The Power and the Poisoning
by Julia M. Klein
APRIL 2, 2011 TAGS:
In case you were wondering, it takes just 47 minutes for the Borgias, stars of Showtime’s new series, to instigate their first poisoning. It is an assassination by a hired hand, but also, loosely speaking, an act of self-defense. Renaissance Italy, or at least its cable television version, is a Hobbesian moral universe, where the choice is to kill or be killed.
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The newly anointed Borgia pope, Alexander VI (Jeremy Irons), opining that poisoning is for rats, professes shock at the foaming-at-the-mouth demise of one of his chief foes. His surprise seems genuine, but one senses that his scruples will ebb quickly. Before the two-hour premiere, set in 1492, is over, four people will have been murdered, presaging many more hours of gore and blood lust as the Borgias consolidate their power.
Having debuted Sunday, April 3, at 9 p.m., The Borgias seemed to promise the same kind of slick narrative thrills -- and shudders -- formerly supplied by Showtime’s The Tudors. This is satisfyingly soap operatic history, complete with brilliantly lavish sets and costumes, over-the-top performances and contemporary dialogue. As with The Tudors, the sumptuousness of the production and strong storytelling will likely keep you watching, even if scenes of quasi-pornographic violence occasionally impel you to look away.
Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) is credited as the creator of The Borgias, as well as the writer of all nine of the first-season episodes and the director of the first two. Michael Hirst, who masterminded The Tudors, was involved early on, but “bowed out of the project before it went into production,” said Faye Katz, Showtime’s vice president for entertainment public relations. She said she was not sure why. But James Flynn, another Tudors alum, is listed as an executive producer of The Borgias.
Whatever its origins, the familial resemblance between these two shows -- about dysfunctional aristocratic families during the Renaissance -- is unmistakable. Both series explore the ruthless and corrupt exercise of power, treat sex as a means of entrapment and conquest, and wallow in the depiction of torture. (No one has yet been boiled in oil in The Borgias¸ thank goodness, but other vivid horrors no doubt lie in wait.)
Another common thread, of course, is murder, of both rivals and onetime intimates. As he dispatched his wives one by one, Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Henry VIII went from petulant boy to petulant man, his affections and loyalties as wayward as the wind. (The six wives were far more interesting and sympathetic characters.) After each execution, The Tudors rarely lingered for a moment of grief or regret. It’s unclear whether The Borgias will manage to be any more reflective. But it does seem possible that Irons will lend the Spanish-born Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503) real emotional complexity.
Showtime’s press notes credit the Borgias with having inspired both Machiavelli’s philosophical masterwork The Prince and Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. And the series is being billed as the saga of a crime family, which suggests yet another obvious parallel, to HBO’s popular Sopranos.
Like Tony Soprano, Borgia, as Pope Alexander VI, is the head of two unruly families – in his case, the College of Cardinals and the family he created before ascending to the papacy. In the premiere, we meet two sons, including Cesare (François Arnaud), the steely cleric who longs to be a general; daughter Lucrezia (Holliday Grainger), and Borgia’s longtime mistress Vanossa (Joanne Whalley), the mother of his children.
Borgia tells Vanossa that he must abandon her bed when he becomes pope. Celibacy, if not well-enforced, was clearly the papal ideal. Certainly, the church, we are told, frowned on public and notorious fornication – a challenge for this particular pope, who turns for carnal comfort to a young temptress named Giulia Farnese. Like Carmela Soprano, Vanossa may tolerate competition because she must, but she won’t relinquish her privileged status without a fight.
And Borgia, also like Tony Soprano, appears to be no stranger to existential angst. Aided by his sons and a carrier pigeon, he bribes, bargains, bullies and cajoles his way into the papacy over several rivals. Finally, victory is his, but what does it augur? As he undergoes anointment, an elevation symbolized by his glittering raiment, Irons’ face is a stark mask of terror and isolation. He seems to be asking: What have I gotten myself into?
