Augustus: The First Emperor

AUGUSTUS (also known as IMPERIUM: AUGUSTUS) is a film made for television, which could explain how its three and one half hour length would be spread over at least three nights. This movie was made with an obvious plentiful budget, sponsored by the Italian government and US filmmakers, and the result is a complex and nicely detailed biographical study of the first Emperor of Rome, Augustus Caesar, the man whose reign spanned the BC/AD time frame with all the attendant changes in world geography and history and religious orders. It was a time of Rome's greatness and a time of Rome's disintegration.

Writer Eric Lerner and Director Roger Young wisely elected to tell this tale as a series of flashbacks as recalled by the aged, dying Augustus brilliantly portrayed by Peter O'Toole. His very presence gives the project credibility and dignity and helps the viewer forgive any of the many shortcomings that dot this epic. Augustus is attended by his wife Livia (again, a wise choice in casting the always superb Charlotte Rampling to bring this odd woman to life). With some adroit camera superimpositions of the old Augustus' face the story goes back in time to the death of Julius Caesar, the one who appointed the young Augustus (Benjamin Sadler) to be his successor. It is 42 BC and the young Augustus, together with his sidekicks Agrippa (Ken Duken) and Maecenas (Russell Barr in a foppish turn), struggle through the Senate, the noblemen, and the poor people of Rome who all have been ignored during Julius Caesar's infamous wars to expand the Empire. The complicated lineage to the 'throne' of Rome is manipulated by Julia (Vittoria Belvedere), Marc Antony (Massimo Ghini), Tiberius (Michele Bevilacqua) and Iullus (Juan Diego Botto), the son of Marc Antony, among many others.

Along the way we meet Cleopatra (Anne Valle) and Cicero (Gottfried John) and many of the other casually dropped names of Roman history. Though the names and the changes of who is ruling who at any one time can be confusing to even the most astute Roman historian, the writer and director do their best to make this story flow so that it all is of a piece. The acting is superb for the leads, adequate for the secondary roles, and the camera work manages to make the numerous battlefield sequences seem cogent.

In the end is the beginning: the death of Augustus. A casual mention is made that during his reign there was born in the land of Judea a child whose name was Jesus...and suddenly the whole lengthy film gathers more meaning. This is a fine overview of Roman history and civilization and thanks to the fine work by Peter O'Toole and Charlotte Rampling the result is very satisfying. Grady Harp

it could be boring, strange, chaotic, sketch of a coherent story. in same measure, its pillar is Peter O 'Toole and that fact is one of virtues. portrait of the first emperor, it desires to present all the elements of his reign. and that ambition has almost good results. the battle scenes - not inspired but nice, the characters created by good cast, the decisions as fruits of period's crisis, the crisis as forms of ambiguous search of sense. a fresco. not the best but interesting for rediscover old pieces of the roots of Europe. a film with Peter O'Toole. that is the perfect recommendation for see it. because his old Augustus has the flavor of a profound experience to use the possibilities of the role.

The above comments are too harsh, but the film is by no means great.

The bad parts first. The CGI - if thats what it is - is very poor for audiences raised on "Gladiator" and the rest of the sword-and-sandal epics, to say nothing of contemporary TV productions like Channel Four's "The Ancient Egyptians". All of the battle scenes suffer as a result, and this is worsened by some shots of legionaries being hit by arrows and pila that are utterly laughable - one soldier can be seen to pull the spear into his body, others are already grabbing the part the arrow hits before it hits. Moreover, the battles they represent are meaningless, as they neglect to show either Phillipi or Actium in any detail that could do them justice.

The script is a bizarre mishmash of historical accuracy and modern elements, the most obvious being the character of Maecenas, brought in for some reason to be both comic relief and "the only gay in the village". The continual harping on about Rome also grates somewhat, though this tends to die out towards the end; for that matter the original insistence that Octavian and Agrippa were "country boys" is incorrect - Octavian's father had been praetor.

The filming location - in Bizerte - is also very obviously not Italy, and since a recurring element of the film is the activity in and around the forum, this is noticeable more than it would have been if the activity was focused in the senate.

Despite all that, there is still an OK film lurking beneath the surface. Peter O'Toole does a good - if bored - turn as the elderly Augustus, Livia (who the historical sources believe was as manipulative as she is portrayed here Marcus - Caligula was to call her "Ulysses in petticoats") is played well by both actresses, with exactly the right amount of malice; Michele Bevilacqua's Tiberius is suitably reluctant to assume the burden of the Empire and Julia, as well as nagged by Livia (though he shunned Julia, and appealed against her banishment - so the rape scene was unjustified).

Despite what Marcus wrote above, the treatment of Julia in this film - aside from the rape - is justified by the extant evidence, she was banished for adultery, after a complaint by her father using a law he had brought about with Iullus.

Its also much more historically accurate than most films - it sticks closely to Suetonius's "Life of the Deified Augustus" (aside from the gripes mentioned above) and far better than more expensive films (King Arthur bow your head in shame), and is well worth watching for anyone who is prepared to accept some bizarre script moments in order to learn something of history.

