"The Tudors" on Showtime

[Daisy Buchanan]

I wasn't sure if I should put this here or in The Observation Bar. It's not about a vintage film, but it is on television, so I opted to put it here. Please feel free to move it somewhere else if this isn't the right place. I know this isn't a vintage movie either. But I heard from a few members that they were watching this so I wanted to get some opinions.

I was so excited when in January Showtime started advertising the premier of their new series "The Tudors". I couldn't believe that I had to wait a full 3 months to watch it. From the previews I saw it looked as though it was going to be quite good. And what a beautiful cast of characters to wear such amazing costumes.
Then I found out that a week before the premiere it was on On Demand, and I could watch it early. So I excitedly put it on, and I must say I was a bit disappointed. Of course Jonathat Rhys Myers was great to look at, as well as a few of the other men in his court. But, I felt it was a bit of a bore. I thought I would give it a chance though and not dismiss it, for the first episode is usually the one that they use to lay the groundwork for the season. So, I didn't want this anti-climatic premiere to turn me off from the series all together. The next week I watched the second episode. Oh My, it there were parts of it that were laughable. Just about the only thing that was nice about it were the elaborate costumes, oh and that handsome King Henry, mmmmmmm..... But, the sets and the CGI are so incredibly bad that it is comical. I can't believe that such a wealthy company would create a series with such bad sets and special effects. I know that decor and buildings in this time were made of certain construction. But, some of the rooms in the castle look like the cement walls are just painted styrofoam. Nothing about the sets looks real, and the CGI is a joke!! There are a few scenes of ships at sea, and it almost looks like something out of a cartoon.
I have now watched up to the 5th show. Showtime releases the episodes a week in advance on On Demand, so I've been watching them early. I'm so fascinated by the time period, and have always had an interest in Henry VIII's reign and his 6 wives and all his mistresses. The story is a thrilling, intriguing one. The life and times of the King, Queen and their Courts and the drama contained within those times is something that I thought would be thrilling to see in a show. But, this show lacks emotion, thrill, excitement. The actors are mediocre, although I do like the gal who plays Anne Boelyn. Queen Catherine is like a blank slate. She lacks any type of emotion. I know she was supposed to be this rock of a woman, but there are certain scenes where she is supposed to be upset, yet she does not portray this in the slightest bit. When she speaks it seems as though she is just saying a line, there is nothing true to life about her character. She's blank and a bit tedious to watch. Jonathan Rhys Myers is pretty good, but I might be biased being that I think he's so nice to look at. It also might be that in comparison to the other actors surrounding him he comes across as a better actor than he actually is. The rest of the actors are OK, there is definitely something missing from all of their performances. Although Sam Neill does do a good job as coming across as quite swarmy, which is what he is supposed to be.

Well, is anybody els watching this? What do you all think? This is just my opinion. I think my disappointment stems from the fact that I just watched the last season of "Rome" on HBO, which I thought was incredibly well done. So, I might be comparing the two, and in this comparison "The Tudors" pales. I'm hoping that the next few seasons pick up a bit in the level of thrill and excitement. They are sticking to the facts, it doesn't seem that anything is embellished. Although, I think for the sake of time, they have left a few things out that I would have liked to see included. They just skipped over Henry's affair with Mary Boelyn, Anne's sister. They mentioned it but made it seem as though it only lasted a couple of weeks instead of quite a few years. They did bring up the fact that while still married to Katherine of Aragon, Henry had a son with another woman who he gave his first name to and had very high hopes for, being that it was his only son. They failed to mention that he had 2 children with Mary Boelyn. I thought this was a pretty big thing to leave out.

I guess I like it, because I really love this part of history. I just wish that they had put a little more into it. The 5th episode is a bit better a bit more exciting. The costumes are amazing, just seeing them makes watching it a little better. It's a bit of a snoozer I hope the pace picks up, and I wish that they had spent a bit more time on the special effects. It's also so strange that some of the rooms in the castle look great, accurate, and others look pathetic. It's just that the 3 months of previews for this made it look like it was going to be incredible, so I had high hopes.

What say you???

