unique way.

Generally my advice is to watch adaptations before the source material so comparisons won't constantly be bothering you, if the source material is better then you'll have saved the better experience for last.

In this case however the main strength of the film is the acting.  Very little of it is any major deviation from the source material, but it's very condensed, the Anime is 40 episodes while the runtime of this movie is equivalent to the runtime of 6 episodes.  I have a feeling this movie will have a very limited appeal to viewers who don't already know the fullness of the Anime's story-line, to them it won't really stand on it's own at all.

But for those of us who have the ablity to put it in context what is adapted looks as good as this possibly ever could look in live action, I certainly don't trust the trends of historical fiction in modern Hollywood to aesthetically do this Anime justice.

As I said the strongest point of the film is the acting.  Chiefly Lady Oscar herself played by Catriona MacColl.  I read on Wikipedia some critics thought she wasn't Androgynous enough, and I think that misses the point.  Lady Oscar in the Anime does not look like Haruka Tenoh or a stereotypical Butch Lesbian.  I feel like what the people making that criticism wanted is exactly what I would hate about how Hollywood would probably do it today.  Lady Oscar is a very feminine woman beneath that military uniform.  

In fandom it has often been Trans Masculine fans who seek project onto Lady Oscar, but the plot to me really makes her more allegorically related to a Trans Femme, she's presenting masculine because she was raised that way not in-spite of how she was raised.  But that could be my own personal bias speaking, as someone assigned male at birth currently questioning their gender identity.

At some points the film oddly felt like a Hammer film.  But I should clarify what I mean by that, Hammer did make more then just Horror, they also made odd little limited budget historical films sometimes.  The actor playing Andre sounded kinda like several of Hammer's random Junior Leads (often named Paul) but according to Wikipedia he's not one of them.

The Anime is in my opinion the best fictionalization of this time period I've seen thus far.  What it does get wrong are mistakes by no means unique to this franchise, like making Robespierre a leader of the Revolutionaries a lot sooner then he actually was.  This film is about the same in historical accuracy but is generally more enjoyable to watch as just Lady Oscar's story then the time period in general.  Which is shown by comparing the titles, Lady Oscar is the title character of the movie but the Anime's title character is technically Marie Antoinette.

The only thing I was truly disappointed by about the film was the ending.  So now I shall fully enter spoiler territory.

Gladiator and The Fall of The Roman Empire

I finally saw Gladiator, it was a passable revenge fantasy action film.  What's interesting is it's lineage.

1964's The Fall of The Roman Empire is a movie inspired by Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, in particular his thesis that the reign of Commodus was the beginning of the end.  It's a heavily fictionalized account, streamlining things to work as a Shakespearean Tragedy.  But what would be interesting for someone better at this kind of analysis then me to do in a Video Essay is break down how even what it changes is done to serve Gibbon's overall premise.

Gibbon's book is probably the most influential history book of it's era.  Many later history books about other empires ape the name, yes he pretty much invented the entire trend of saying "decline and fall of ____" in and of itself.

Actual historical fiction isn't the only fiction inspired by it, it was part of the inspiration for Isaac Asimov's Foundation series which in turn influenced Star Wars making it important to the development of Science Fiction.  And one of the many ambitious ideas in my head I'll probably never get to realize is an alternate history where Rome doesn't fall because Commodus was successfully overthrown by his sister, the present narrative I imagined for that project had perhaps a little too much direct inspiration from Code Geass.

It shows what a unique kind of nerd I am that I'd read a good deal of Gibbon before I saw any fiction depicting Commodus.  Currently I no longer remember most of the specifics of what he said.  But it also says something about me that I was born in 1985 and yet saw the 1964 movie a long time ago while only got to Gladiator within the last week.

I like TFOTRE, it's got a darker vibe then most of the old Historical Epics, yet still feels like an epic in a way most of these modern mostly Gladiator inspired gritty ancient history films do not.  One scene that sticks with me is where after Commodus becomes Emperor these representatives of the Eastern Provinces come to ask him for relief and he in turn says he's going to be even harsher on them.  I remember it because of how it echos Rehoboam in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles and why the Northern Kingdom seceded.

Gladiator is clearly on some level inspired by the 1964 film.  It is historically inaccurate in a lot of the exact same ways, and doesn't mention barely any historical facts or ideas you can't get from it or Spartacus.  But is clearly much more interested in being a comic book superhero origin story set in Rome then it is in communicating with what that movie was actually about.  There is some lip service given to Roman politics but it feels mostly hollow and the film ends with the impression that Rome is going to be better now, which whether you agree with Gibbon's thesis or not clearly didn't happen.

