Is there any particular subject you'd love to see a proper, as-historically-accurate-as-possible TV drama devote itself to?
I'm interested in stories from the multicultural cities of the Levant, myself.
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Is there any particular subject you'd love to see a proper, as-historically-accurate-as-possible TV drama devote itself to?
I'm interested in stories from the multicultural cities of the Levant, myself.
by Anonymous | reply 423 | March 19, 2022 6:14 AM |
Constantinople during the Macedonian renaissance, especially under Theodora
by Anonymous | reply 1 | November 29, 2020 3:54 AM |
The Dred Scott decision and its aftermath
by Anonymous | reply 2 | November 29, 2020 3:57 AM |
Napoleon, from his beginnings as a Corsican peasant in the French Army, until his surrender and imprisonment at St. Helena.
Hatshepsut, Female Pharaoh of Egypt.
Alexander the Great.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | November 29, 2020 4:02 AM |
Ooh, I think the Napoleon one would be good too. I actually never thought much about that part of history until I recently watched a short crash course summary of the French Revolution and then Napoleon, and found it really interesting.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | November 29, 2020 4:04 AM |
I'd love to see a miniseries of Anthony K. Lukas's "Big Trouble," about the assassination in 1905 of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg and the ensuing trial of unionist Harry Orchard for the murder. The case implicated Bill Heywood, involved Clarence Darrow as a lawyer, and brought in celebrity observers from all over the country to Boise, including Ethel Barrymore and Shoeless Joe Jackson. It was like a real-life version of "Ragtime."
by Anonymous | reply 5 | November 29, 2020 4:06 AM |
R5 there is something about those points in history where a whole heap of well known people happen to converge that I find really interesting too. Either in cases where they are already well known, or sometimes those cases where they are all unknown but are destined to become famous later on.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | November 29, 2020 4:16 AM |
I'd watch a limited series done on The Halifax Slasher. Absolutely balmy case of mass hysteria in November 1938 in the town of Halifax, England. People were convinced there was a mysterious man attacking people in the town with a knife or a razor. People were turning up with their bodies having been slashed, vigilante groups formed and ran riot, everyone was in a state of panic for a week and in the end it turned out it was all a delusion and people had been doing it to themselves. It could be an interesting character study of human nature.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | November 29, 2020 4:23 AM |
Byzantine Emperor Basil II. He was the longest reigning of the Byzantine emperors and a formidable commander who spent much time in the field fighting all of the empire’s enemies, particularly the extremely powerful Bulgar kingdom, which he annihilated. So thorough was this destruction he became known as Basil Bulgaroktonos (Basil, Destroyer of the Bulgars).
The Byzantine court was highly mannered and effete, perfumed and devious. I think this extremely blunt and straightforward man would have been a fish out of water trying to maneuver his way through imperial circles — this could be a very amusing tale indeed.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | November 29, 2020 4:24 AM |
Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and Inca, Queen Zenobia and the rise and fall of Palmyra, and yes Justinian and Theodora. Also the Billy Haines/ early gay Hollywood
by Anonymous | reply 10 | November 29, 2020 4:35 AM |
also... none of the above directed by Ryan Murphy
by Anonymous | reply 11 | November 29, 2020 4:36 AM |
Oh god, absolutely not, R11! I'm with you there!
by Anonymous | reply 12 | November 29, 2020 4:37 AM |
The Black Death
by Anonymous | reply 13 | November 29, 2020 4:44 AM |
London during the plague but super gritty with boils and body fluids.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | November 29, 2020 4:50 AM |
The colonization of Australia would be interesting. Follow the first wave of convicts from Englad and their interactions with the natives. You could do the same thing with America but there's nothing sexy about the Puritans.
Anything set in an asylum or almshouse in the Victorian era.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | November 29, 2020 5:00 AM |
Adventures of the OSS and/or SOE during WWII.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | November 29, 2020 5:03 AM |
The life of Princess Alice of Battenberg.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | November 29, 2020 5:08 AM |
James I and his “wife” George Villiers (and also his other male lovers) with a lot of nudity and intense sex scenes and a cast that is much better looking than the real people of course.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | November 29, 2020 5:17 AM |
Empress Dowager Cixi would be a really interesting topic for a drama.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | November 29, 2020 5:30 AM |
The rival families of Florence trying to out do each other.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | November 29, 2020 5:42 AM |
^That sounds tailor-made for a series people would love to watch.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | November 29, 2020 5:44 AM |
R15, check out the movie “The Nightingale,” which although set in Tasmania has much of what you’re talking about.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | November 29, 2020 5:46 AM |
Hadrian and his hot lover Antinous deserve a biopic with lots of daddy/teen boy sex and making out.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | November 29, 2020 6:24 AM |
Gay life in Manhattan at different points in the 20th century. Or the Florence equivalent (borrowing from r21).
by Anonymous | reply 25 | November 29, 2020 7:43 AM |
I would love to see an accurate depiction of Ancient Greece in the Classical period, maybe with the Peleponnesian War as the backdrop. By 'accurate,' I really mean the whole deal (the good, the bad, and the ugly, so to speak): the city-state rivalries; period-accurate clothing, armor and weaponry; warfare on land and at sea (hoplites, triremes); colorful temples and statues; nude athletes at the gymnasium; the misogynist culture (at least in Athens); ubiquitous superstition, a life structured by cult rites, and the initiation into mysteries; the big personalities of the time--politicians, military commanders, artists, philosophers (Pericles, Socrates, Alcibiades, Praxiteles, Herodotus, etc.); and, yes, also homosexuality and pederasty in its cultural context (the latter non-explicit, of course); etc.
Just adapt Mary Renault's works accurately, and I'd be ecstatic.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | November 29, 2020 8:17 AM |
This might be a bit niche, but the effect of the 1893 Exposition in Chicago on American architecture would fascinate me. Burnham, Atwood, Root, Wright, Sullivan, Griffin, Mahoney, etc...egos as big as the sky and some of the most glorious design ever created.
I'd like to see a series that explored the living culture of the great pueblo cities in the Southwest.
I'm an architectural nerd. :{
by Anonymous | reply 27 | November 29, 2020 8:48 AM |
R26, while I'm personally not a huge reader of that part of history I would totally watch something like you said because it would be fascinating to learn how life was through a drama like that, knowing they were being as accurate as possible.
R27, was the 1893 Chicago Exposition when H. H. Holmes had his murder castle too? That would be an interesting side plot with your show, especially as that house was the most bizarre piece of architecture probably ever in existence.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | November 29, 2020 8:59 AM |
I don't know how they would do it but early human history would be interesting. Maybe when modern humans encountered Neanderthals and what happened between the two that ended with modern humans evolutionarily subsuming and, basically, ending the Neanderthals and becoming the sole surviving humans species on the planet.
Amazon warriors.
Some of the ancient civilizations of Africa.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | November 29, 2020 8:59 AM |
R27, I’d tune into that FOR SURE.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | November 29, 2020 9:03 AM |
R28, yes, that would be an amazing sidebar, as it were - architecture as a trap,
by Anonymous | reply 31 | November 29, 2020 9:12 AM |
The Iroquois Confederacy as it encounters white settlers.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | November 29, 2020 9:13 AM |
Ok R31, I'm sold. Get writing a script for this show. I'm totally going to watch it. 😊
by Anonymous | reply 33 | November 29, 2020 9:16 AM |
R26, I just started reading up a bit on Mary Renault and something that really fascinated me was that she moved to South Africa in 1948 where she "found a community of gay expatriates who had escaped the repressive attitudes towards homosexuality in Britain for the comparatively liberal atmosphere of Durban...." and "In South Africa Renault was able to write forthrightly about homosexual relationships for the first time."
I really didn't expect that!
by Anonymous | reply 34 | November 29, 2020 9:21 AM |
I would love to see a lavish costume drama about Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519). He was a weird guy who commissioned a number of impressive books and printing projects, including one of the world's largest woodcuts (The Triumphal Arch), below). His Prayer Book (also below) is one of the most valuable books in the world, as I understand it, and it contains exquisite marginalia by Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, and others.
And, also, I would like to see (or read) a little alternative history: when Maximilian died in 1519, he had no successor -- he had not been able to convince electors during his life to put his grandson, Charles V, on the throne. (He was ultimately elected, though.) In the uncertain weeks and months that followed Maximilian's death, one of the names proposed for Holy Roman Emperor was Henry VIII.
How wild would it have been if Henry had been not only king of England, but also emperor of the HRE?? Our world would look nothing like it does, I assume.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | November 29, 2020 9:25 AM |
Prayer Book of Maximilian. This copy, with marginalia by Dürer, Cranach, and others, was most likely his personal copy
by Anonymous | reply 38 | November 29, 2020 9:28 AM |
Yes, r37!! However, I wish they'd make an English-language version. Very few people I know in the English-speaking world know about Maximilian
by Anonymous | reply 39 | November 29, 2020 9:29 AM |
[quote] the 1893 Exposition in Chicago
Did it have a big effect on Griffin, Mahoney etc?
by Anonymous | reply 40 | November 29, 2020 10:03 AM |
Marsha P Johnson together with other trans/nonbinary people of color invented QUEER rights movement in 1970s.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | November 29, 2020 10:38 AM |
Many stories from the Byzantine period, especially the ones mentioned above--it's crazy how little we know about the Byzantine Empire given what a large role in played in history,. (And by "we know" I mean how it is downplayed in history books in the US and how nothing from that era has been made into any sort of movie or drama.)
The other era would be the fall of Berlin and the immediate aftermath--millions of people all over a largely lawless Europe, trying to make their way back home, the Germans coming to grips with just how much death and devastation they'd wrought, Soviet soldiers raping every German female in sight for months on end.
by Anonymous | reply 42 | November 29, 2020 10:56 AM |
The American South 1800-1850. And to balance out all those recent movies about the bad parts of slavery, maybe have one happy slave family be part of the regular cast.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | November 29, 2020 10:58 AM |
there ought to be a lot more shows from the perspective of black people. e.g., a miniseries of "roll of thunder hear my cry" would be good.
or a take on the black people who summered in marthas vineyard.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | November 29, 2020 11:16 AM |
Fin de siecle Russia, not just about the vast Romanov family, but also about everyday Russians: the intelligentsia, the factory workers, and the farm peasants.