 

[Mojito]

The actors are mediocre, although I do like the gal who plays Anne Boelyn.

Sounds disappointing, Daisy - although if they had to do a decent job on any one of these personages, I'm glad it was Anne. I've seen so few actresses playing the part who could come anywhere close to this remarkable woman. Without conventional beauty, but with long loose black hair, dark eyes, and spirit combined with wit. Charlotte Rampling comes closest imho - too beautiful, yes, but with there's a mercurial quality to her, an elusive dash and swiftness that accords with my ideas of Anne Boleyn. She even depicts the character with the slight French accent that Anne may have had. My favourite scene is one in which Henry, already fallen out of love, watches her play with her dogs from a window. Merle Oberon isn't bad either...again, too beautiful, but with a dark otherworldness and intensity that are some echo of the real woman. But then, I'm just partial to Merle!

I will not be watching The Other Boleyn Girl when the big screen version comes out.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

Oohh, I had no idea that "The Other Boelyn Girl" was being turned into a film. Being that I'm so into the whole Tudor regime, I of course read all of Phillipa Gregory's books on them. Actually, not bad books, really easy reads. I think it took me 2 days to read each one of them. Hey it was the dead of winter, it was freezing and I'm out of work. Noting to do but read! From the paintings of Anne that I have seen and the impression of her look that I have in my head, I think that Charlotte Rampling was a good choice. She is quite beautiful, and she has those hypnotizing eyes that supposedly she used to lure Henry in with one glance. Of course the young Henry was supposed to be incredibly handsome, and Jonathan Rhys Myers, mmmmmm, he's just dreamy, wowza he makes me lightheaded. The gent who plays Charles Brandon is also easy on the eyes. All the people in the show that are supposed to be beautiful, certainly are beautiful. However I was a bit disappointed in Mary Boelyn. She was only on the show briefly, but she looked nothing like what Mary was supposed to look like. But then again, she really was just a mention in the show, and I don't think they plan to bring back any story line with her in it. I think that they only added her small part in because they are trying to be historically accurate and had to mention that Henry had taken Anne's sister as a mistress.
One of the things about the show that frustrates me is that they don't explain that Mary was in Katherine's Court while having an affair with Henry. They also don't explain that Anne and Mary were both in the French court before they came to serve Queen Katherine. Mary served Queen Katherine for 3 years or so before Anne arrived. However, they make it seem as though Henry's affair with Mary was taking place while Anne was in France. This is supposedly not correct. Anne was in England and Henry had seen her, but he chose Mary first, well because Mary's father and uncle basically fed her to him. They only thrust Anne into his view when he started losing interest in Mary, which didn't happen for years after she gave birth to two of his kids. The show makes it seem as though Henry only had Mary in his bed a couple of times, when in fact he had her as his mistress for quite a few years. This coupled with the fact that he had children with her makes his relationship with Anne even stranger. Then their is the fact that Henry gets his marriage to Katherine of Aragon annulled do to the fact that she was first his brothers wife. He used this, and also said that because he married his brothers sister G-d would never give him a male heir. He also said that the marriage was never real because Katherine's marriage to his brother had in fact been consummated even though she said it hadn't. He made up all these lies so he could get a divorce without disappointing his people. Then he goes and has an affair with one girl, has two kids with her, and ends up marrying that girls sister. Talk about a hypocrite!
OOps, sorry to go on like that. I'm a bit passionate about this particular part of history
I think I'd actually be interested in seeing what they do with "The Other Boelyn Girl". I'm so used to being disappointed by movies made from books, so I will go into this not expecting it. I just love the era, and the story of Henry VIII. I also love the history of Katherine of Aragon and the rest of her family. I have read a lot of interesting things about them. Another family that I find quite intriguing are the Borgia's of Italy. As far as I know, nothing of late has been done about them in the form of film. That Lucrezia was really something!!!

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

I just checked out IMDB for "The Other Boelyn Girl"! You've got to be kidding me!!! Natalie Portman as Anne and Scarlett Johansen as Mary. OK I might be able to see her as Mary, but Portman as Anne, that's just the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!! She looks NOTHING like Anne, and she can't act to save her life.