I'm by no means against something having a happier ending then it's source material.  But Gladiator doesn't feel much like it earned anything about it's ending.

The year before Gladiator came out another movie drew inspiration from 1964's The Fall of The Roman Empire.  There is a clear homage to it at the end of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.  I've been a fan of both these movies for years yet it took someone else to point out their connection to me.  But in this case it's a reference being made with the intent of referencing what that movie is about, in this case it's the beginning of the end of the Republic, but it echos the same idea.

I'm mostly just annoyed we have two major Hollywood films about Commodus but Marcia is in neither...... wait....... that Wikipedia page has been changed to now saying she had Christian "sympathies", are the conservatives uncomfortable with counting someone like her as one of us finally noticing she exists?

An Interesting Dilemma about wanting to write Historical Fiction.

One of my ambitions if I ever get to become a successful Hollywood Film maker or TV show maker or Anime maker or whatever, is to make the first major popular dramatization of the Maccabees Revolt.  I'm amazed it hasn't been done already frankly.

Thing is the purpose of such a depiction would not be just to be a history lesson.  Indeed the main selling point is it as the origin of Hanukkah, a Holiday everyone knows about.  And because of that I feel kind of obligated to depict the Miracle of the cruse of oil even though I personally believe that incident is ahistorical.

Now I want to clarify something.  I don't disbelieve this story because it's a miracle, I am a Christian, and a Continuationist, I don't think God's supernatural interventions in Human History are limited to those directly documented in the Canonical Scriptures.  I don't consider 2 Maccabees Scripture but I am inclined to believe every Supernatural event it records did in fact happen.

But that's just it, 2 Maccabees doesn't record this one.  If it was only 1 Maccabees that failed to mention it then I could observe how that book doesn't record any supernatural events so it's authors(s) must have not wanted to bring them up.  But 2 Maccabees records a few miracles, so if this story already existed when 2 Maccabees was written then 2 Maccabees would absolutely have recorded it.

So that above reasoning has been in my mind for years now.  But recently I noticed something that makes the historicity of this story even more impossible.  

I observed recently in posts I made on other Blogs I run that 1 Maccabees 1:21-24 records Antiochus Epiphanes removing the Menorah and other Sacred Treasures from The Temple and taking them back to his "homeland" by which they probably mean Antioch.  Then 1 Maccabees 4:47-49 tells us Judas Maccabeus created all new replacements for the re-dedication of The Temple.  It is this Menorah and Table of Showbread (or ones even more recent) depicted on the Arch of Titus, not the Mosaic or Solomonic ones, the base of that Menorah gives away how it's clearly a Hellenistic era design not the Biblical design.

This detail of the Maccabees narrative renders the Oil Miracle nonsensical.  The notion that it'd be so symbolically tragic for the Menorah to stop burning even for one night is meaningless when you realize the Menorah had flat out not even been there for three years.  At best wanting to include both this fact and this miracle makes Judas look rather dumb for not having lots of Oil produced while the new Menorah was being made.

This story doesn't show up till the Babylonian Talmud, the younger of the two Talmuds, both well into the AD era.  It's in the Megilat Antiochus but that source is very young with a very bad understanding of the history in-question (it treats all of the Seleucid rulers as one single Antiochus).

Yet it has become what Hanukkah is actually about to most people observing it today.  Likewise if I make a movie about the Nativity Narrative and followed my interpretation of the text that Jesus wasn't born in the stable of an inn because no one was willing to house Mary and Joseph but rather in a nice house that Joseph owned, I'll have removed like 70% of what American Christianity considers the point of the story.

Now my ideas for Historical fiction always adds things, I want to expand what we do know from the sources and add my own creative ideas.  But I hold myself to a standard I don't always hold other historical fiction to in that I generally don't want to depict anything that we can prove didn't happen.

For example.  In this case I'm going to write Lesbians into the story somehow because I can't write anything without Lesbians.  I want to have a woman claiming to be a Meanad play the Exotic Femme Fatale role that is practically a required cliche of this genre.  I want to give Cleopatra II some screen time because I'm just personally a big fan of her, I will be historically accurate in casting an authentic Ginger to play her.  I might write an Amazon into it.  And if anyone is starting to go "you seem oddly more interested in the Greek stuff then Jewish stuff" don't worry I have plenty of ideas for the Jewish side too, like how I'll draw inspiration from The Fiddler On The Roof.

Which is why including the Oil Miracle wasn't really a problem when it was only the lack of reference that had me doubting it's historicity.  But now that I have seen clear evidence it didn't happen I'm truly conflicted about the issue.  Especially as I now want to depict these objects being taken by Antiochus since I see some interesting implications in them winding up at Antioch.