Say 1898 up to the disastrous Russo-Japanese War.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | November 29, 2020 11:25 AM |
queen zenobia
by Anonymous | reply 46 | November 29, 2020 11:27 AM |
[quote]the effect of the 1893 Exposition in Chicago on American architecture would fascinate me.
In 2019, Hulu announced it was developing a series around Erik Larson's book, "The Devil in the White City," which explored the 1893 Expo and the concurrent adventures of America's first serial killer, H.H. Holmes.
It being Hulu, I imagine the series would focus much more on Holmes than the architects you listed, though they are given much attention in the book.
Anyway, I haven't heard anything about the proposed series since then.
by Anonymous | reply 47 | November 29, 2020 11:53 AM |
The "Night of the Long Knives" - a focus on Ernst Röhm and Edmund Heines, etc. Or has there already been one?
by Anonymous | reply 48 | November 29, 2020 11:53 AM |
An accurate depiction of Richard III.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | November 29, 2020 12:16 PM |
R48 Not TV, but of course the famous movie by Visconti, The Damned, follows these events.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | November 29, 2020 12:54 PM |
I'd love to see a story about the 1900 World's Fair in St. Louis and how a typical family might have responded to the event - their loves, their home life, social events, employment situations, servants, holiday traditions, etc.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | November 29, 2020 1:06 PM |
[quote]The "Night of the Long Knives" - a focus on Ernst Röhm and Edmund Heines, etc. Or has there already been one?
PBS is doing a series now called [italic]Rise of the Nazis[/italic]. The third episode, which I have yet to watch, is called "Night of the Long Knives." I don't know if this will click on for you. I'm a member, so it plays for me.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | November 29, 2020 1:24 PM |
There was a 3 part series in PBS years ago about colonial Kenya in the 30s and all the white swapping etc among the settlers. Somebody should do Rhodesia 1970.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | November 29, 2020 1:40 PM |
R20 The Empress Dowager Cixi (Tzu Hsi) features in at least two movies : 55 Days in Peking and in The Last Emperor.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | November 29, 2020 2:28 PM |
Something set in Ancient Greece. I would love that.
by Anonymous | reply 55 | November 29, 2020 2:29 PM |
r42 my European History teacher got a little to excited about that period because she studied Russian history in college. She told us Junior High School kids about the Russians raping women so much that their uterus (or something) fell out. This was around 2008 in a small midwest town, not sure if teachers would still talk about rape today.
I've been trying to find books that cover the fall of Nazi Germany. I think I'll look for some today because the fall of governments sounds fascinating, but not the rape parts.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | November 29, 2020 2:38 PM |
I'd love to see a series about the US government and businesses take over of Hawaii and the efforts of their royal family to save their nation.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | November 29, 2020 2:41 PM |
Vlad the Impaler the real Count Dracula not the Bram Stoker fictional character
Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia or — as he is better known — Vlad the Impaler. The morbid nickname is a testament to the Wallachian prince's favorite way of dispensing with his enemies.
Vlad needed to quell the incessant conflicts that had historically taken place between Wallachia's boyars. According to legends that circulated after his death, Vlad invited hundreds of these boyars to a banquet and — knowing they would challenge his authority — had his guests stabbed and their still-twitching bodies impaled on spikes.
Vlad is credited with impaling dozens of Saxon merchants in Kronstadt, who were once allied with the boyars, in 1456. Around the same time, a group of Ottoman envoys allegedly had an audience with Vlad but declined to remove their turbans, citing a religious custom. Commending them on their religious devotion, Vlad ensured that their turbans would forever remain on their heads by reportedly having the head coverings nailed to their skulls.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | November 29, 2020 2:41 PM |
Popes the Dark Side of Popedom.
Stephen VI dug up his predecessor's corpse and put it on trial.
John XII was accused of "homicide, perjury, sacrilege" and even incest.
Benedict IX was a three-time pope described as "a demon from hell."
Boniface VIII said pedophilia was no more problematic than "rubbing one hand against the other."
Sixtus IV had a kid with his sister.
Innocent VIII had lots of illegitimate children.
Alexander VI bought his way into the papacy and had a rollicking sex life.
Julius II had a bad case of syphilis.
Leo X allowed the faithful to buy their way into heaven.
Even Ryan Murphy couldn't screw this up.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | November 29, 2020 2:49 PM |
Did anyone see that abortion of Catherine the Great on HBO with Helen Mirren. I couldn't believe that HBO would spend all that money, granted access to real Russian palaces by the government, just to shit out a dud. Every single part of that series was wrong. It's a shame because Catherine the Great makes for a great political story but it requires an expert team and at least 4 seasons to really get into the meat of her accomplishments.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | November 29, 2020 2:50 PM |
Catherine and Peter on Hulu is somehow more entertaining than the serious HBO drama. I think Nicholas Holt being a sexy douchbag helps. So there should be some middle ground of entertainment mixed with history.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | November 29, 2020 2:53 PM |
I love historical dramas. I found The Vikings when I needed a Game of Thrones fix between seasons and it is excellent. Very accurate historically. Well done. Another one that I really enjoyed was the Marco Polo series on Netflix. Damn Marco was hot. Very well done and generally accurate,... with embellishments. The Third one is The White Queen which is essentially the War of the Roses between the Houses of Lancaster and York. Excellent and historically accurate. Although since I feel Richard III has been screwed over by the Tudor writing of history, I didn't feel like it did enough to restore his image. But it definitely proved my long held belief that he did not kill the Princes in the Tower.
I want tp see something about Napoleon that shows Josephine's perspective too. Her upbringing and her background on Martinique, and how she was able to rise to become Empress of France. Long time ago, I watched an old movie, Marlon Brando, Merle Oberon and Jeanne Simmons called Desiree. It was charming, accurate, but lacking. It does provide the framework for a marvelous retelling. I still enjoy the movie. I will never not love Marlon Brando.
Alcibiades is a fascinating figure in Ancient history. Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine is one of her most exciting, heartbreaking poignant stories. Alcibiades figures in as do the philosophers, etc and the schools of Athens, etc. Wonderful.It definitely ought to be made into a movie.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | November 29, 2020 2:58 PM |
R56 - the best book on the actual fall of Berlin is called "The Fall of Berlin" by Anthony Beevor.
I am including a link to a used bookstore because Muriel doesn't do links to Amazon, but it is available there and on Audible as well.
by Anonymous | reply 63 | November 29, 2020 2:59 PM |
I would love to see a domestic story about the housewives of Sumeria.
Who wouldn't?
by Anonymous | reply 64 | November 29, 2020 3:03 PM |
[quote]I would love to see a domestic story about the housewives of Sumeria.
Meh, most eldergays on the DL have lived through that time personally, so what's the point?
by Anonymous | reply 65 | November 29, 2020 3:04 PM |
Galla Placidia: Daughter of an emperor, wife of two emperors and mother of one. Her tomb in Ravenna is still intact and is a marvel. It's really a story of the collapse of the empire in the west
by Anonymous | reply 66 | November 29, 2020 3:13 PM |
I'd like to see a series that covers Louis XVIII life or simply reign. Not so much him but the fact that he and his younger brother had to adapt to the transition from Princes of France, to broke exiles, to King (First Restoration), to exile again (100 days), to successful King once more (Second Restoration).
Louis XVIII had to humble himself and learn from the mistakes of his brother and grandfather. By the time he came onto the throne he was already old, fat, but ready to lead. For nearly 10 years he held the country together against the two great political battles. The nobility wanted a restoration of their divine rights, that faction was lead by his haughty younger brother. Another faction demanded rights for the citizens and to reign in the power of the king under a constitutional monarchy. Louis XVIII gave in when needed to strike a balance.
Following Louis VXIII's death, his foolish brother screwed the coop and the family had to run for their lives out of Paris. His brother tried a last ditch effort to abdicate for his son but the French pushed him and his son out the door.
What a life that guy lived. They could do a number of episodes that are basically flash backs from his time at Versailles and the political factions to lead France towards the Revolution and eventually the First Restoration.
He also ordered the documents regarding Louis XVII abuse and neglect be destroyed so there is a story somewhere in there.
by Anonymous | reply 67 | November 29, 2020 3:43 PM |
Thank you r63!
by Anonymous | reply 68 | November 29, 2020 3:45 PM |
I love to see all the Byzantine suggestions. This massive, sort of forgotten Empire that was crucial in so many ways, with a lot of interesting characters. Theodora seems made for Hollywood and I'm always amazed nobody has given her the Cleopatra treatment. But there are many more upstart and downfallen Emperors who would make a good movie.
I'd also like to see a series on the Herods. Herod the Great was a fascinating monster and his kids and grandkids would be forever tangled up with Rome and later the birth of Christianity. They'd be fascinating, though I admit they could be a touchy subject. I doubt most of the events in the gospels, like the slaughter of the innocents, happened, but I guess you'd have to include them or there'd be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And at least Herod was the type who would do some crazy bloody shit like that.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | November 29, 2020 3:46 PM |
And I love r67's suggestion about Louis XVIII. I'd love anything about the French emigrees. He'd be a good candidate to build that story around. Some of them even went to America, which must have been such a culture shock. One duchess, daughter of one of Marie Antoinette's ladies in waiting, daughter-in-law of Louis' last War Minister, found herself on a farm in New York milking cows and churning butter. Talleyrand finds her there on his travels, and apparently she was quite happy, more than she had been at Versailles. Stories like that would be fun.
And Talleyrand of course deserves a miniseries himself.
by Anonymous | reply 70 | November 29, 2020 4:10 PM |
Casting suggestion for Justinian and Theodora: Colin Farrell & Eva Green
by Anonymous | reply 71 | November 29, 2020 7:52 PM |
Fascinating stuff r70. Mix in Napoleon for the war buffs and you have almost been ok much content to choose from.
by Anonymous | reply 72 | November 29, 2020 8:01 PM |
[quote]The other era would be the fall of Berlin and the immediate aftermath--millions of people all over a largely lawless Europe, trying to make their way back home, the Germans coming to grips with just how much death and devastation they'd wrought
Have you seen the movie Lore at all? It's not set in Berlin, rather it starts in the Black Forest, and it's about the children of Nazi parents who have to make their way across Germany to their grandmother's house in the aftermath of the war, after their parents go missing. It's a heavy one, but really good. I love the dinner scene at the end.