It will be an irresistible – if sometimes guilty -- pleasure to find out.
Julia M. Klein, a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia and a contributing editor at Columbia Journalism Review, writes frequently for Obit.
The newly anointed Borgia pope, Alexander VI (Jeremy Irons), opining that poisoning is for rats, professes shock at the foaming-at-the-mouth demise of one of his chief foes. His surprise seems genuine, but one senses that his scruples will ebb quickly. Before the two-hour premiere, set in 1492, is over, four people will have been murdered, presaging many more hours of gore and blood lust as the Borgias consolidate their power. Having debuted Sunday, April 3, at 9 p.m., The Borgias seemed to promise the same kind of slick narrative thrills -- and shudders -- formerly supplied by Showtime’s The Tudors. This is satisfyingly soap operatic history, complete with brilliantly lavish sets and costumes, over-the-top performances and contemporary dialogue. As with The Tudors, the sumptuousness of the production and strong storytelling will likely keep you watching, even if scenes of quasi-pornographic violence occasionally impel you to look away.
Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) is credited as the creator of The Borgias, as well as the writer of all nine of the first-season episodes and the director of the first two. Michael Hirst, who masterminded The Tudors, was involved early on, but “bowed out of the project before it went into production,” said Faye Katz, Showtime’s vice president for entertainment public relations. She said she was not sure why. But James Flynn, another Tudors alum, is listed as an executive producer of The Borgias.
Whatever its origins, the familial resemblance between these two shows -- about dysfunctional aristocratic families during the Renaissance -- is unmistakable. Both series explore the ruthless and corrupt exercise of power, treat sex as a means of entrapment and conquest, and wallow in the depiction of torture. (No one has yet been boiled in oil in The Borgias¸ thank goodness, but other vivid horrors no doubt lie in wait.)
Another common thread, of course, is murder, of both rivals and onetime intimates. As he dispatched his wives one by one, Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Henry VIII went from petulant boy to petulant man, his affections and loyalties as wayward as the wind. (The six wives were far more interesting and sympathetic characters.) After each execution, The Tudors rarely lingered for a moment of grief or regret. It’s unclear whether The Borgias will manage to be any more reflective. But it does seem possible that Irons will lend the Spanish-born Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503) real emotional complexity.
Showtime’s press notes credit the Borgias with having inspired both Machiavelli’s philosophical masterwork The Prince and Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. And the series is being billed as the saga of a crime family, which suggests yet another obvious parallel, to HBO’s popular Sopranos.
Like Tony Soprano, Borgia, as Pope Alexander VI, is the head of two unruly families – in his case, the College of Cardinals and the family he created before ascending to the papacy. In the premiere, we meet two sons, including Cesare (François Arnaud), the steely cleric who longs to be a general; daughter Lucrezia (Holliday Grainger), and Borgia’s longtime mistress Vanossa (Joanne Whalley), the mother of his children. Borgia tells Vanossa that he must abandon her bed when he becomes pope. Celibacy, if not well-enforced, was clearly the papal ideal. Certainly, the church, we are told, frowned on public and notorious fornication – a challenge for this particular pope, who turns for carnal comfort to a young temptress named Giulia Farnese. Like Carmela Soprano, Vanossa may tolerate competition because she must, but she won’t relinquish her privileged status without a fight.
And Borgia, also like Tony Soprano, appears to be no stranger to existential angst. Aided by his sons and a carrier pigeon, he bribes, bargains, bullies and cajoles his way into the papacy over several rivals. Finally, victory is his, but what does it augur? As he undergoes anointment, an elevation symbolized by his glittering raiment, Irons’ face is a stark mask of terror and isolation. He seems to be asking: What have I gotten myself into?
It will be an irresistible – if sometimes guilty -- pleasure to find out.
Julia M. Klein, a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia and a contributing editor at Columbia Journalism Review, writes frequently for Obit.
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