Post Script: On the sources I'd use.

I'd be mainly using both 1 and 2 Maccabees and Josephus and maybe also the book known as 4 Maccabees.  3 Maccabees is confusingly not actually about the Maccabees at all and I have reasons for considering it completely Ahistorical anyway.

While I refereed to a bias I believe 1 Maccabees has, it is the older text and so I will trust it over 2 Maccabees if I come across any truly irreconcilable contradiction between them.  Josephus being seemingly unaware of 2 Maccabees is evidence of how young it is.

However in the case of seeming inconsistencies between the standard version of 1 Maccabees and the version of it Josephus was using as source material for this time period in Antiquities of The Jews, I think Josephus probably had a version closer to the original.  Still some details unique to Josephus could be things he's adding from elsewhere.  

In Antiquities Josephus flat out admits he got some stuff wrong in Wars of The Jews that he is now correcting.

That this history is fulfilling prophecies from Daniel will also be mentioned.  I also like to connect Hanukkah to Haggai 2, Zechariah 4, Leviticus 24 and Numbers 8.

Details we know about Antiochus Epiphanes from Polybus and Livy will also be considered.

I also have some interesting theories about how the Book of Judith might relate to this history.   Of course the defeat of Nicanor is something we probably wouldn't get to till a Sequel.

What matters most in an Adaptation?

The ideal adaptation is faithful at least in spirit if not the details to what the original was, and also an entertaining and/or interesting piece of art on it's own.

There is of course a popular sentiment that if you can only be one of those then being the latter is far more important, regardless of the Fanboys who can't see the adaptation's innate value.  

I however can see the value in something that is the opposite.  

For example as someone who considers the main point of any dramatized medium to be the art of Acting, there are many scenes in certain books I'm a fan of I'd love to see performed by talented actors even if nothing else about the presentation of the product is at all entertaining or engaging to viewers not already into that source material.

There is one type of adaptation that is commonly viewed with the opposite priority, historical films.  You see I seem to be the only person who's willing to look at Historical films as simply adaptations where History is the source material.  The History Buffs YouTube channel will trash perfectly entertaining films for being "bad history" but praise the boring Gettysburg movie for being so ridiculously accurate that they brag about using actual Civil War re in-actors they didn't pay for their service, but to me the utterly uninspired performance by the actor playing Lee guarantees it can never qualify as entertaining.  Never mind how the Agora video shows he doesn't know History as well as he thinks he does.

The Patriot is not a history lesson and was never meant to be, it's basically a Comic Book Superhero movie set during the American Revolution.  If Mel Gibson's character at least had the same name as the person everyone says he's based on I'd understand all the nitpicking about his family and the slave or not status of the people working his plantation, but he doesn't, he's a fictional character inspired by more then one real person.  The movie is not pretending there was no slavery, it shows a slave being treated like disposable property by his owner and subjected to racism by one of the fellow protagonists.  (And all my points about The Patriot are somewhat also applicable to Braveheart).

Lots of our greatest purely fictional myths started as inaccurate depictions of History to the point where the real History is lost, from Troy to King Arthur.  Instead of acting like inaccurate films are the reason Americans don't understand history, just try educating people on the real history without being a pretentious prick about it who shames people for enjoying things.

Now to a slightly different topic.

There is something else I've noticed about the way some adaptations are critiqued by people that are way too invested in the source material to judge it fairly.  They often claim a certain Theme or Subtext or Moral is absent from the adaptation because of specific details they were looking for, that I absolutely got from that adaptation even though I watched it with no knowledge of the source material and no reason to expect it to be there.

One example is RikaDot's video on Higurashi, where he says the Anime's focusing too much on the Horror aspects caused it to totally lose the message about turning to your friends when you need help.  This is the most egregious example, I really don't get how anyone can watch the Higurashi Anime and not get that message from it.

There was also a YouTube video arguing that NONE of the Fate/ Anime successfully communicates that Shirou Emiya has a death wish because of his survivor guilt.  I kind of agree with the agenda of that video as it's kind of about justifying the use of inner monologue/first person narration which I do support.  But this aspect of Shirou's character I did absolutely get from the UFOTable Unlimited Blade Works Anime.

There is also how Dogasu's Backpack talks about the 4Kids Dub turning Mewtwo into a 1 Dimensional Villain, but how he describes the Japanese character is exactly how I always interpreted Mewtwo going off the 4Kids Dub alone.

This is why I prefer whenever possible to watch an adaptation with no prior investment in the source material.  If the original is better then I'm saving the better experience for last, but the originals are never the ones made less enjoyable because you saw the adaption first, even if I like the Adaptation more I can never truly dislike the thing responsible for the existence of the thing I love.