[quote]Even Ryan Murphy couldn't screw this up.
Are we sure about that? 😜
by Anonymous | reply 73 | November 29, 2020 8:44 PM |
The roaring 1920s through the Depression. The dichotomy between those eras would be fascinating.
by Anonymous | reply 74 | November 29, 2020 8:50 PM |
Gay life in Germany before the Nazis took over it a gay Greek lover story.
On the royalty track they could do a show about the Portuguese Royal family that fled to Brazil (or was it Mexico?) during the Napoleonic wars. They returned home but left a prince down there or something.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | November 29, 2020 9:01 PM |
95% of these suggestions wouldn't work on TV as drama.
TV dramas need a hero, a plot and a climax. (Some of these suggestions might be passable in a doco or a book but NOT as a TV drama)
by Anonymous | reply 76 | November 29, 2020 9:10 PM |
I'm sort of fascinated by that community in r34. I'm still holding out for somebody, anybody to deal with anything from the Byzantine Empire, but I would happily settle for a movie about some group of gay expatriates somewhere. And that ties into my whole emigre thing. I love the idea of some group finding a kind of freedom or at least a new life in an unfamiliar setting because the old safe setting turned out not safe at all.
by Anonymous | reply 77 | November 29, 2020 9:17 PM |
R76 which makes The Crown interesting because there is no villain in the first 3 seasons yet the show is very popular. You construct the story around someone important and use them as the means to tell everyone else’s story.
by Anonymous | reply 78 | November 29, 2020 9:24 PM |
I disagree R76. TV drama, because it is able to unfold over many episodes and sometimes many seasons, is the best place to tell stories from multiple perspectives, with multiple characters and multiple plotlines. Viewers love to watch characters living their lives in the environment they are in, most TV dramas I've seen don't have 'a hero, a plot and a climax'. They're not movies, their trajectory is very different.
by Anonymous | reply 79 | November 29, 2020 9:25 PM |
R76, just in case you wondered, you're the person no one likes talking to...ever. You set the drama within the settings. It's called storytelling. What's the equivalent of mansplaining when some idiot tries to wrongly explain something to everyone, not just a woman? Humansplaining? Eh, mansplaining probably covers it here, too.
Hey, R76, you know what else? Most likely, none of us are actually rich television producers either, so, ya know, reason number 2 for us to not talk about things you don't want us to talk about! Plus, global pandemic, so we can't even film them, either! So glad you are here to keep us from going astray with your knowledgable input.
So sick of these assholes.
by Anonymous | reply 80 | November 29, 2020 9:43 PM |
[quote] TV dramas need a hero, a plot and a climax.
Not sure what your point is R76
Thus far we've just been suggesting historical eras.
There are any number of stories from murder mysteries to love stories to family sagas that could then be set in that era. And the key historical figures could be main characters or they could be background figures whose actions impact the main characters.
Or, to put it another way, "the Vichy occupation of Morocco in WW2" doesn't sound all that sexy, but a the writers were able to pull "Casablanca" out of it.
by Anonymous | reply 81 | November 29, 2020 9:55 PM |
John D Rockefeller. He was a complicated man. He was brutal in business, but he also taught Sunday School. His motto was to make as much money as possible, as fast as you can; and then give it away, as fast as you can. He gave much of his wealth to his kids in his lifetime, and complained to his daughter that she wasn’t giving enough of it away as he believed she should.
There was also competition among his peers to donate to the most iconic causes at the time, hence all the museums, libraries, concert halls, and schools named for them.
by Anonymous | reply 82 | November 29, 2020 10:04 PM |
R91 They pulled "Casablanca" by inventing six fake characters played by 3 competent actors.
by Anonymous | reply 83 | November 29, 2020 10:05 PM |
Pre-Henry II England, before the effing Wars of the Roses.
by Anonymous | reply 84 | November 29, 2020 10:05 PM |
Teddy Roosevelt, of course.
I’d like to see more about the pharaohs of Egypt. The burial service for the pharaoh who built the first pyramid at Giza must have been spectacular.
by Anonymous | reply 85 | November 29, 2020 10:06 PM |
R85 Was Teddy Roosevelt a hero or a villain?
by Anonymous | reply 86 | November 29, 2020 10:09 PM |
Stories on Jack the Ripper are a dime a dozen obviously, but I have a book here called Jack the Ripper: the Facts, which goes into a more holistic discussion of society at the time, and it really was a fascinating period in history, full of things to adapt and talk about, particularly in relation to labour rights, poverty, the role of women, immigration etc.
by Anonymous | reply 87 | November 29, 2020 10:10 PM |
The Dyatlov Pass.
by Anonymous | reply 88 | November 29, 2020 10:16 PM |
LOL R83-- what do you think "historical drama" usually is?
It's a fictional story set during a specific period of time that usually makes reference to key historical figures of that time, with an attempt (usually) to remain faithful to historical facts.
Sometimes a historical drama can be like "The Crown" where all of the characters are actually based on real people.
Sometimes, like "Anne of A Thousand Days" it's very loosely based on real historical figures
But usually, like say "Babylon Berlin", the characters are fictional but the historical details are accurate.
by Anonymous | reply 89 | November 29, 2020 10:26 PM |
A series about Harlem in the 20s when white kids and black people were starting to intermingle in the jazz age there was a huge rise in Klan activity as well.
A series about the OSS/CIA/ MI5 during the Cold War, but not James Bond fuckery.
Wouldn’t mind seeing something about Alexander the Great.
All of these ideas have been made before but but crappy writers and producers. Would like to see these subjects with good writing and directing.
by Anonymous | reply 90 | November 29, 2020 10:43 PM |
[quote]A series about the OSS/CIA/ MI5 during the Cold War, but not James Bond fuckery.
Yes! I'd love that too. I mean, I don't mind me some James Bond, but I totally understand the camp nature of it. It would be fascinating to see the real way spies worked during the Cold War. Oh and the whole Cambridge Five thing is interesting too, so stories of double/triple agents, defections etc would be really interesting. I saw a documentary on Kim Philby recently that was gripping.
by Anonymous | reply 91 | November 29, 2020 10:53 PM |
Agree r79. It's good for tangled stories. I'd like something about the birth of the modern middle east. The Ottoman Empire is fallen and now everyone is lying to everyone else about what comes next: the British, the French, the Jews, the Arabs, the Hashemites, the Young Turks, Kemal Ataturk. Everyone is playing their own game and lying to everyone else about what that game is. It could make a fascinating series. And then the oil companies start getting involved.
by Anonymous | reply 92 | November 29, 2020 10:59 PM |
Yes R92! Fascinating part of history (devastating too when it comes to human rights, I met a couple of elderly women recently whose parents were Greeks from Smyrna).
Ahh, there are so many good ideas in this thread from you guys. I'd love to watch a lot of these, if anyone who can do anything about it out there is reading... nearly anyone, I mean (shoo, Ryan Murphy! Shoo!).
by Anonymous | reply 93 | November 29, 2020 11:17 PM |
"Although since I feel Richard III has been screwed over by the Tudor writing of history, I didn't feel like it did enough to restore his image. But it definitely proved my long held belief that he did not kill the Princes in the Tower."
Both Richard and the Tudors had reasons to want those kids out of the way, they were in the way of the Tudors and Richard declaring them as bastards didn't eliminate them as rivals. Look at Elizabeth and Mary Tudor, they were both declared bastards when they were young, but both became ruling queens!
Anyway, I think that the saga of the York Brothers would make a fabulous film, or better, a miniseries. Teenaged Edward winning the crown in battle, George trying to grab the crown, Richard succeeding in grabbing it, plus their wives Elizabeth Woodville and the Warwick sisters. When the world is ready for another War of the Roses miniseries, I think the relationship between the three brothers would be the place to put the emphasis.
by Anonymous | reply 94 | November 29, 2020 11:34 PM |
It would be interesting to do a series around the Johnstown Flood, especially intertwining the economic disparities of the members of the country club whose land was where the fragile damn that broke and released the deluge vs. the poor steel workers and immigrants of the town. The CGI now could really do justice to the huge event of showing the damn burst and the rushing wall of water and aftermath. There was a wonderful fictional book in I think the late 1990s, that was a great story of it, but I think there are enough true stories to make a more historically accurate TV series.
Also, during the Naya death lake watch I learned about the s St. Francis Damn fail in L.A. and Riverside counties, all of it tied into Muholland’s waterworks. The result of close to five hundred people dying and the bad press are what drove him into retirement. Perhaps the whole water and irrigation story of LA that’s been touched in other famous fictional works could be the scope of the project and the damn burst the climax?
by Anonymous | reply 95 | November 29, 2020 11:34 PM |
The story of Vittorino and Macarena, a couple torn apart when he's drafted into war and she cheats on him with his two best friends.
by Anonymous | reply 96 | November 29, 2020 11:40 PM |
There should be more eiffel towering seen on TV, I feel! 😜
(PS, I love how those articles come out with all the "OMG YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS!" headlines, when you don't even need to speak Spanish to understand the line: "He was out of town and his two friends were SO fine!" I mean, I understood that the first time I heard the song when I was like 13/14, why are people so surprised now?)
by Anonymous | reply 97 | November 29, 2020 11:43 PM |
9/11 or the tube bombings in London in 2005
by Anonymous | reply 98 | November 29, 2020 11:45 PM |
For an Incident you could build a movie around: I like the story of the Winter Queen. James I's daughter Elizabeth was married to a young German Prince, the Elector of the Palatinate. They actually seemed to love each other, and were both beautiful young people who created a fairy tale palace for themselves in Heidelberg, with elaborate gardens, "talking" statues and all sorts of wonders. And they were symbols of solid, happy, Protestant destiny to a lot of Germans and English. Then somebody suggested to the young prince that he seize the throne of Bohemia. Everyone who knew anything knew this was a hopeless cause, the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor would never allow it. But everyone got all excited, and they did it. Since nobody waged war in winter they were able to hold onto the capital for that season, hence the Winter King and Winter Queen. Naturally, the Holy Roman Emperor moved in in the Spring and they lost everything, including the old Palatine. They spent the rest of their lives as royal beggars. Also the Rosicrucians seem to have been part of the story, getting all excited about this young protestant couple about to overthrow evil old Rome. It's a story.
by Anonymous | reply 99 | November 29, 2020 11:47 PM |
R94, The White Queen mini series on Starz, does a pretty thorough job, and I doubt as long as it remains popular, that any alternative rendering will get made. In the White Queen you see Warwick, "the Kingmaker" you have the three York brothers, young Edward IV Richard, and George, Duke of Clarence. I thought it was very well done, up to a point. I've done a lot of reading about the brothers, and from everything I can discern, Richard was an excellent fighter. He led his brothers armies with great success, but he sucked as a politician. He trusted the wrong people. He loved Edward boindly. In fact he was determined to protect and honor his brother's wishes. But he was totally unprepared for the treachery of the court, up to and including his own somewhat unbalanced wife, Ann Neville, Warwick's daughter.
by Anonymous | reply 100 | November 29, 2020 11:49 PM |
There are several I'd like to see.