What a disappointment, they are turning a story I really like into this. They couldn't choose better actors?? I know their is a shortage of them nowadays, but come on, Natalie Portman!! The only good movie that girl ever did was "Leon: The Professional", she was like 10 or something in it, it was her first movie and should have been her last if she wanted to end her career on a high note. Everything else she's done has just proven that she is not a good actor. To put her in the role of Anne is just horrible. She doesn't have the personality, the looks, the exquisiteness that it takes to morph into Anne Boelyn. I don't think that her best acting will cut it for this role. What an incredibly odd choice. I don't get it[huh]

One good Henry VIII movie that I really liked was "Anne of A Thousand Days". Not out on DVD yet but once in a blue moon they play it on Retroplex. If you see that its on, check it out.

 

[Mojito]

We have an interest in common in this period, Daisy!
I've collected both non-fiction and fiction books about Anne Boleyn for the better part of my life, and have historical romances about her in editions going back to the 1930s. I've gone off them in recent years, though - so much of the writing is so terribly poor, and it just doesn't seem to do her justice.

I'm quite fond of Anne of the Thousand Days - moreso of the Maxwell Anderson play it's based on than the movie adaptation, but the movie as well. The movie softens some of the hard edges that the play's Anne has.

A lot of the choronology of Henry's relationship with the two sisters is still confused - historians still debate such significant points as who was the older sister! Even the question of which Boleyn girl served in foreign courts first has a question mark over it, as does the manner in which Anne came to Henry's attention. I'm skeptical that it was part of a grand scheme by her family, although factional politics may have come into it.

I'm afraid I loathe the Gregory books - she took the most salacious, vile portions of the dreck that was alleged against Anne, and gave it the status of truth. Much of it is based on a chain of reasoning by a particular (and controversial) Boleyn scholar, whose work is often conjectural, Retha Warnicke. I was amused to see that she cited Warnicke and her analysis of sexual politics at the court of Henry VIII as the source for her book. Warnicke's The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn (an excellent work on Anne IMHO, even if I don't agree with all her conclusions) is a remarkable work that is distorted by Gregory, and Warnicke herself has distanced herself from it.

Also questioned by historians is the duration of Henry's affair with Mary, and the paternity of the child she bore named "Henry". Catherine Carey's birthdate is often given incorrectly. There is little evidence that either child was Henry's.

Have you had a chance to read the revised E W Ives biography of Anne Boleyn, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, released a couple of years ago? I thought the first edition was the best work on her life I'd ever read, but this new book, with plenty of new material, is magnificent. It gets away from some of the Mills and Boon type historical fiction elements, and explores the very real impact this extraordinary individual had on religous reform and the Renaissance in her country. It's also exquisitely written - given the paucity of evidence on Anne's life, it is remarkable that the text avoides dryness but remains a scholarly well-referenced work. The resulting portrait is probably as close to Anne as we're ever going to get - certainly much better than the absurdly hagiographical biography that also hit the shelves recently by Joanna Denny. The name of that work I seem to have blotted from memory - although it's hard to forget the image of the saintly, gorgeous, perfect Anne that the author had me gagging on, a paragon of all earthly and spiritual virtues. Almost as biased for her as some books have been biased against her! It did a very nasty job on vilifying Katharine of Aragon.

Great to be able to talk about Anne and her fascinating, deadly period in history. Do you follow your interest on into the Elizabethan period?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Have you seen the miniseries about English Renaissance carriages? It's called The TwoDoors.


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[Daisy Buchanan]

Thanks Mojito!! I actually ordered the new book at the end of last week and am waiting anxiously for it to arrive

I liked reading the Gregory books, but I did take them as complete works of fiction. But that was only because I knew some of the facts before I read them. It is a shame that a lot of people are reading these books and taking a lot of it for fact.
My opinion on whether Mary Boelyn's children were actually Henry's heirs was originally formed back as an undergrad. But, now that I've read some of the other works on the family, I'm coming to realize that the professor teaching this class may have been a bit biased against the Boelyn family in general. It's just so tough to change an opinion made during such formative years! But, I'm looking forward to reading this revised biography. It will give me a chance to hear another side of the story. A lot of the modern works on this period of history tend to focus and embellish drama in the hopes that this will sell more books. This is exactly what Gregory did. Although her book states that it is fiction, this statement is very small, and her use of credits makes it look more historically accurate to some people who might not realize that fiction books can actually have a credit and notation section.