And most of the time returning to said Adaptation after I've learned more about what was changed doesn't hurt the experience.  There is often room to interpret into it whatever subtext actually was lost.  But there is one exception that happened to me fairly recently.

I watched the new Boogiepop and Others Anime with no real knowledge of what it was supposed to be going in and enjoyed it quite thoroughly.  But after watching Digibro's videos on it and the early 2000s Live Action movie I definitely saw what was missing as I tried to re-watch the first couple episodes.

Most disappointing to me now is the removal of most of what was going on with Naoko Kamikishiro.  I've repeatedly said when expressing my praise for the Polygamy of In Another World With My Smartphone that I now also want to see other kinds of plural relationships explicitly depicted positively in Anime not just a dude with multiple Waifus.  In the book and movie Naoko is engaging in Polyandry and she is NOT demonized or slut shammed for it, quite the contrary she is presented as the most morally virtuous character in the story, she is filled with Love.  Both Action Heroines of the story are described as having a "Messiah Complex", but Naoko is the one who is actually "Christ Like".

Nagi Kirima is also described as being Bifauxnen which definitely comes across in the LA Movie but not in this new Anime.  

I think the last 9 or so episodes of the Anime should hold up better since at that point I think it's more like 5 episodes per book rather then only 3.

These are some barely actually related to each other thoughts I wanted to share, hardly an in depth analysis of the subject.  Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

I want a return of the Bright Theatrical Historical/Biblical Epic

In the vain of DeMille's The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis and yes even the oft maligned Cleopatra staring Elizabeth Taylor.

I even love some of the lower budget examples of this genre, like The Robe and Demetrius and The Gladiators, or Solomon and Sheba, or really obscure ones like The Story of Ruth, The Prodigal and The Silver Chalice.  Also Richard Burton's Alexander The Great and The 300 Spartans.  Not to mention the related Sword & Sandal aka Peplum films made in Italy in the 50s and 60s.

There are still movies being made about History and The Bible, but everyone wants to make them Gritty and "Realistic" now, or occasionally a weird 300 approach, likewise with stuff based on Greek Mythology or Arthurian Legend (and yes I consider Wonder Woman part of this).  I guess they think audiences can't take that older approach seriously anymore, and yet with the Comic Book Superhero genre at least some are learning that the dark and gritty approach has a limited appeal and audiences do love bright colorful fun films as shown by the praise of Guardians of The Galaxy and how 2008's Speed Racer has been vindicated.

I don't exactly want new films to look indistinguishable from how they did back then, the technological advancements of the industry should be taken advantage of.  I'm fine with using CGI for the crowds so we no longer need to pay for a literal "cast of thousands".  And I like that now we can do more justice to the actual battles then they ever did.

What I want to see is a similar spirit or tone.  The SciFi Dune miniserieses and the Star Wars films show that that older theatrical style of acting can still be enjoyed by audiences, in fact the Thor movies have also been similar in that regard, influencing parts of the Avengers films.

In fact The Lord of The Rings films are comparable to what a modern version of this genre might look like, though I'd prefer a brighter color pallet.  Just avoid the pitfalls of The Hobbit films (though I still enjoy plenty of stuff in those).

But what really makes those old Epics not comparable to modern Blockbusters is their length.  Superhero films and Star Wars films are generally 2 or 2 and a half hours, with occasionally a cut approaching 3 hours getting a DVD release later.  It takes a Tolkien adaptation to warrant getting a 3 hour theatrical release.  It took the insane business The Dark Knight did to allow Nolan to get 2 hours and 40 minutes for Rises.

Well here's the thing, the cheaper end of those above films didn't have as long of a length.  The super long ones were typically like that because they were kind of trying to chronicle someone's entire life.  So as much as I personally want more 3 hour theatrical films, this genre can be recreated without needing to go that far.  But those examples I called cheaper are also generally lesser known, so some probably don't realize it's possible to make a film like this with a shorter run time.

The thing about my calling them "cheaper" is I'm pretty sure that, adjusted for inflation, modern Hollywood can recreate the spectacle of the biggest ones with the budget of the smaller ones.

My LOTR comparison might be an argument against them working shorter.  But you see sometimes I feel the individual discs of the Extended Editions work as stand alone films, especially FOTR, that could have easily just been two movies.  Some have said they'd have preferred the LOTR been 6 movies equating to the six books Tolkien wrote them as.  That would be more viable today then it was back then as it's almost a Cinematic Universe in reverse, the second movie is the only one with all the Fellowship together.