As the Grand Ole Opry turns 100 years old in 2025, I think a series like The Crown covering the history of country music and its stars in relation to the Opry, would be a fascinating series. The episode dealing with the Patsy Cline, etc. plane crash and aftermath, alone would be worth it.
Another one, I'd like to see is The White House, covering every President from John Adams to the present.
I agree with the ones above I would like to see one about the 1893 World's Fair, if it was successful they could make it into a series covering other world fairs. I'd also like to see one about the Crystal Palace in London.
I think one about Irna Phillips and her fights to create and control her creations would be fun and should actually make feminists happy.
by Anonymous | reply 101 | November 29, 2020 11:59 PM |
Shanghai in the 1920's.
by Anonymous | reply 102 | November 30, 2020 12:16 AM |
Ooh, that's a good one, R102!
by Anonymous | reply 103 | November 30, 2020 12:19 AM |
Franklin D Rooseveldt had walking problems too.
by Anonymous | reply 104 | November 30, 2020 12:21 AM |
Maybe the rise and takeover by the Communist and Fidel in Cuba? It’s an intriguing idea that Cuba was once an entertainment hotspot like Las Vegas, and also that many robber barons like Hershey had so much control there at certain points in history.
by Anonymous | reply 105 | November 30, 2020 12:42 AM |
WWII from the nazi perspective
by Anonymous | reply 106 | November 30, 2020 12:50 AM |
That could definitely be interesting R105. And it makes me think that another show that might be interesting is Haiti across the years. Their history is fascinating. I've always found the whole Papa Doc/Tonton Macoute thing incredibly creepy too, I think that would be a really interesting background to the stories of people living through those times.
by Anonymous | reply 107 | November 30, 2020 12:50 AM |
R105 I don't think I'd label Milton Hershey a robber baron. Yes, he was extremely wealthy and successful, but very different from the robber barons, in his treatment of his workers and philanthropy. Many of them engaged in philanthropy, but it was usually a late in life thing, his was throughout, and seemed to be genuine.
by Anonymous | reply 108 | November 30, 2020 12:52 AM |
Some of these ideas are great for true crime dramas. But not Historical dramas. others are somewhat obscure. Unless you contextualize them and put them in a framework of more familiarity they won't work. What I mean is, for example, we know the Nazis conquered France. Now, within that framework, that context, there are hundreds of stories that are worth telling.
I love the French Revolution. I've seen movies about it. But one of the most fascinating ones I've enjoyed was "Farewell My Queen." About a chambermaid at Versailles who became a sort of confidant to Marie Antoinette, with whom she was infatuated. She adored Marie. So when the shit hit the fan, Marie asked a favor of her that put her at great risk...yet she did it. Now I'm assuming this incident is fiction. But the principal characters are real. Watch it if you can.
Another example: The Italian movie, Oscar winner, Life is Beautiful. I always assumed there were Italian Jews, yet there has been nearly zero focus whatever on them in all the WW II stories I've seen or read about. Yet here was a charming story of a family who were shipped off to a concentration camp. Maybe this doesn't satisfy the criteria for an historical drama, but the Nazis and WW II are a familiar backdrop.
I loved 1917 for showing WW I which until recently is largely ignored. I know next to nothing about the Ottoman Empire. But if you haven't watched PAscali's Island with Ben Kingsley and Helen Mirren you're in for a treat. We need more of that, and sometimes a really well done movie or miini series will solidify an era in the publlic mind.
by Anonymous | reply 109 | November 30, 2020 1:03 AM |
R108 Is benevolent dictator a more comfortable term than robber baron for you? Basically for a robber baton situation there is unethical and unscrupulous behavior going on, and wrapping it in philanthropy doesn’t negate that.
by Anonymous | reply 110 | November 30, 2020 1:15 AM |
The Hershey in Cuba story is very interesting and could make for an exciting episode.
by Anonymous | reply 111 | November 30, 2020 1:17 AM |
Obviously the Spanish Influenza of 1918 would make a killer international story that someone must be working on at this point? Perhaps Disney can do it, considering Walt was an underage ambulance driver who went to war and caught it but survived.
by Anonymous | reply 112 | November 30, 2020 1:21 AM |
There are a couple of German series now on Netflix that do that R106
I would recommend "Charite At War" and "Generation War"
by Anonymous | reply 113 | November 30, 2020 1:22 AM |
Did anyone here watch Black Sails? They should do some more good historical pirate shows/movies.
by Anonymous | reply 114 | November 30, 2020 1:23 AM |
Speaking of Italian Jews and concentration camps, I don’t think anyone has done a big project on the Japanese Internment camps? I know George Takai did a Broadway show, I think in part based on his own family’s experience, so there’s source material readily available for it. I’m wondering when the diversity quotas in Hollywood start, will studios be able to offset quotas by doing something like a big project about the Japanese Interment camps, so that they could make say an American Revolution work that could remain primarily white in it cast without stunt casting? The whole Chinese immigration to build the railroads is another epic story that would be ripe for exploration and Angel Island as well.
by Anonymous | reply 115 | November 30, 2020 1:30 AM |
Wasn't there a movie with David Bowie about Japanese internment camps R115?
by Anonymous | reply 116 | November 30, 2020 1:33 AM |
R116 I’m picturing something more along the lines of the Holocaust TV miniseries starring Meryl Streep and James Woods.
by Anonymous | reply 117 | November 30, 2020 1:38 AM |
Merry Xmas Mr Lawrence about a POW camp
by Anonymous | reply 118 | November 30, 2020 1:38 AM |
Bette Rogge and the Kenley Players. Good juice!!!
by Anonymous | reply 119 | November 30, 2020 1:39 AM |
Lovers of Roman history - get ready for "Domina", a series based on the aftermath of the death of Julius Caesar, from the perspective of Livia Drusilla and other powerful women.
by Anonymous | reply 120 | November 30, 2020 2:35 AM |
The rise and fall of the city of Petra. I find it fascinating when a city is built in what is basically an unsustainable ecosystem.
The story of "Hongkew." There was a Jewish migration to the city of Shanghai with a huge surge of immigration after Kristallnacht.
And I've been moaning for years how they never adapted "Carter Beats The Devil" to movies or tv. Not that Neil Patrick Harris would be my choice, but I would think he would be interested in that kind of thing. At one point it was going to be an AMC series. At another point, Tom Cruise optioned the book for himself.
Who knows what's going with it now, if anything. And not to spoil the plot, but the technology angle at the end is very interesting.
by Anonymous | reply 121 | November 30, 2020 2:51 AM |
fall of anything is always interesting. If you can somehow to the Bronze Age Collapse when about 6 major civilizations lost it, like lost everything in around 1200 BC, that would be awesome. There was a time when Pompeii movies were kind of a thing. This would be that times about 100. Huge, wealthy, important, interconnected empires just disappeared, or at best faded into local territories. It would be interesting if well done.
by Anonymous | reply 122 | November 30, 2020 3:06 AM |
The history of tv news and variety shows. The whole start of TV, the establishment of the big three, the sponsors... and what it has become.
by Anonymous | reply 123 | November 30, 2020 8:23 AM |
I enjoy historical movies about events that occurred during my lifetime. “Atomic Blonde” was fiction, but I enjoyed the setting of Berlin when the Wall came down. That miniseries called “The Americans” was another one that was placed about the same time.
by Anonymous | reply 124 | November 30, 2020 10:14 AM |
Berlin is an excellent city for historical drama, because so much has happened there; I feel you could set a show there at so many different points in history and have a great program.
by Anonymous | reply 125 | November 30, 2020 10:37 AM |
[quote]I don’t think anyone has done a big project on the Japanese Internment camps?
The second season of AMC's "The Terror" depicted the horrors of Japanese-American internment.
by Anonymous | reply 126 | November 30, 2020 11:32 AM |
I’d love to see a good regency era drama, including Princess Charlotte. I want to see what the fuss was all about. I want Lord Byron included somehow as well.
by Anonymous | reply 127 | November 30, 2020 12:35 PM |
There's an old theory about "Mother Cities"... that the original city of all the founding ancient civilizations did not spring up randomly but were planned and built for some special purpose. Because people don't really function in large urban areas without a lot of physical and social structure. So what would motivate thousands of people to live in close proximity and how would they go about it without any model of how to achieve that? What were the concepts, who were the leaders, what were their fears, what did they think they would gain? These are late stone age/early farming cultures, so no writing, metal or even pottery.
I'd love to see a series based on that theory.
by Anonymous | reply 128 | November 30, 2020 12:39 PM |
R126 Thanks for the information about the series having Japanese Internment Camp, though it’s unclear if that is a horror or sci-fi series from the little they talk about the actual show. They do mention wrongly about there not being camps for Italians or Germans, there were definitely camps for Italians set up, I guess maybe a part of history that a series would set light upon.
by Anonymous | reply 129 | November 30, 2020 1:51 PM |
These are all -- every single one of them -- fascinating subjects. I'd love to see the ancients covered but not in that lady porn style of "The Tudors" or "The White Rose," where everyone is beautiful, has perfect teeth, and they have sex in every corner of a castle hallway.
