ursulahemard

Ugh ... disappointment of the last few years ... despite some very beautiful cinematographic ideas ... the script is despicable : this movie is a disguised propaganda against homosexuality ... I nearly threw up towards the ending ... I'm still so upset ... They highjacked Tchaikovsky's tragic marriage story and packaged it up as a costume drama ... but clearly to make a picture of the composer and other homosexual men as mean opportunistic vilains ... you don't learn anything about him nor her nor about the historical circumstances etc. .... There's no music either ... It's a pitiful recount how a woman desperately tries to have sex with a man who is clearly not into it AND who told her so from the very beginning: marriage yes but only as a brother!

In the movie they even make allusions that it's not normal if a man doesn't want to shag a woman if he sees her naked .... how on earth did this get selected in Cannes is beyond my comprehension...

Who was Shutruk-Nakhunte? *** Who was Hamilcar Barca? *** What does 'alea iacta est' mean? *** What does the expression 'Crossing the Rubicon' mean? *** Which King of Egypt presented Pompey the Great's head to Julius Caesar? *** What are the effects of the Gracchan crisis on the development of the republic? *** What were the contributions of the Five Good Emperors? *** Which Emperor sought to return all power to the Senat only to utter even bigger power? *** Who introduced the professional army to Rome? *** On which Roman hill was the infamous Tarpeian rock? *** Who were the first emperors to rule over the divided Empire? *** Which general had the support of the aristocrats of the civil war of 88 AD? *** In how many administrative regions did Augustus divide Rome? *** Who was routed at Philippi? *** Who was Rome's last Emperor deposed in 476 AD by Odeacer? *** What year was the Roman army crushed at lake Trasimene? *** Who was the last Emperor of the Western Empire? *** Which tribes invaded Rome in 102 BC? ************** If we missed one, please add to the comments! Thank you and enjoy!

ouff… I made it … a 9 hours series (and I never watch series!) very pompously made about a very pompous Richard Wagner played by an equally pompous Richard Burton.

Produced truly on an epic scale! Wagner composed some beautiful melodies but the majority of his music is just so loud, overbearing and far too aggressive to my taste … he must have been the Motörhead of his generation. Sitting through a full length Wagner Opera is torture to me, so the snippets of his music and arias here and there accompanying the movie/story were just enough. My love for Richard Burton and the historical curiosity kept me going, but to be honest, I only recommend this to hard-core Wagnerians or those who appreciate a good historical period drama.

Sets and costumes are beautifully authentic and gorgeously visualised, although with some abrupt editing. It is historically and biographically lovingly accurate and one does learn a lot about the historical events, the composer's private and professional life and how these influenced his creations. Many other well known actors such as Vanessa Redgrave and Sir Laurence Olivier play key roles. Despite the movies' length, we only enter Wagner's life when he is already in his early 30s. Chronologically starting around the 1848 German Revolution, through his exile in Switzerland, his relationship with his young and romantic but very influential groupie, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who became one of his main patrons, to his travels to Paris and Venice as well as his last triumph in Bayreuth and death. Wagners' radical and revolutionary political ideas, his anti-Semitisim and German nationalism are set in context with his musical dream of grandeur. His ultimate fall out with Nietzsche is interesting to read up on in more detail.

I was never bored nor impatient and actually enjoyed it. Of course, as a balletomane, my favourite passage was the depiction of the quarrels between Wagner and Marius Petipa at the Opera de Paris, concerning that 'every Opera in Paris MUST have a Ballet and that it HAS to be in the 2nd act for the important gentlemen patrons of the town to enjoy' … therefore Wagner calls the 'ballet-master' the 'whore-master' and decided provocatively to put the ballet into the 1st act ... made me giggle.