Basically they work shorter if you try to cover less in one movie.  Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra covers less then the second half of what the Burton and Taylor Cleopatra film covered, and Charlton Heston made a movie for it that was five minutes shorter then The Dark Knight Rises.  Even a The Ten Commandments remake could work split into two films, or a trilogy with the third covering the wandering stuff DeMille's film didn't.  But suppose for the sake of creativity you want to cover subject matter old Hollywood didn't.  A Maccabees film wouldn't need to be too long if you stopped at the first Hanukkah.  There are a lot of potential interesting film ideas that haven't really been tapped yet.

Basically just find a visionary director who really likes and appreciates those old films and I'm confident they can find a way to re-imagine the basic appeal for modern audiences.  Maybe Spielberg or Colin Trevorrow would be interested since there are aspects of their appeal in both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World (I still haven't gotten to see Fallen Kingdom yet) perhaps more so the latter, Spielberg also likes to go the gritty route sometimes so he'd be a risk.  George Lucas could be perfect since his appreciation of these old school films are where Star Wars and Indiana Jones came from, one of the reasons I love The Prequels is because they remind me of these films a lot, I already talked about that in relation to Ben-Hur.

My taste in Acting is different

I am a big fan of Anime Dubs, whether they're from FUNimation, Viz or Aniplex (or back in the day ADV).  And I've talked about many aspects of that already.

Digibro is not like many others who dislike Dubs, there is no purist argument.  He simply doesn't like the voice actors who are usually used.

I however not only am fine with them, I like them more then almost any other English Language voice acting I've heard.  In fact my love of the voices I was hearing was probably vital to my getting into Anime in the first place.  And so I kinda want to hear them doing other roles.

Explaining why this is involves some context.

First of all the context that even my taste in live action acting is not what's currently main stream.  I'm someone who kind of resents the influence of Marlon Brando, Brando himself I always seem to enjoy (my favorite Brando performances are Julius Caesar and Mutiny on the Bounty), but his influence seems to be a perception that his genius was mostly in how he was often understated.  Early talkies were largely just stage actors applying their craft in front of a camera, Brando broke with those conventions when it was helpful, but people forget how he was still often quite theatrical.

Now I am as I've said before relatively easy to please.  So this acting pet peeve of mine isn't constantly ruining my ability to enjoy post-Brando movies.  And I can appreciate an actor being very good at what they do even if it isn't my preference.  But my preferences can make a big difference in my deciding whether to give something a 9 or a 10, or an 8 or a 9.

One old classic that is a personal favorite of mine is Becket, staring Peter O'Tool and Richard Burton.  The DVD I have of it includes an audio commentary by Peter O'Tool and some guy who had nothing to do with making the movie.  In it O'Tool talks about how he hates modern whisper acting, that he doesn't get why people think that is more realistic, he doesn't know anyone who talks that quietly in real life.  And I went "Yes, someone else does feel this way".  I'm sick of watching a movie at home and constantly needing to turn the volume way up during talking scenes but then way back down when the explosions start.  And this quality of Becket overlaps with a lot of the old Hollywood Biblical and Historical epics I love.

So in SFDebris' review of the Sci-Fi Channel's Dune miniseries, when he complained about how because most of the actors were stage actors they didn't know that "you don't' have worry about making sure people in the back row can hear you", I felt rather annoyed.  I love that Mini-Series precisely because of it's theatrical acting, and the follow up Children of Dune is even better.

George Lucas was also going for a similar older style of acting in the Star Wars movies.  They're often not the best examples of that kind of acting cause Lucas was trying to get it out of actors who weren't used to it, and because they weren't given the best dialogue to work with.  As a Prequel fan I keep pointing out that these same cringey acting moments were all over the OT as well.  Still part of why I like the Prequels more is because they had more theatrically trained actors and so much more of them do that style of acting justice.

However, what I want from Voice Acting in Animation is different, or more specific.

One example is that in Live Action I do not want it to look like it's obviously Dubbed over, I can tolerate that in campy stuff likes Dubs of most Godzilla movies or Italian Sword and Sandal films, otherwise it annoys me.  And so that's why with foreign projects I'm much more inclined to watch Subs if it's Live Action.  Which again returns me to Becket and that commentary, Peter O'Tool took great pride in how they made sure the audio came from what they performed on set as much as they could.  And the 2012 movie of the Les Miserables Musical did the same thing.

[[Since I've brought up Becket so much talking about Anime, I should mention it's a movie that Fujoshi and Fujonshi should check out.  I watched it to begin with because a Gay Man recommended it to me.]]