R32, "Barkskins" was a wonderful production about the Iroquois and the French and English settlers.
It's really arcane but I'd love to see a miniseries about the US from the end of James Monroe's administration to the rise of Abraham Lincoln, so about 1824-1860. This is a much understudied period of US history.
by Anonymous | reply 130 | November 30, 2020 2:20 PM |
A series about the crimes and corruption of the Andrew Jackson administration seems timely.
by Anonymous | reply 131 | November 30, 2020 2:47 PM |
R120 Since it's filmed at Cinecitta I suspect the sets and costume design will be glorious. The HBO series Rome was filmed there and you could see the attention to detail in every shot. Rome was a great series, a little too upstairs /downstairs for my taste however.
by Anonymous | reply 132 | November 30, 2020 3:11 PM |
R132 I loved Rome and was so sad it did not last longer.
by Anonymous | reply 133 | November 30, 2020 3:13 PM |
I'm fascinated by the 19th century spiritualist movement and would be interested to see that explored outside of a ghost story/horror movie context.
by Anonymous | reply 134 | November 30, 2020 4:07 PM |
India in the pre-Raj period, during the Moghuls and the rise of Islam is another era that doesn't get the love it should.
Though I suspect that there are Indian series that deal with this period, though not sure if they would translate well for American audience.
by Anonymous | reply 135 | November 30, 2020 4:46 PM |
I'd love to see a mini series about Little Gloria Vanderbilt's family. Her Aunt Gertrude, Grandpa Cornelius, and Gloria's mother and her two sisters and their mother from hell. Fascinating period from the late 1890s to the 40's.Gertie was something else. I think she was a lesbian. Very eccentric, talented artist, supporter of artists, Bohemian. And at the forefront of fashion. She raised Gloria.
by Anonymous | reply 136 | November 30, 2020 4:52 PM |
[quote]The story of "Hongkew." There was a Jewish migration to the city of Shanghai with a huge surge of immigration after Kristallnacht.
R121, all I've seen is the documentary [italic]Shanghai Ghetto[/italic], which I recommend. However, that Wiki entry mentions [italic]a Jewish Girl in Shanghai[/italic], a Chinese cartoon based on a graphic novel.
by Anonymous | reply 137 | November 30, 2020 4:55 PM |
Has anyone here ever seen Empire of the Sun? Brilliant movie. Steven Spielberg about the wealthy Brits in WW 2 who were in prison camps run by the Japanese. Now that was a way of life and a story I was totally unaware of. It was Christian Bale's first starring role. He was a kid. Literally. A child.
by Anonymous | reply 138 | November 30, 2020 5:00 PM |
For R137
And yes, R138, it is my favorite movie of all time, I watch it at least once a year. The story of the Bund in Shanghai is fascinating.
by Anonymous | reply 139 | November 30, 2020 5:21 PM |
How about Lady Jane Grey, who at age sixteen was Queen of England for nine days in 1553, only to be dethroned and executed by her cousin, Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary").
by Anonymous | reply 140 | November 30, 2020 5:31 PM |
A great love story Hadrian & Antinous. Why has a film never been made?
by Anonymous | reply 141 | November 30, 2020 5:34 PM |
R140 I think there’s a moratorium on any Lady Jane Grey projects until HBC dies.
by Anonymous | reply 142 | November 30, 2020 5:38 PM |
R134 I agree, I’m surprised no one has done something around Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophy movement. It might have been a great project for Kathy Bates when she was younger? Perhaps Melissa McCarthy might take it on, I find her more interesting in her serious stuff then comedies and she has the wealth and backing to get something like this done.
by Anonymous | reply 143 | November 30, 2020 5:43 PM |
Queen Frederica of Greece. One of the great battle axes of all time. The reason the Greeks got rid of the monarchy. Granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II, great granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Princess of Hanover. Mother of Queen Sofia of Spain Grandmother of King Felipe IV.
by Anonymous | reply 144 | November 30, 2020 6:57 PM |
that could be interesting r141. There are various theories about Antinous' death: accident, murder/conspiracy, suicide because he couldn't face getting older, even a possibility that he was a voluntary human sacrifice to provide Hadrian with longer life and greater health. I wonder what they'd go with.
And Antinous has quite the afterlife too. Apparently there are at least 100 statues and busts of him that have been recovered. He has one of the most famous faces in Ancient Rome, second only to Augustus I think.
by Anonymous | reply 145 | November 30, 2020 8:41 PM |
Speaking of the crimes of the Japanese, I could never watch it, but the rape of Nanking is prime for adaptation. It probably already has been many times. The only one I am aware of is the film about the German Ambassador at the time, I think his name was Rabe? There is a film which had such an arresting scene in it - the chinese people are desperate to get into the safety of the German embassy, and he makes a decision to let them in the gates. The Japanese are bombing them, and he manages to save their lives by unrolling a giant Nazi flag for them to all hide under. The image of all these people sheltering under a Nazi flag for safety is crazy. I've only seen that scene though, not the rest of the film.
Anyway, these events could make for a good miniseries, albeit one that is hard to watch, and as I said myself, I don't think I could watch it at all. I think there was an American missionary there at the time who wrote a lot about it, so her writing could probably be used.
by Anonymous | reply 146 | November 30, 2020 9:08 PM |
R143 But did they actually DO anything-- apart from sit around?
by Anonymous | reply 147 | November 30, 2020 9:13 PM |
R143 for some reason that photo gives me Tatiana Maslany vibes. Maybe she's looking for a project!
by Anonymous | reply 148 | November 30, 2020 10:12 PM |
Didn't Queen Fredericka of Greece die just after having had cosmetic surgery?
by Anonymous | reply 149 | November 30, 2020 10:15 PM |
I think that was Joan Rivers, R149
by Anonymous | reply 150 | November 30, 2020 10:26 PM |
Actually they were the same person
by Anonymous | reply 151 | November 30, 2020 10:43 PM |
Yup, after eyelid surgery. A great grandmother of mine was a servant in her mother’s household, Princess Victoria Luisa, Herzogin von Braunschweig (Duchess of Brunswick) Whose grandson Ernst August of Hanover (and a complete waste of oxygen) is married to Caroline of Monaco. As a royal highness thru marriage she outranks her brother
by Anonymous | reply 152 | November 30, 2020 10:57 PM |
R148 Yes, I can totally see it, and she’s very method and good at accents and period films, like she did in The Woman in Gold.
by Anonymous | reply 153 | November 30, 2020 11:19 PM |
The election and assassination of James A. Garfield.
by Anonymous | reply 154 | November 30, 2020 11:23 PM |
Some of you don't have a great grasp of what makes a good movie - and the rise and fall of empires is not it! A movie either needs to follow a protagonist or few main characters through a period of their life, or follows one person along the course of their life.
The rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire would not make a good movie, too disjointed, too long, too many characters. Book or documentary, yes, but movie? No!
On the other hand, the story of Empress Theodora saving Emperor Justinian from being deposed during the Nika Revolt, that'd make a GREAT film! Yes, a former prostitute who became Empress, kept her husband on the throne when urban riots became an organize revolt, and Justinian was ready to make a run for it and to let the yobs put their man on his throne. She was the one who put her foot down and refused to run, made Justinian fight for his throne and win, and that's the sort of story that would make a damn great movie if Hollywood was ever willing to try anything new.
by Anonymous | reply 155 | December 1, 2020 12:11 AM |
R155 is a graduate of an online screenwriting course.
by Anonymous | reply 156 | December 1, 2020 12:18 AM |
To be fair, R155, I never really was that concerned with the question of whether a topic would make good television when I asked the question. It is more about what areas of history people enjoy and would like to see a story on. Anyway, what does and doesn't make good entertainment is always changing, and the only people who seem to want to stick to rules about it are the money people who are chasing the trend, not the creative people who are making it.
by Anonymous | reply 157 | December 1, 2020 12:20 AM |
R136, there’s this. Pretty good, if rather shallow. Great production values.
by Anonymous | reply 158 | December 1, 2020 12:22 AM |
R140, this is meh but certainly an attractive cast. The politics could really fill out a miniseries, not just a two hour movie.
by Anonymous | reply 159 | December 1, 2020 12:24 AM |
Good point, R157/OP.
by Anonymous | reply 160 | December 1, 2020 12:29 AM |
You can make great art, or just great entertainment, out of practically any subject. Long-form television demonstrates that audiences will stick with a concept they like ("tits, dragons and leather gear," "zombies and relationships") even if the story and cast keeps changing.
As for the poster who mentioned the experience of Italian Jews in WWII, go find "The Garden of the Fitzi-Continis" from 1970, filmed with an impossibly beautiful cast (Dominique Sanda, Helmut Berger, etc) and lots of melancholy.
by Anonymous | reply 161 | December 1, 2020 1:53 AM |
I didn’t think this was solely for movies but also for tv series.
For a movie I would like to watch one based on Philo of Byzantium. How he traveled to see the 7 ancient wonders of the world. It would need ALOT of CGI.
by Anonymous | reply 162 | December 1, 2020 4:36 AM |
R40, yes - it effectively ended their careers.
by Anonymous | reply 163 | December 1, 2020 4:45 AM |
A film about the Guggenheims and their relationship to art would be amazing.
by Anonymous | reply 164 | December 1, 2020 5:31 AM |
I am verysmart....except at reading comprehension.
by Anonymous | reply 165 | December 1, 2020 9:21 AM |
When Jenny attended John Mcvie’s wedding Stevie was hidding in a Broom Cabinet, this was after Mick admitted to her that he was having an affair with Stevie.
by Anonymous | reply 166 | December 1, 2020 11:40 AM |
Wrong post
by Anonymous | reply 167 | December 1, 2020 11:41 AM |
Not necessarily, R166/R167. I'd watch the hell out of a historical drama about the Fleetwood Mac saga!
by Anonymous | reply 168 | December 1, 2020 12:03 PM |
"The Levant" ????
I had read that phrase in Victorian novels, but realized I had no idea what it meant. (Has it been used at all since 1900?)
