Wolf Hall Dramatisation
mr_goo
Posts: 3,770
Historical Masterpiece or Bloated Pedestrian Drudgery?
Yet to make my mind up for certain, another episode or two needed, but I am leaning towards the latter.
Yet to make my mind up for certain, another episode or two needed, but I am leaning towards the latter.
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Nothing is a 'historical' masterpiece unless it's somehow changing the study of history in some meaningful way.
If you're concerned about accuracy, then a) you don't really know because you weren't there, and b) of all pieces of history, Henry VIII stuff is the best example of the idea that history written (or filmed...) is a product of the time it is written in.
Even journos have cottoned on to that: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... erves.html
Shocking! The BBC used to manage these important details much more accurately:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5A55eWbiBI
The books are brilliant, so it will be interesting to see how much of Mantel's take on Cromwell makes it into the adaptation - what I've seen on iPlayer so far looks promising.
I enjoyed the first episode, I thought the performances where excellent and Rylance as Cromwell is nuanced, understated and very watchable. I will be catching the next episode.
I'd say it's managing to portray the books' pace and style very well - slow moving and unhurried but intense.
Best thing I've seen on TV for a very long time.
Ruth
Agreed, Tudic Noir at its best.
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I still think that if the BBC had adapted the CJ Sansom novels, as they intended to do a couple of years ago. Then we would have had an historical drama that would have delivered the history of the time, and would still have explained the personalities at the court of Henry VIII and how they influenced him and how their own beliefs changed like the wind in order to remain in favour especially Richard Rich.
Good fact woven with a gripping storyline is what is needed to enthrall the viewer. Wolf Hall does not deliver on this. It is relying on its literary heritage of 2x Booker prizes to underpin it's standing as a TV classic.
Nah, it's because we know where it's going that it's so interesting. Loved the scene in the garden in Episode 2 where Cromwell first tells Henry his view of the corruption in the monasteries and explains the difference between the King of France's situation and his own. A massively loaded scene that showed Cromwell's genius and value to Henry in a few innocuous, under-stated sentences. Maybe this is why I like riding round the same cycling routes time and time again - I know what's coming!!
I've enjoyed a couple of the Sansom novels but they're like Enid Blyton compared to Mantel's writing. It would be Inspector Morse played out in Tudor costume.
Mark Rylance has just become my new favourite actor. Love his craggy face and how he says so much with it without even speaking a word.
Ruth
Watched the first episode and realised I was enjoying it.
So watched the next one as well.
By now well and truly hooked
Now I don't want to miss the any of the remaining episodes.
Not in anyway can I offer any intellectual criticism or comment......Er because I aint intellectual.
Simplistically just compelling viewing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02httwj
(though the clip ends before the great line about the Duke of Norfolk).
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Ruth
1. Not even a car chase, shoot out, pack of zombies or a Terminator could make Wolf Hall interesting.
2. CJ Sansom like Enid Blyton!! Really? I don't reckon you have read any of them to make such a comment. And what is your considered opinion of SJ Parris novels.
3. Mark Rylance would have made a marvellous Matthew Shardlake. And he may have even got to remember a decent sized script. Instead of talking with his eyebrows.
Still loving it.
Ruth
Struggled with the first two episodes, as I felt they moved along slower than tectonic plates. Loved the third episode though, will definitely continue with the rest of the series.
Loved the Shrouds of Lazarus line quoted above, brilliant!
For all his silent observation and Roger Mooresque eyebrow raising it certainly does not make any connection to the audience.
I do recommend the SJ Parris novels. All set in Elizabethan court. Another wonderful weaving of historical fact, real people, fictional characters and fictional/factual plot. A good read.
Thank you. I shall take up your recommendation.
Ruth
Love it , enjoyed the book and love the show.
Going to watch it now . dont tell me what happens !
regards
ILG
Don't think I would have fallen asleep if it was a Shardlake adaptation.
Surely they would have had stonework that was a few hundred years old in Tudor times just as we do today? Or are you saying the style of the stonework is post Tudor times?
I guess if most of the viewers are as ignorant as me about architecture, interiors and buildings then it won't be a distraction to too many of us. Personally I keep marvelling at the incredible lighting which seems to enhance and single out Rylance's performance in a way that seems entirely appropriate to the Cromwell-centric perspective of the Mantel books.
Ruth
Isn't that a bit like saying you'd quite like a Sherlock Holmes series, but aren't really interested in anything that's just about, say, Queen Victoria and Disraeli? Pretty much all the characters in Wolf Hall are real people, and the plots and killings are real events. But Hilary Mantel has a fresh take on them, which is coming through pretty well in the series so far.
It tends to be the gilded furniture that is wrong. In a couple of scenes of cromwell waiting on Anne Boleyn he walks through a room with a gold centre table, that is an 18th century table. In other rooms there are a sets of tall gilded candle stands known as torcheres that date from the regency period early 19th century. Also some of the chairs look like high back chairs dating from the late 17th century. I will keep my eye out for what else i can spot. I know its probably irrelevant to everybody else except me but it can spoil it for me . I've noticed it before in other series and in major films such a shame they don't put the effort in to get it right when they put so much in to getting the costumes etc historically accurate. I have spent the best part of my life restoring the best furniture money can buy and making copies of it including original pieces by chippendale , Adam etc so it bugs me to see it in the wrong context.
I do get your point. I think that what is grinding my gears about the books and now the TV series is that Mantell is being heralded as the greatest novelist of our time. All she has done is used research material from experts on the era, employed researchers and added a bit of her own narrative.