Animation is the opposite in this regard.  I think part of why I prefer Anime to western Animation is that in Japan they draw the animation first and apply the voice acting later, so the lip flaps often don't match even in the Japanese.  As Digi has said this is why even Anime inspired stuff like Avatar still obviously isn't actually like Anime.  I like that about Anime, I think it hinders the animation flow in the west when they're trying to animate it over the acting.  I generally think it turns out better to just not care that much about the lip flaps.

I talked before about how a lot of my issues with the DC Animated movies are them hiring Movie and TV draws instead of people who's primary talent is Voice Acting.  Disney is generally better, which is why the Ghibli dubs I can enjoy in-spite of them generally not having the usual Dub actors.  When Disney does hire a name, they get them to understand how Voice Acting is different, Karen Gillian talked about how she had to adjust for her role in Princess Monoke.  And Theatrically trained actors like Patrick Stewart or the Broadway stars they hire for the semi Musicals, are often the most adaptable.

Digi talks about how FUNimation mostly just hired people who lived in the area.  Thing is when you hire local actors they're often stage actors, since even a town as small and dying as mine has a local theater or two.  Kevin Conroy, everyone's favorite Batman voice, also came from the stage before he got that role, his first instinct was to compare the character to Hamlet.

This YouTube video confirms how in all likely hood any new up and coming Anime Dubbing studio will probably hire local theater talent.

And indeed as a bit of a Shakespeare buff, I'd love to hear how Shakespeare would be performed by my favorite Anime Dub Voice Actors.  Like hearing Crispan Freeman say "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war".

Basically I like "overacting", I like hearing hearing Crispan Freeman and Monica Rail give over the top performances.

Digi complains about the Cute Girls being voiced by obviously older actors.  Thing is "Moe" voices were never meant to be realistic, The Anime Man talks about how Maid Cafes are unpleasant cause the Maidtresses try to talk like Anime girls, and in real life it's annoying.  Now I rarely dislike the voice acting I hear when I do watch an Anime in Japanese.  But when I do it's usually girls having overly squeaky high pitched voices, Wixoss was unlistenable in Japanese to me.  I also find Yuno Gasai annoying in the Japanese, her Dub actress however gives a phenomenal performance.  And in other cases I'm far from inclined to be the most critical of the female actors, when she was still alive I was the only one defending Elizabeth Taylor's performance in Cleopatra.

Non Anime English voice acting also commonly takes advantage of how you don't need to cast actors who are the right age, Kelly Hu voiced a teenager on Phenius and Ferb and it sounded believable to me.  In live action the constantly casting 20-30 year olds to play Teenagers annoys me as I ranted about before.  But in Animation you don't need to look the part, you just need to sound it.  And for Cute Anime Girls you just need to sound Cute.  Rebecca Forstadt is still able to sound Cute even though she's in her 60s now, so I see no reason to complain.

Plenty of Anime Dub actors have more range then they get credit for.  Crispan Freeman proved he can do a more relaxed role by playing Kyon.  Noir is my favorite Anime, and is so largely for it's Dub.  For a long time I thought Mireille was the only one I was often hearing show up in other Anime (and I'm always happy to hear her voice), but then I checked the MAL pages for the others, and found my favorite character shared a voice with several characters I'd listened to and failed to notice.

I watched Ben-Hur again yesterday

Since April 6th is the day I believe Jesus was Crucified on our Gregorian Calendar.

As an amateur historian and Bible Scholar, I could nitpick the heck out of this movie, and the book it's based on, starting with all the White Israelites, but I don't really wanna do that.

I have sometimes complained about how a lot of these old Biblical movies seem to kind of just make Jesus into Gahndi, and this has elements of that at times.  But when Jesus was on The Cross, Balthazar talked about him dying for the sins of the world, so there is some at least vague knowledge of the actual Gospel there.

Today it's sometimes popular to mock the idea of never showing Jesus's Face or hearing Him talk directly.  And I certainly understand the concern that that takes away His Humanity.  But I've always been a fan of when films try to get as much as they can out of what you don't see.

One moment that really strikes me is after Jesus gives Judah the water and that Roman commander is about to stop him and Jesus just looks at him.  The Roman doesn't seem to back down out of fear, he doesn't himself understand why he's stopping.  That brief performance says a lot.

As someone who still supports Ron Paul on his foreign policy.  Judah saying "Withdraw your legions" really speaks to me as a timelessly relevant line.

The film also depicts it's Arab characters very sympathetically, calling out Anti-Arab Racism.  It's amazing how often old films pleasantly surprise me.  Of course they don't seem to be played by actual middle eastern actors, but I'll take what I can get.

Though I can't say I'm too impressed with the handling of female characters.

On a shipping level, I think there is definitely more then meets the eye to the history between Judah and Messala.