I love when people on DL write their posts like they were historical novels.
by Anonymous | reply 169 | December 1, 2020 12:07 PM |
The Levant isn't particularly unusual to hear where I'm from, and I don't think it's use is that ancient here at least (I'm 39). That's interesting though, when words are in fashion at different times or maybe different parts of the world as in this case. It's a fairly good word to describe that area, and especially for me when describing the type of stories I'm interested in. I actually have a book sitting right here called "Levant" which is a history of the cities of the area like Alexandria, Beirut, Smyrna and Salonica. Really interesting stuff. I suppose I could say Mediterranean, but that I think gives the wrong impression, it's not specific enough.
You'd still at least say Levantine wouldn't you? I'm curious now!
by Anonymous | reply 170 | December 1, 2020 11:04 PM |
The life and times of Prussian General Baron von Steuben who came to the new American colonies and helped us win independence. Many believe without his help the defeat of the British would never have happened.
He was homosexual many believe openly, he arrived in the United States with his 17-year-old secretary, Peter Stephen Du Ponceau. At Valley Forge, he began close relationships with Benjamin Walker and William North, then both military officers in their 20s. Some historians believe that these "extraordinary intense emotional relationships" were romantic, and, given Steuben's reported earlier behaviour, it has been suggested it would have been out-of-character for him if they were not. However, based on the limited historical record, it is impossible to prove. Because homosexuality was criminalized at the time, records of his relationships are limited to references in correspondences. Some 21st century publications, however, have embraced him as "a gay man", "openly gay", or as "the gay man who saved the American Revolution".
Von Steuben never married and had no children. He did not care much for his European relatives. Thus, he left his estate to his companions and aides-de-camp, Captain Benjamin Walker and Major General William North, with whom he had had an "extraordinarily intense emotional relationship ... treating them as surrogate sons
by Anonymous | reply 171 | December 2, 2020 1:56 AM |
R171 Those poor young guys that had to fuck that..
by Anonymous | reply 172 | December 2, 2020 2:00 AM |
R171 Similar to that, I'd love to see a movie about James Henry Hammond. Though with the recent BLM activism, I doubt one could be made about him, since he was a pro-slavery Southern politician. But, sexually he lived a very interesting life. He had a longterm torrid same-sex affair with his college roommate/friend. Later, he got in trouble for having sex with his four teenage nieces. Also, for his sexual mistreatment of slaves.
by Anonymous | reply 173 | December 2, 2020 2:08 AM |
Um, the racism sounds like the least of his worries. Not sure if there is much of a market for an openly gay slaver r173 that molested minors and did God knows what to his slaves. No one needs to see a recreation of that man's rather unimportant life.
by Anonymous | reply 174 | December 2, 2020 2:27 AM |
the epic courtship of ivanka by jared. Original programming on fox news. And by epic, I mean EXPENSIVE. Like over an $100 million budget. Obviously by epic, i do not mean good, interesting or decent.
by Anonymous | reply 175 | December 2, 2020 2:35 AM |
R174 What makes it interesting is that there are few written records of same sex relationships from that time period, that have survived. That alone makes it an interesting subject. Also, I wouldn't say his life was "rather unimportant," considering he was a politician whose work helped to bring about the Civil War. You can be a bad man and still be important.
by Anonymous | reply 176 | December 2, 2020 3:06 AM |
Levantine? R170, I remember reading that it was an ethnic slur used a lot in the early 20th century. But no, I have never heard an actual person use it---or Levant. And though I did see Levant used in 19th century novels I do not ever remember reading Levantine.
I cannot say I have even read those words in decades.
Where do you live? In a Wilkie Collins novel?
by Anonymous | reply 177 | December 2, 2020 3:34 AM |
The Rise and Fall of the Trumpiam empire.
After the novel by Joyce Carol Oates is a bestseller, Eli Roth writes the screenplay .....
Who plays who or whom?
by Anonymous | reply 178 | December 2, 2020 4:08 AM |
I've never heard of Levantine being a slur before. We have slurs for people from that part of the world in my country, and they are very different, and horrible sounding (though some have been reclaimed now somewhat, like 'wog'). Levantine sounds too, I dunno, scholarly to be a slur, but if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I shan't use it again.
Seeing as the book I have called Levant is from 2010, it's hardly Wilkie Collins territory. But that did make me laugh, still.
by Anonymous | reply 179 | December 2, 2020 7:35 AM |
I want a thread about people who love hysterical drama.
by Anonymous | reply 180 | December 2, 2020 7:40 AM |
I recommend DLer to check out this Korean period drama Frozen Flower . Beautiful story which escalated into something dark and with an equally depressing ending. Beautiful people and set too.
by Anonymous | reply 181 | December 2, 2020 8:57 AM |
Greta Garbo and Mauritz Stiiler in 1920s Berlin. He had just taken her under his wing and he was as gay as ever. She went on to great fame, while Stiller was sent back to Sweden as a failed Hollywood film director.
by Anonymous | reply 182 | December 2, 2020 9:02 AM |
Are there interesting stories about 1920s Paris and all the authors who went to work there at the time? We see a lot on the Berlin era of late 20s early 30s, but not so much on the Paris scene. Was wondering if there's a reason for that (not interesting enough) or nobody's gotten around to it yet.
by Anonymous | reply 183 | December 2, 2020 9:07 AM |
Midnight In Paris? (2011). I don't know - it's directed by Woody Allen. Kathy Bates was good as Gertrude Stein.
by Anonymous | reply 184 | December 2, 2020 9:16 AM |
A series about Walt Whitman's time as a Civil War nurse would be interesting.
by Anonymous | reply 186 | December 2, 2020 12:19 PM |
Peter the Great instead of Catherine the Great. It was Peter who welded Russia together and modernised it in much the same way as Henry II did England.
But they always focus on Catherine because of the sex and the opportunity for gorgeous costumes and palaces and a great part for some actress.
by Anonymous | reply 187 | December 2, 2020 12:48 PM |
Levantine was used as an anti-Semetic slur in some Agatha Christie and I believe was changed in reprints. (I may have this wrong though.)
If you mean Phillip Mansels book, R179, a friend who worked in a bookstore said they had some problems with it when it came out because neither customers or staff understood the title (and the subtitle was in much smaller print). Neither of the two customers who asked for it pronounced it correctly.
In the US it is a very rarely used term and does have a somewhat bigoted smell because it is associated with British colonialism.
by Anonymous | reply 188 | December 2, 2020 12:55 PM |
I had to look up “Holy Roman Empire” because even though I’ve heard it in passing many times, I never knew exactly what it was. I didn’t have European history in high school, just US plus some Ancient Greek/Roman/Egyptian. British history, I was interested and read up on my own and then took some classes in college but European history pre WWII is a complete blank except for the usual hot spots, Marie Antoinette and Napoleon.
by Anonymous | reply 189 | December 2, 2020 1:40 PM |
R188, I did not mean that as an insult, but there are a terms that I think are acceptable in Britain that are not used in the US because British colonialism is seen as bigoted.
Even actual British insults that you would never use are not much known here. Someone referenced "wogs" before and I realized I have no idea what group that is supposed to be a slur against.
by Anonymous | reply 190 | December 2, 2020 3:28 PM |
Has there ever been a drama series based on the ancient Minoan Civilization on the island of Crete? Some historians claim that it was a peace-loving society while others suggest that there is a darker story to tell including evidence of cannibalism.
by Anonymous | reply 191 | December 2, 2020 5:18 PM |
You know, when I was a 12-13 yr old, my mother read all these novels by James Michener and Harold Robbins. I would sometimes steal on and read it for the sex. I know... anyway, I remember a Michener book about Hawaii where it starts with the tribes and islanders hundreds or even thousands of years ago, and then tracks this group of characters, one generation after another, and the missionaries come, and the colonizers, and so on, and eventually it ends with this young guy working at a hotel on the beach, and I think I vaguely remember him selling his ass. Anyway, I'd love to use that type of framework, and say, take the Etruscan civilization on the Italian Peninsula, and track Italians right on through the grandeur of Rome to some cheese maker in a small town right now... Something like that.
by Anonymous | reply 192 | December 2, 2020 6:02 PM |
R192 They did make it into a movie with Julie Andrews, but I’ve never seen it.
by Anonymous | reply 193 | December 2, 2020 6:46 PM |
R188, that's funny, if you tell me your friend works at Abbey's Bookshop in Sydney I will burst out laughing. That's where I ordered my copy and when I went to pick it up I left and thought: "Shit, I really mangled the pronunciation of that one!"
It's a very dense book, taken me ages to get through it, but I do love the topic. Some less scholarly books that I really recommend on the subject are "Apricots on the Nile" and "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit". The grandparents of some of my closest friends lived lives very much like in those books before they had to leave to come to Australia..
by Anonymous | reply 194 | December 2, 2020 9:52 PM |
I recently read "Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America". I think it would make an excellent miniseries. It tells the story of a group of Jews who infiltrated the German Bund in Los Angeles in the 1930s and thwarted Nazi plans to kill the city's Jews, sabotage West Coast military installations, and use the Hollywood machine to gain support for Hitler in America.
by Anonymous | reply 195 | December 2, 2020 9:52 PM |
R192, that book was "Hawaii" by James Michner, and for some reason I read it many times as a teenager. And just so everyone knows, the movie is stultifying crap about missionaries, and the guy who ended up "selling his ass" was a hotel surfing instructor who would give his middle-aged female clients some bonus services. No homosex in the whole thing.
But R192, there was never a better time to stay home, research, and start writing! Give your Etruscan book a go, especially since you don't have to research the ancient parts as nobody knows much!
by Anonymous | reply 196 | December 2, 2020 9:57 PM |
[quote]I recently read "Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America". I think it would make an excellent miniseries
This was touched upon in the latest season of Showtime's Penny Dreadful series, oddly enough.
by Anonymous | reply 197 | December 2, 2020 10:00 PM |
R195, what? I've never heard of this before, it sounds fascinating!
by Anonymous | reply 198 | December 2, 2020 10:00 PM |
[quote]the guy who ended up "selling his ass"
This kind of thing turns my stomach. Am I the only one? A lot of people do seem to find the moment people end up degraded to be an interesting plot point in drama, but it makes me feel ill.