AUGUSTUS isn't the best it could be, lacking the historical accuracy that previous reviewers have been kicking a screaming about; it is because of the pointless stereotypical Julia, who is always made out to be a villain and Augustus a wounded. However, the tales of Augustus daughter Julia are mainly made of rumours, the likelihood she was a prostitute is slim and chances are Iullus was one of her only, if not only, lover. Read your historical notes and what historians say today, chances are you'll find her in a new light. AUGUSTUS shows Julia as the wounded daughter she was; mistreated and thrown around just for her father's own delights. When you consider that he treated her like that and that she had a father who led a far kinkier and scandalous sex life, is it any wonder his daughter, who apart from her adulteries had no bad vein in her body, ended up the way she did?

Augustus (Peter O'Toole) is on his deathbed, overlooking how he "played his part in this comedy called life," and he takes us back several years to the high point of his rein. His daughter Julia (Vittoria Belvedere) is married to his beloved friend and ally, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and together the two have had a pair of lovely sons, Gaius and Lucius, who are "just like their grandfather" and running around in army gear, rather like how Julia's daughter Agrippina (oddly missing from the movie) would do for her youngest son Gaius, or Caligula, thirty or so years later. Of course, the bubble bursts when Augustus is nearly murdered by an assassin, only saved by his leather breast plate, and Julia receives dreadful news: her husband Agrippa has died. He tells her of his earlier days when he was a sickly eighteen-year-old, who one day gets a letter from Julius Caesar, despite the pleas of his mother, "Your father would forbid it!" Octavius (Benjamin Sander) reminds her that, "only your uncle treats me like a son," leaps on a horse with Marcus Agrippa (Ken Duken) another eighteen-year-old, who dreams of becoming a soldier, to join the army. The story seems to take us through a romanticised view of Octavius growth into manhood along side his two friends Marcus Agrippa and Gaius Maecenas (Russell Barr), a man who is clearly thrown in for a giggle.

Agrippa represents the world that we all want to be apart of, yet he doesn't live in a fool's paradise like Octavius does, and towards the end of the flashbacks he finally pulls his friend out of belief that sticking to the nobles will save him; he has to suppress them. Interestingly, they show us how Agrippa built the great aqueducts, proving himself not only to be a great soldier but also one of history's great architect. Ironically, Maecenas mocks him by saying, "At least we'll be able to get some lovely fountains out of it!" Cleopatra is just as she should be, not a Liz Taylor but a real malicious mastermind. Julia does as she's told but is so trapped that she can't help but loom for ways out. Tiberius is a pig and his mother Livia too ambitious, and it's refreshing that Augustus actually "gets" that Livia wants Tiberius to be emperor. Iullus Antonius, who wants revenge for his father's murder at first, uses the vulnerable widow of Agrippa to in his plan. The irony being of course that lovely Agrippa warned Octavius when he saved Iullus' life that this would one day come to pass. In a way, Iullus cheats both his saviours, not only seducing Augustus' daughter but also taking Agrippa's wife and using her against the man he spent his whole life protecting. Of course the plot falls through when Iullus ends up falling in love with her proving himself a true Antonius boy—"a woman changed Antony, you could change Iullus" Augustus says and by god, Julia does.

The acting is still great, though many see O'Toole as the best: the desperation of Belvedere's Julia, the cunning of Rampling's Livia, the nobleness of Duken's Agrippa and the deep love that Barr's Maecenas has for Augustus really does touch you and makes their characters come alive.

The only thing that is disappointing is that it didn't cover the whole of the history, the Battle of Actium was rushed, we never see two of Augustus wives and we don't know what happened after the civil war was over, which is probably some of the most interesting part. Various other characters were clearly cut to save time for the film, Octavia's first husband, her children, Fulvia, Sextus, Drusus, who was Livia's other son and various others. If anything, this show would have been better off as a mini series and covering other important parts of history like the self-exile of Agrippa because of Marcellus, and how his death resulted in Agrippa's marriage to Julia—that would have been a story worth hearing.

If you're not interested in history, then you could just watch it for its soap opera feel, with the drama, attempted assassination and Julia's affair with Iullus Antonius driving her husband into raping her, we might as well have been watching an ancient rendition of DAYS OF OUR LIVES, only it's much better! Boys will also be happy to see that they get a hot babe to stare at in the form of Augustus' daughter Julia for half of the film. Don't worry, fear not girls, because in the other half, ladies such as us, also get a hot and handsome treat in the form Agrippa. My point being is that there is something for everyone. Filled with comic relief, a few wars, a few scandals, a troublesome wife, a few hot wild affairs, a hot chick for the boys and a cute guy for the girls, it pretty much does have everything you need to make history come alive.

Yes, so many historians out there complaining the movie was not historical correct, but it never claimed to be. The movie was made for entertainment purposes and showed great battle scenes as like those in the days of yesteryear. It didn't claim to be a docudrama, for those who want the correct history i'm sure there's plenty of material out there for those. To me as long as it was close to the actual events of it's time, which it was, that's good enough for me. So many other movies like the latest version of "The Alamo" had a lot of correct history but also showed things that no one could really verify like Davey Crockett yelling at Santa Anna commenting how short he was and before they murdered him he warned them he was a screamer.Fact or Hollywood? Just take Augustus for what it is and enjoy this epic with great battle scenes and done in the same manner as past greats like "Ben Hur" and "Cleopatra". I think you'll enjoy it much better this way. You can always go to the library or get the actual facts later. Take it for what it is, an entertaining movie.