Ben-Hur always makes me think of the Star Wars Prequels.

The most obvious and iconic example is the connection between the Chariot Race and the Pod Race.

But I also connect when Messala says "You're either with me, or your against me" to Anakin saying "you're either with me, or you're my enemy".  I know that's a common expression, and the people politicizing the Prequels liked to draw the analogy mainly to George W Bush.  But these two scenes also have in common two friends becoming enemies in this moment, so I don't think it's a coincidence.

Also Arius saying "Your eyes are filled with Hate, good, Hate keeps a man alive, it gives him strength" sounds like a good Sith motto.

Let's also talk about what was an influence on Ben-Hur.

Ben-Hur is also related to a genre largely codified by The Cont of Monte-Cristo, Revenge Fantasy.  This was I think my first time watching the film since my obsession with French Pulp Fiction started.  And the potential parallels between Judah and Edmund Dantes really jumped out at me.

There are two fictional stories that have iconic Galley Slave sequences associated with them, Ben-Hur and Les Miserables.  I'd be curious to know which story it was associated with first, because Les Msierables came first but I'm pretty sure the specific Galley Slave part wasn't necessarily in the original Novel of either.

It's another old classic that still holds up.  They don't make historical films like that anymore, that today we can do gritty and realistic historical films is great, but ya know with Comic Book movies (some) people have figured out that the grim and gritty appeal is limited.  Why not bring back Historical films that are fun, theatrical, operatic, colorful and sometimes cheesy?

The Caesars (1968 BBC series) is very under apreciated

It doesn't come off as Grand as an old Hollywood Epic, or even as grand as I, Claudius (I'll be comparing to I, Claudius a lot here). But the sets look decent, it's in Black and White which it utilizes well, and it more or less doesn't use a score which like in Dracula(1931) can give it an interesting vibe.

For Historical accuracy, some of it depends on how you interpret the evidence, but I think it's better then most including I, Claudius. I liked seeing all three of Caligula's sisters acknowledged for a change.

The key to why it's so good is the Acting, all the performances are Great, it's done with a Shakespearean/Shaw style, the dialogue is all well written and the veteran actors deliver them all well. It' highly entertaining and re-watchable.

The writers must have been familiar with the novel of I, Claudius, because they mostly followed it's characterization for Claudius (Freddie Jones), and he does it quite well.

The most prominent performance is Tiberius (Andre Morell) who is the real star for the first 13 out of 18 parts. It's a very unique and interesting interpretation of the character, and his performance is quite intriguing.

Ralph Bates as Caligula is a very good performance, beats John Hurt and Malcolm McDowell easily. I disagree with making him so villainous already before the illness, but at least he's not born Insane in this take. And I also don't like them making him kill Drusilla, and interpreting his other Sisters conspiracy with Lepidus as being made up.

Other notable performances are Barrie Ingham as Sejanus (Though here I do prefer Patrick Steward) Donald Eccles as Nerva, Suzan Farmer is quite alluring as Livilla. For some reason IMDB doesn't list who played Piso, he was interesting, and Eric Flynn as Germanicus was as well, they played off each other nicely (I never liked how I, Claudius skipped that whole phase and went right to the trial).

But my favorite performance was Caroline Blakiston (Mon Mothma from Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of The Jedi) as Agrippina. She was strong-willed, ambitious, stubborn but also noble. And I find myself very attracted to her even though she's not trying to be sexy at all. It's by far the most powerful performance. Especially after Germanicus dies, her drive to avenge him is captured well. It's a truly captivating performance, and exactly how I envision the character of Agrippina The Elder. (The Younger I envision as trying to be the same as her mother, but while possibly more intelligent and patient, lacks her noble virtue and honor, this miniseries didn't carry the story far enough to show that however).

So in my view if you're a fan of history, or of good theatrical acting, I highly recommend it.

Comparing The Sign of The Cross to Quo Vadis

Besides just being set in the same historical context, both involved a high ranking Roman Soldier falling in love with a Christian slave girl, and Poppaea is interested in him to further complicate things. And both are films I like.

Mercia and Lygia

Comparing the females leads, I find Lygia was stale and two dimensional, she's a common example of how Christian good girls in these kinds of films often lack any real depth, she also comes off ridiculously naive at times, and the actress I didn't find to compelling either.

Mercia however while having some of those tendencies still comes off as a much more real character, I really felt for her watching the film, the Lesbian dance scene is not just there to make the film "Sexier" it's an important scene, as I haven't seen the censored version I can't even imagine how the movie could have gotten around it. You can see in the scene that Mercia is being tempted, she is struggling, melting a little to use their words, then she draws strength from the other Christians singing and it's a very powerful scene, and my favorite of the film.

