Renaissance man
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- April
- 2
With the new series “The Tudors”:http://sho.com beginning at 10 last night, Showtime no doubt hopes to do with the Renaissance what HBO did with ancient Rome  spin it into ratings gold.
Alas, we knew “Rome.” “Rome” was a friend of ours. And “The Tudors” is no “Rome.”
It’s not for lack of a great subject. With scion Henry VIII and his six wives, (Nos. 1 and 4 divorced; Nos. 2 and 5 beheaded; No. 3 dead from childbirth complications; No. 6 barely escaped into widowhood), the Tudors were the ultimate dysfunctional family. And the political and religious intrigue is as rich as the romantic and sexual conspiracies. But creator/writer Michael Hirst is more interested in making Henry’s eye-popping world hip and cool. A lot of time is spent on jousting and hunting with the guys and on minor characters, who’d barely rate a footnote in any of the myriad histories and historical novels.
The desire to create a Henry for our Internet age has led to the casting of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, whose sneering brunet beauty made him an ideal choice for the murderous opportunist in “Match Point” and the treacherous Cassander in “Alexander.” (Someone should cast him as Edmund in “King Lear” or maybe, Nero.) But physically, he’s all wrong for the ruddy, stocky Henry, who was brilliantly captured by portraitist Hans Holbein, the Annie Leibovitz of his day. And temperamentally, Rhys Meyers is one note: We never see the transition from golden boy to bloated monster that makes Henry’s story tragic and instructive. (For the evolution of the king, try the miniseries “The Six Wives of Henry VIII.”)
While “Rome” took many liberties with the personal histories of the early Caesars, “The Tudors” turns poetic license into farce. The producers and writers have twisted and compressed the timeline in such a way that Henry’s sister Mary has become their sister Margaret, who was the grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots.
It was, however, Mary Tudor and not Margaret who fell in love with the dashing Charles Brandon, the first Duke of Suffolk and ran off with him after her husband, the king of France (not Portugal), died. (And for goodness’ sake, she didn’t murder her husband. Where do they get these plots?) Anyway, this story doesn’t need any juice. Mary and Brandon risked Henry’s considerable wrath for the sake of true love. What could be more romantic?
Even though it’s completely messed up historically, this upcoming subplot has a certain bodice-ripper appeal and offers some relief from the relentlessly glowering Rhys Meyers.
Indeed, the supporting cast does fairly well. Sam Neill is eternally conflicted and eternally corrupt as the wily, ambitious Cardinal Wolsey and Jeremy Northam is all hair-shirt piety (and idealistic naiveté) as Thomas More. But the real standout is the bewitching Natalie Dormer as the witchy Anne Boleyn. (You may remember her as the hot-to-trot blond virgin who catches Heath Ledger’s eye for a time in “Casanova.”) Though the writers have chosen to portray Anne as the pawn of her diplomat father, Thomas Boleyn, and her uncle, the powerful Duke of Norfolk, Dormer rightly shows us that Anne was a woman determined to follow her own heart  no matter how many others she had to break.
With her now-brunette locks, cool wide-set eyes, heart-shaped face and Cupid’s mouth, Dormer’s Anne is a star to reckon with.
Anne, of course, gave birth to the daughter who would eclipse Henry as a ruler  Elizabeth I. All that trouble to produce a male heir only to be trumped by a woman. Who says life isn’t a great writer?
This entry was posted
on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm by Georgette Gouveia.
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