★★★★★When I don't have time (or energy) to watch a whole film, I like to squeeze in a TV episode or two. That's how I've been watching my way though this last season of the Showtime series, The Tudors.
One of my biggest pleasures here is the way it lets me touch base with the European history classes I did as an undergrad and grad student. I remember a lot of the history, but some of the details are always vague, so I like half-anticipating what is happening. The part around the abolition of the monasteries was pretty clear; the Pilgrimage of Grace was almost new.
I’d have to say that the series has at least partly changed the way I think of European history, too: it’d never occurred to me that many of the monarchs were young, spoiled brats and that many must have grown up under terrible pressure and experienced terrible tragedy. Rys-Meyers plays such a character to the hilt with his Henry VIII, and his portrayal has a logic that makes sense to me; early Henry is self-absorbed and spoiled, while later Henry is resisting aging, trying to recapture his youth. As the series has gone along, it’s seemed the Henry character has lurched from one point to another sometimes, but the initial season certainly pushed me to think of how their childhood – and, later, youth – could have accounted for the ridiculous waste that monarchs inflicted on so much of Europe. I wouldn’t discount the impact of
politics, religion and power as factors in the wars, but the personalities of the monarchs would certainly have had a major impact.
I refer to The Tutors as “Baywatch in the Renaissance” because of its emphasis on soft core sex, and I think some of the characters, unfortunately, get the depth of treatment that a character in Baywatch would get, too. Tamzin Merchant’s Katherine Howard, for example, would be best popped into a bikini and put on a beach in California; her flighty-young-thing act is annoying, not to mention her painfully anachronistic language and gestures. Suffolk (Henry Cavill) moves from playboy to brooder to lover with relatively little graduation in between. On the other hand, Natilie Dormer manages some depth and growth to Anne Boleyn. There’s a range of depth here, partly due to the acting and partly due to the scope that the series is trying to encompass.
I loved the set décor here, though, an engaging mix of Tutor with some contemporary taste for luxury. I want the sheers with embroidery that appear around the bed in several places; what a great idea for a mosquito net! Ditto for
the costumes, which manage to be sexy on the handsome actors.
So this is a fun series, and the graphic nature of characters’ interactions, costuming and environments have left me with an image of some of these characters I’m apt to carry with me for awhile: Henry, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, Sir Thomas More, Catherine of Aragon, Cardinal Wolsey, Mary and Cromwell. I not only enjoyed the television, but I’m also glad for the sense of the time I got that I can carry around and modify as I learn more. And since this is the last season, I have to add that I’m going to miss seeing Mary and Elizabeth grow up (yeah, I know the HISTORY….would be interesting to see how the producers handle them, though).
One of my biggest pleasures here is the way it lets me touch base with the European history classes I did as an undergrad and grad student. I remember a lot of the history, but some of the details are always vague, so I like half-anticipating what is happening. The part around the abolition of the monasteries was pretty clear; the Pilgrimage of Grace was almost new.
I’d have to say that the series has at least partly changed the way I think of European history, too: it’d never occurred to me that many of the monarchs were young, spoiled brats and that many must have grown up under terrible pressure and experienced terrible tragedy. Rys-Meyers plays such a character to the hilt with his Henry VIII, and his portrayal has a logic that makes sense to me; early Henry is self-absorbed and spoiled, while later Henry is resisting aging, trying to recapture his youth. As the series has gone along, it’s seemed the Henry character has lurched from one point to another sometimes, but the initial season certainly pushed me to think of how their childhood – and, later, youth – could have accounted for the ridiculous waste that monarchs inflicted on so much of Europe. I wouldn’t discount the impact of
politics, religion and power as factors in the wars, but the personalities of the monarchs would certainly have had a major impact.I refer to The Tutors as “Baywatch in the Renaissance” because of its emphasis on soft core sex, and I think some of the characters, unfortunately, get the depth of treatment that a character in Baywatch would get, too. Tamzin Merchant’s Katherine Howard, for example, would be best popped into a bikini and put on a beach in California; her flighty-young-thing act is annoying, not to mention her painfully anachronistic language and gestures. Suffolk (Henry Cavill) moves from playboy to brooder to lover with relatively little graduation in between. On the other hand, Natilie Dormer manages some depth and growth to Anne Boleyn. There’s a range of depth here, partly due to the acting and partly due to the scope that the series is trying to encompass.
I loved the set décor here, though, an engaging mix of Tutor with some contemporary taste for luxury. I want the sheers with embroidery that appear around the bed in several places; what a great idea for a mosquito net! Ditto for
the costumes, which manage to be sexy on the handsome actors.So this is a fun series, and the graphic nature of characters’ interactions, costuming and environments have left me with an image of some of these characters I’m apt to carry with me for awhile: Henry, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, Sir Thomas More, Catherine of Aragon, Cardinal Wolsey, Mary and Cromwell. I not only enjoyed the television, but I’m also glad for the sense of the time I got that I can carry around and modify as I learn more. And since this is the last season, I have to add that I’m going to miss seeing Mary and Elizabeth grow up (yeah, I know the HISTORY….would be interesting to see how the producers handle them, though).