I will definitely let you know how I like the new book, I'm really looking forward to reading it

I have just begun an interest in the Elizabethan period. If you have any recommendations for good reads on the subject I'd love to know about them. Between my fascination with Italian history and the Henry VIII I was trying not to pick up another hobby. But, there are much worse hobbies to have, and at least with this one I'm learning about history. I have plenty of time on my hands being that I'm out of work, so I might as well spend it reading about something I know I'll enjoy and will learn from as well. Although spending my days flipping between TCM, Retroplex and Fox Movie Channel can be rather fulfilling

 

[Mojito]

I'd love to hear your opinions on it, Daisy - I know some people found it 'choppy', and others thought it focused too much on events and society around Anne, but I thought that the narrative flow was fine and appreciated the effort Ives went to place Anne in the context of her era. It's obvious he's sympathetic to her - very much so - but he seems to avoid the more obvious extremes of bias that plaque histories of this period. It's worth it just to read his thorough, no nonsense assessment of what visual images we have of her (and, in the end, we're left with one corner that has a striking lift to the head...)

Were you also weaned on the Jean Plaidy and Lozania Prole books? I remember looking Anne up in the indexes of Tudor histories when I was about 7, but by the time I was 9 - 10 I'd managed to get my mitts on some of the historical fictions. Bios were hard to come by in those pre-internet days, but it was bliss to go to Sydney Uni and have access to a whole shelf full of bios, dating all the way back to Strickland et al!

 

[RetroModelSari]

This sounds like a interesting series to me as Iam interested in this, too. I love the book about Heinrich the VIII by Margaret George. I´m amazed whenever I read it and I really liked "The Other Boleyn Girl", too. Let´s hope it comes out in Germany, too or at least a DVD release so I can check it out

 

[Adelaidey]

Aww, I was looking forward to The Tudors... but I don't have Showtime anyways, so maybe I'll check it out when it gets released on DVD...

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

I'd love to hear your opinions on it, Daisy - I know some people found it 'choppy', and others thought it focused too much on events and society around Anne, but I thought that the narrative flow was fine and appreciated the effort Ives went to place Anne in the context of her era. It's obvious he's sympathetic to her - very much so - but he seems to avoid the more obvious extremes of bias that plaque histories of this period. It's worth it just to read his thorough, no nonsense assessment of what visual images we have of her (and, in the end, we're left with one corner that has a striking lift to the head...)

Were you also weaned on the Jean Plaidy and Lozania Prole books? I remember looking Anne up in the indexes of Tudor histories when I was about 7, but by the time I was 9 - 10 I'd managed to get my mitts on some of the historical fictions. Bios were hard to come by in those pre-internet days, but it was bliss to go to Sydney Uni and have access to a whole shelf full of bios, dating all the way back to Strickland et al!

I read one work by Prole over 10 years ago when I was an undergrad. I'll have to get my hands on another copy. I'm sure my point of view will be so different now, given when I read it I was at such a formidable age. Now a lot of my opinions and thoughts have changed.
I will look up Plaidy, I can't recall if I read her or not. I will definitely let you know about the new bio, if and when I ever get it! It seems to be taking quite some time.
I love historical fiction too. Preferably about England, but I also love Italian as well. Any recommendations you may have for either historical fiction, or biographies would be greatly appreciated. I loved learning about the Tudor's in college. I just started getting back into it about 8 months ago. So, I've got a lot of catching up to do. Anything you can refer me towards would be great. I have a lot of time on my hands, and I love to read, especially something I can learn from, rather than wasting away in front of the TV all day!

By the way, not sure if you have OnDemand (or something like it) through your cable company, but Retroplex has "Anne of the Thousand Days". I enjoyed this film.