It wouldn't be the first time I stand out on a limb alone, haha. But seriously, I hate seeing stuff like this.
by Anonymous | reply 199 | December 2, 2020 10:07 PM |
R198, it was an interesting read. I highly recommend it.
R197, Penny Dreadful is what led me to the book.
by Anonymous | reply 200 | December 2, 2020 10:13 PM |
"This kind of thing turns my stomach. Am I the only one? A lot of people do seem to find the moment people end up degraded to be an interesting plot point in drama, but it makes me feel ill."
R199, the guy in the "Hawaii" book didn't feel degraded at all. He was a mellow guy who thought he'd lucked out by getting a job where he had little real work to do and got a lot of pussy, and he wasn't obligated to have sex with any customer. He just did because they both liked it, and presumably his bosses liked the way he made their paying customers happy.
by Anonymous | reply 201 | December 2, 2020 10:28 PM |
I would like that too R191. I visited Crete years ago, and the palace was so lovely with the frescoes; and the museum also full of delightful objects.
by Anonymous | reply 202 | December 2, 2020 11:11 PM |
Thanks R201! I see that I completely misunderstood that, and take back my comment. I'm glad to hear he was happy then.
by Anonymous | reply 203 | December 3, 2020 4:41 AM |
[quote] …Peter the Great …
R187 Some fabulous actors and shot on location but very dreary to watch over four weeks.
(And also rather annoying in that the titles would boldly announce the name of big stars at the beginning of each episode but you knew their 2 minute cameo appearance occurred in the previous weeks' episodes and they would not be seen again at all)
by Anonymous | reply 204 | December 3, 2020 6:00 AM |
The modernization of Japan and how they went from feudalism to an industrial country pre-WW2 would be interesting.
A story about Chairman Mao’s wife would be good, but she’s such a psychopath it might be too difficult.
French Revolution would be good too.
I wish they’d bring back Rome. That show was incredible.
by Anonymous | reply 205 | December 3, 2020 2:25 PM |
Ooh, agree R205, the modernisation of Japan would definitely be an interesting one. And yes, I would watch one about Mao's crazy wife too.
I've never seen Rome but so many people rave about it, perhaps I should. The Roman Empire isn't my favourite part of history is the only issue. But if it's done well...
by Anonymous | reply 206 | December 4, 2020 1:00 AM |
Would love French Revolution too, but you have to pick someone other than Marie Antoinette, Hollywood. I know, thinking new thoughts is hard, but I know you can do it.
by Anonymous | reply 207 | December 4, 2020 1:05 AM |
Absolutely. A good drama would look at the revolution through the eyes of many different people at many different stations in life, too.
by Anonymous | reply 208 | December 4, 2020 1:11 AM |
The Northern Crusades - Movies have covered a lot of the Christian military orders in the Crusades to retake the Holy Lands, even if they're mostly from the Christian point of view. In the 13th century, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and other orders fought to establish Christianity in the Baltic areas, to gain access to Baltic trade routes, and break the hold of the Novgorodians on the fur trade. I've read some of this in the Mongoliad series of novels, which appealed to a somewhat narrow audience. But between the success of the History Channel's [italic]Vikings[/italic] and the taste for medieval-style knights and battles shown by [italic]Game of Thrones[/italic] devotees, I think a series could work.
by Anonymous | reply 209 | December 4, 2020 2:21 AM |
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
by Anonymous | reply 210 | December 4, 2020 2:51 AM |
The Siege of Sarajevo, which was the longest of a capital city in the history of modern warfare lasting almost four years. Three key stories that would be high points are Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo, young lovers from different religions who were killed by sniper fire as they tried to escape the city, the cellist of Sarajevo, who would go out in the middle of the street and play for the people trapped and hiding in their homes and the Miss Sarajevo beauty pageant immortalized by the U2 song that culminated in the contestants unraveling a banner that said “Don’t let them kill us.”
by Anonymous | reply 211 | December 4, 2020 7:34 AM |
The early history of Islam right after the death Mohammed . The subsequent civil war and how the former infamous child-bride Aisha become a Cersei and hunted down all her enemies.
by Anonymous | reply 212 | December 4, 2020 7:53 AM |
Something about the history of the Druids (Celts). Not much is known, but they have had a lot more influence in European history. They have no recorded history so it would take a lot of research.
by Anonymous | reply 213 | December 4, 2020 10:24 AM |
R206, years ago didn't Richard Chamberlain star in one of those mini series Shogun? I thought that was about Japan. It seemed, when I was a kid, my mother went through a whole series of books plotted in Asian countries. Sagas. Epics. Like that.
by Anonymous | reply 214 | December 4, 2020 11:30 AM |
You know when I was a kid there was a movie with Charlton Heston...fully clothed, as El Cid. It took place in Spain, and it was about the Moorish invasion of Spain and El Cid was this huge hero. They even have statues of him in Spain. And Sophia Loren was in the movie. That deserves a re-telling.
by Anonymous | reply 215 | December 4, 2020 11:32 AM |
I love all these ideas. So many stories to be told. I think I still love Justinian and Theodora the most, as a series like Rome, but all of these are wonderful and interesting times and periods.
And if Madame Blavatsky can't get a movie of her own, I would love to see her as a really big supporting character in someone else's movie. I think she'd be so fun to watch on screen.
by Anonymous | reply 216 | December 4, 2020 2:09 PM |
"Levantine" is totally normal in some contexts, like linguistics: "Levantine Arabic" means that spoken in countries on the eastern Mediterranean seaboard (e.g. by Syrians, Lebanese, and Palestinians), to distinguish it from the Arabic spoken in e.g. North Africa, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula.
by Anonymous | reply 217 | December 4, 2020 2:31 PM |
Annie Besant, a British follower of Mme Blavatsky and a prominent member of the theosophy movement, merits a tv series. She adopted a young Indian boy named Jiddu Krishnamurti who claimed to be a re-incarnation of the Buddha. One of her colleagues was Charles Webster Leadbeater, a former Anglican priest, who extolled the benefits of masturbation for young lads. While I was in University I read her biography while taking a course on the history of the British Raj. She was a supporter of the Indian independence movement and lived for many years in India.
by Anonymous | reply 218 | December 4, 2020 7:16 PM |
Thinking it over, some of the periods in history that interest me the most seem to align with two particular art movements; Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Watching things set against the backdrop of those movements is very often enjoyable for me.
Interesting, I also enjoy the 70s a lot too, but almost in an opposite way; the grimness, the Brutalism, it's all so ugly in a way that it fascinates. Plus I think the 70s mixes a lot of these things together too, Art Nouveau and Art Deco with what was contemporary at the time.
Set a show between 1890-1939, and then from 1970-1983, and I'm always willing to give it a go, provided it's not focused entirely on war.
by Anonymous | reply 219 | December 5, 2020 10:59 AM |
Agree r219. Those are very interesting periods in history.
by Anonymous | reply 220 | December 5, 2020 4:07 PM |
Also, I may have accidentally Ff’d you with my fat thumbs r219. So sorry!
R220
by Anonymous | reply 221 | December 5, 2020 4:08 PM |
[quote] R86: [R85] Was Teddy Roosevelt a hero or a villain?
Teddy was a hero. He could have served 4 terms, if he hadn’t felt honor bound to step down after two terms. He was a man ahead of his time, though not so far ahead that he was flawless when viewed through 21st century values
First President to win the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an end of the Russo-Japanese War.
Built the Panama Canal - a Herculean accomplishment after many failures in the past
Trust buster
Anti corruption crusader
He was such a nuisance to the corrupt NY political structure, that they nominated him for VP to get him out of NY and into an utterly useless political position, only to see him ascend to the Presidency when President McKinley was assassinated
Conservationist who invented the National Park System
Authorized a redesign of “boring” US bank notes
Modernized the US Navy and sent a flotilla on a worldwide tour to project US power abroad
Quit his job as undersecretary of the Navy to serve in battle in Cuba
Was shot just prior to giving a speech, but delivered the speech before seeking medical attention.
In 1884, he lost his mother and his first wife to disease on the same night. He soon left his cushy life in NY to spend three years on the Western frontier as a rancher and cowboy. He was often criticized by the locals there for his high pitched voice, spectacles, educated vocabulary, and New York accent; but as a skillful boxer, he was never criticized by the same man twice.
He mediated an end to a coal strike that had paralyzed the nation and which both sides considered a victory, at a time when government had heretofore been solidly on the side of Business and not Labour.
The man was courageous, bold, dedicated to the common man and common good and a true patriot.
by Anonymous | reply 222 | December 5, 2020 4:12 PM |
All good R221! 😊
by Anonymous | reply 223 | December 5, 2020 11:06 PM |
Sometimes what seems like a vague idea can work so well for a drama series. I found an old one the other day called The House of Elliot. If you just talk about what it's about - a series set in the 1920s about a couple of women opening a fashion house - well, you might say it doesn't have a real plot. But in fact it was really good in showing the difficulties of women during that time, set against a backdrop of the quickly changing 20s, the changing morals, the labour movements, the poverty, the suffragettes, the burgeoning film industry. I enjoyed it! I also do enjoy the French and Saunders pisstake too, The House of Idiot.
by Anonymous | reply 224 | December 5, 2020 11:20 PM |
A story about Chairman Mao’s wife would be good, but she’s such a psychopath it might be too difficult.
There's a play called White Bone Demon about Mme. Mao. It seemed to do a pretty good job. Although, since Mao is off stage I don't know how that might translate to film.
by Anonymous | reply 225 | December 6, 2020 12:55 AM |
I love that r224. Sometimes simple things reveal the most complicated things. I think that is what a truly masterful movie maker could do. Take a fairly simple tale and make it reveal how many layers there really are to even simple things, in history or not.
I love that the more I think about it. And I love the idea of panorama (if that's the right word) movies. I mean, where a bunch of disconnected characters come together and are mysteriously connected. I remember watching some movie years ago, maybe with John Cusack?, where John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are all coming together to make some damn fresco at Rockefeller Center. It was kind of about nothing, but kind of about a lot of things at the same time. I wouldn't mind more of that.