If only it didn't reinforce negative perceptions of Homsoexuality it'd be perfect.  It is worth noting however that the most extreme Ant-Gay Christians tend to believe it not even possible for a truly saved person to even be tempted by homosexuality.  That having that inclination at all is a sign of being a Reprobate no longer even eligible for Salvation.  

I suppose there is room in my head canon to see Mercia as someone who in-spite of her revulsion to this obscene pagan display, would not disapprove of loving intimacy between two loving believers of the same sex.

I just noticed both male leads are named Marcus? Names sometimes escape me.

Now it's reversed, Fredric March's performance seems not very well fleshed out, going from admirable to a total dick from scene to scene without much warning, and at the end I didn't buy his conversion at all, it just seemed to come out of nowhere.

In Quo Vadis Robert Taylor's character is far from the most brilliantly written male lead, but at least I buy his character development, we see his view of the Christians slowly changing so his finale conversion scene seems very believable, and it makes a nice ending.

Nero Caesar

Charles Laughten was a great actor, but he didn't get to do much here, what he does is very good but I'd still have liked more.

Peter Ustinov gives a very compelling performance despite my historical objections to how Nero's depicted (He was a Tyrant but a component one, mentally unstable but not completely irrational) I still loved the performance a great deal, and it makes the film very entertaining.

Poppaea

I don't agree with this historical view of her, most of the bad things said about her come from historians of the senatorial class much latter. Josephus actually knew her and paints a very different picture, and there is no basis in any early Christian traditions for suggesting she was like a Herodias or Jezebel putting the idea for the persecution in Nero's head.

But putting that aside I do enjoy a good Femme Fatale, but frankly Patricia did not make a good one in my opinion. I didn't find her very attractive and nothing in her performance is very compelling.

But Claudette Colbert was awesome, she was Sexy and conniving and vindictive but not without depth either, she does rather steal the show.

The cast lacks in direct parallels after that, surprisingly The Sign of The Cross has neither Peter nor Paul, but a Titus and another old dude who's name escapes me. I don't know if that Titus was meant to be the one to whom Paul's Epistle is addressed. At any rate they play their role adequately.

In Quo Vadis, Paul's' role is smaller, already gone from Rome when the Fire happens. Truth is, based on the traditional sources it should be the opposite, The apocryphal Acts of Peter has Paul on his way to Rome when Peter is killed. They again play their role adequately, but not to compellingly, Peter's Crucifixion should have included some preaching from the cross, as is it feels kind of tacked on. And why are Peter and Paul so far apart in Age? I actually always assumed they'd be the same age.

No one else in SOTC really stands out after that. Quo Vadis has an again very undeveloped Acte (I find Acte's story fascinating, and don't really buy how it's handled here). And the Spanish slave girl is easily the most beautiful woman in the film, and gives a very passionate captivating performance but again doesn't feel to real to me, rather a little overdone.

The best character in Quo Vadis is probably Petronius, he's the character who's wise and noble despite not being a Christian at any point, "A heathen conceivably, but not an unenlightened one", providing the opposing voice when the discussion of scapegoating the Christians comes up. Leo Genn's performance is very good.  Thing is, I would have given that role to Seneca, Seneca is in this film but as just another Roman senator, what makes him intriguing is lost, he was a Stoic philosopher, so Monotheism wouldn't have been unheard of to him.  I could see him tolerating Christianity in a similar vain to Gamaliel in Acts.

Taking the comparison beyond just stacking up the characters. Like with Mercia SOTC in general shows more humanity and depth from the Christians. The Torture scene is very well done, and the kid being so frightened at martyrdom makes the film feel more real.

But Quo Vadis is longer, which especially for this genre I prefer.  And with a bigger budget it's grander and has a more Epic/Theatrical/Operatic feel. The scenes of Nero and his entourage back at the palace during the fire, with Nero fiddling and then the Mob storming. And then the scene I mentioned earlier the debating whether to Scapegoat the Christians is very well done, my favorite part of the movie, I love how Petronius's whole argument is very well delivered.

So in general I'd have to say Quo Vadis comes off the more re-watchable film. Though a professional film critic would probably call SOTC the more well made film. I wish DeMille had gotten to remake more of his old Black and White films like he did The Ten Commandments.

However one thing I notice quite interestingly looking at my review is that The Sign of The Cross handles it's female characters better while Quo Vadis handled the male characters better. Not what you'd expect at all, an older film having the better written female leads then the younger one.  And connecting to another observation of mine, I think DeMille was probably a more conservative person then the creative team behind Quo Vadis.