I, ClaudiusBy Simon Keake
This superbly acted, mordantly funny romp through 70 years or so
of Roman history is one of the best-loved miniseries ever made, and
deservedly so. Derek Jacobi plays Roman Emperor Claudius, who reflects in
old age on his life and his remarkable family, giving us a history lesson
that's unlike anything you learned in school.
The story begins in 24 B.C. during the reign of Augustus Caesar,
Rome's first emperor, and ends in A.D. 54 with Nero on the throne. In
between, I, Claudius details the scheming, murder, madness, and
lust that passed for politics in the early years of the Pax Romana. The
biggest worm in the Roman apple is Augustus's wife, Livia (the superb Siān
Phillips), whose single-minded pursuit of power shapes the destiny of the
Empire. With a carefully planted rumor here and a poisoned fig there, she
gradually maneuvers her son, Tiberius, toward the throne, creating an
atmosphere of suspicion and treachery that starts Rome on its
helter-skelter slide into bloody chaos. Phillips somehow makes us
understand this extraordinarily wicked woman. As she ages and her
carefully wrought webs begin to unravel, it becomes clear that Livia has
been as thoroughly poisoned by her own ambition as her victims were by her
carefully prepared meals.
Further acting honors go to George Baker as Tiberius, who resists but
eventually succumbs to the destiny forced upon him by his mother, and to
John Hurt as a hilarious and absolutely terrifying Caligula. In one
breathtakingly tense scene, the mad Emperor performs a dance in drag, then
asks Claudius to critique it, perfectly capturing the horror of a world
where one wrong word means death, or worse. Jacobi is the perfect
Claudius, hiding his intelligence behind a crippling stammer and shuffling
around the edges of events--until he finds himself pulled to the very
center. His wry comments give shape to the tangled story of his family and
help the audience make sense of a dauntingly complex cast of characters.
I, Claudius might seem a little studio-bound to viewers brought
up on more recent big-budget costume dramas, but the topnotch cast and the
incident-filled plot are more than enough to hold the attention through
almost 11 hours of gripping, deliciously wicked Roman follies. This
boxed set also includes a documentary entitled "The Epic That Never
Was," about Alexander Korda's failed attempt to film I, Claudius
in 1937. The film, directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Charles
Laughton as Claudius and Merle Oberon as Messalina, was abandoned
unfinished, and it remains one of Hollywood's great lost movies.
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