Boston 1775 has some posts about the new HBO miniseries on John Adams that are worth reading. I don't have HBO, so I'll have to wait until the DVD's hit Netflix.
I usually end up hating a historical film, for reasons similar to these. The larger the budget spent on researching buttons and fabrics, the more annoyed I get when the only difference between the characters' world and mine is the costumes and constructions. Oftentimes, historical films only work when they're based on a period novel - say, Jane Austen's stories, where the author understood her world intimately and it would be impossible for her to mistake her world for the 20th Century or later.
Despite that, however, I've been enjoying HBO's Rome on DVD and will be interesting in seeing the John Adams series when it's available.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Historical films
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Not that I disagree, but how do we know if actors are demonstrating historically accurate behavior and speech? Certainly what we think of as historical gives us a feeling that they're not people of today, but given our lack of knowledge about behavioral mannerisms and speech patterns of the era, couldn't the more realistic seeming styles be just as historically inaccurate as using contemporary styles?
Post a Comment