Anyway, a truly great moviemaker could do a lot with art and frescoes and little weird incidents.
by Anonymous | reply 226 | December 6, 2020 1:19 AM |
Yes, R226, that kind of convergence of all these different people for one particular event are really interesting to me too.
by Anonymous | reply 227 | December 6, 2020 2:33 AM |
I once read an interview with an Oscar winning fashion designer who said she wanted to work on a film set in the Minoan time period but she knew there would be problems with doing the costumes the right way.
Guess why?
by Anonymous | reply 228 | December 6, 2020 3:03 AM |
Those would be some great costumes, wouldn't they? A good costumer I think could make a really great look out of the women going around in dresses with their breasts supported but exposed like that. Kind like that Jean Paul Gaultier thing he had Madonna wear (I wonder if he was inspired by the Minoans for that?
Why some people are so terrified of the female nipple, I'll never understand.
by Anonymous | reply 229 | December 6, 2020 3:09 AM |
Hunny, those wimmin have no problemo showing titties for days. But when it comes to dick, they get all flustered and start putting their socks on.
by Anonymous | reply 230 | December 6, 2020 3:55 AM |
It's probably been done before but I'd be interested it seeing a proper, well done dramatisation of Jonestown. They could spend the early episodes exploring why so many people would want to join him (the racial issues in the US) etc. Could be very interesting.
Just need to be careful not to let Ryan Murphy know about this one, because I could almost see him wanting to have a go at it.
by Anonymous | reply 231 | December 11, 2020 8:26 PM |
R231, I have wanted to see the same for a long while. You could break the story of The People’s Temple/Jonestown into 4-5 parts similar to how Netflix had filmed The Crown. There is so much backstory, it would be a fascinating watch.
I would also like to see a dramatization of life in the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, OK prior to the massacre of 1921.
by Anonymous | reply 232 | December 12, 2020 10:08 AM |
The old television version of Jonestown with Powers Booth as Jim Jones is surprisingly well done.
by Anonymous | reply 233 | December 12, 2020 1:29 PM |
^^^and it had major backstory/
by Anonymous | reply 234 | December 12, 2020 1:30 PM |
R234 Yes! It is surprisingly well done, but from what I recall it didn’t spend as much time on the SFO/LA years of People’s Temple and the relationships with city and state leaders.
I think it would be really interesting to get more of the backstory and the People’s Temple tie to George Moscone, Harvey Milk, Jerry Brown and Willie Brown, etc.
by Anonymous | reply 235 | December 12, 2020 3:18 PM |
R235 That right there is the reason I think it wouldn't be made, especially anytime soon. I don't think Hollywood would be interested in telling the story of a cult that was connected to Democratic politics.
by Anonymous | reply 236 | December 12, 2020 3:31 PM |
Alas, you are probably right, r236, but damn would Jones and the People’s Temple make for a great post WWII epic.
by Anonymous | reply 237 | December 12, 2020 3:53 PM |
Onin War. A Japanese Shogun conflict that started over the lack of an heir. Later when an heir was unexpectedly born the fight between warring brothers began.
"By 1477, ten years after the fighting had begun, Kyoto was nothing more than a place for mobs to loot and move in to take what was left. Neither the Yamana clan nor the Hosokawa clan had achieved its aims, other than to whittle down the numbers of the opposing clan."
by Anonymous | reply 238 | December 12, 2020 4:12 PM |
Someone has had to have done a miniseries on Oliver Cromwell sometime, haven't they? I know very little about that part of history but I imagine there is some interesting stuff to show about the time British Islees briefly became a republic.
by Anonymous | reply 239 | December 18, 2020 9:44 PM |
^British ISLES, even, whoops.
by Anonymous | reply 240 | December 18, 2020 9:44 PM |
Has anything ever been done on Savonarola? It would be amazing to see Florence of that era depicted in film and of course the dramatic bonfire of the vanities with it culminating in his own burning would be spectacular. There could also be a dramatic part of the story surrounding Botticelli, who became a follower and destroyed many of his sacrilegious paintings, it would be interesting to see them depicted in film.
Related to this I don’t think the great flood and aftermath in Florence has been depicted in film, would be interesting to see a full special effects disaster movie take it on. Florence during WWII and the occupation would be interesting as well, centered on how the bridges were all slated to be blown up, but the young German engineer could bring himself to do it. I guess at this point, just an epic series of Florence through the ages would be intriguing.
by Anonymous | reply 241 | December 18, 2020 10:04 PM |
I want to see a miniseries about Judah Maccabee and his defeat of the racist Syrian imperialists who tried to erase the Jewish people.
by Anonymous | reply 242 | December 18, 2020 10:22 PM |
The fall of Communism in Europe. Especially the execution of the Ceaucescus
by Anonymous | reply 243 | December 18, 2020 10:33 PM |
R239, not about Cromwell, but set in that period, [italic]the Devil's Mistress[/italic], a two-part TV movie, follows a woman who was a favorite in King Charles I's court, through her activities during the Commonwealth, her romances and marriages. It touched on some of the movements and figures of the time. It stars Andrea Riseborough. Cromwell is played by Dominic West.
by Anonymous | reply 244 | December 18, 2020 10:41 PM |
Thanks R244!
R243, I would watch the shit out of that miniseries. Moving from Poland to Hungary to East Germany to Czechoslovakia to Bulgaria and ending in Romania. With perhaps what's happening in the USSR running as a common thread behind these other movements. Or maybe centering on the USSR while all these other countries begin to break away.
by Anonymous | reply 245 | December 18, 2020 11:09 PM |
R241 I believe both of the Borgia mini series covered Savonarola in at least one or two of the episodes
by Anonymous | reply 246 | December 19, 2020 12:14 AM |
R239, a movie about Oliver Cromwell was made in 1970, with Richard Harris as Cromwell and Alec Guiness as King Charles. It's as boring as fuck,
by Anonymous | reply 247 | December 19, 2020 12:38 AM |
Dorothy Dunnett's historical novel cycles The Lymond Chronicles and the House of Niccolo cover fascinating historical periods (Renaissance and transition from middle ages to the renaissance respectively) and are faithful to historical incident but also provide protagonists and personal story. Bonus of the fall of Trebizond in the House of Niccolo, the last vestige of Byzantium.
by Anonymous | reply 248 | December 19, 2020 1:02 AM |
Ha! I'll avoid that one then, thanks R247!
by Anonymous | reply 249 | December 19, 2020 1:10 AM |
I tried to like it, R239, because I love films like "A Lion in Winter", "A Man for All Seasons", "Beckett", etc. But I couldn't finish "Cromwell".
It's a pity, because it's a hell of a story and those must have been terrifying/exhilarating times to live in. There's sure as hell a good movie in there somewhere, it just hasn't been made yet.
by Anonymous | reply 250 | December 19, 2020 1:18 AM |
The AIDS era. 78-96
by Anonymous | reply 251 | December 19, 2020 1:30 AM |
The BBC dramatised Mantel's book Bring Up the Bodies, which is all about Cromwell.
by Anonymous | reply 252 | December 19, 2020 1:31 AM |
That's about Thomas Cromwell, r252. We've been referring to Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth period.
by Anonymous | reply 253 | December 19, 2020 2:52 AM |
Hawaiian royalty and how the Americans took over the islands.
The Florida land boom in the 1920s: sun, sand, publicity, greed, sex, liquor, and real estate.
Something about the first five years after WW II, the period covered by Vidal's "The Golden Age" but not the book.
by Anonymous | reply 254 | December 19, 2020 3:08 AM |
The story of Hawaii would be very interesting, I agree!
by Anonymous | reply 255 | December 19, 2020 3:10 AM |
The ANCIENT Greek Olympics- ALL the athletes were NAKED.
by Anonymous | reply 256 | December 19, 2020 3:12 AM |
R1 Oh, Theodora...the Melania of her time.
by Anonymous | reply 257 | December 19, 2020 3:17 AM |
R248 YES!!! The House of Niccolo would make a great miniseries. That was a wonderful series of books. And the Lymond Chronicles would be good too. I loved House of Niccolo. Devoured all the books. I used to try to "cast it" while reading. Back then, I pictured Heath Ledger and Paul Bettany because I'd just seen a A Knight's Tale and I thought they'd be perfect.
by Anonymous | reply 258 | December 20, 2020 11:15 AM |
Last of the Wine by Mary Renault covers the Peloponnesian wars Athens against Sparta, etc. and Alcibiades, and his wildness. It's the story of two young athletes in Athens who meet at the schools where Socrates and all the well known philosophers gathered. I thought it was fascinating. The love story between the two boys was heart breaking and beautiful.
by Anonymous | reply 259 | December 20, 2020 11:18 AM |
Il Mostro di Firenze could be an interesting limited series in the right hands. It wouldn't just be about the creepy murders either, but about the culture in Italy at the time that meant so many young people were out, the crazy police and their wacky theories etc.
by Anonymous | reply 260 | December 23, 2020 11:27 AM |
The dinosaurs accepting Jesus.
by Anonymous | reply 261 | December 23, 2020 11:38 AM |
The Helen Lawson Story
by Anonymous | reply 262 | December 23, 2020 11:44 AM |
More stuff on the 16th century - especially the restoration era. So many Tudor era stories, not enough abut the Stewarts. Can we get a movie about King James and his bfs?
by Anonymous | reply 263 | December 23, 2020 5:59 PM |
There's a movie Restoration from about 25 years ago with RDJ and Sam Neill as Charles II.
I'd like to see a big budget remake of I, Claudius with stellar actors.
by Anonymous | reply 264 | December 23, 2020 7:43 PM |
I'd like to see a realistic Jack the Ripper movie. It seems like 90% of the movies, shows, and documentaries about the murders focus on discredited conspiracies involving the royal family or some freemason bullshit
by Anonymous | reply 265 | December 23, 2020 8:42 PM |
R265, The movie, From Hell was pretty good. It was based on popular theories about a member of the Royal Family being involved. He was in love with a prostitute and they had a kids. So Queen Victoria had her imprisoned and lobotimized and her girlfriends all "murdered" by a serial killer to cover up the scandal. There were Masonic rites and opium, and all kinds of shit. Johnny Depp played the drug addicted Detective investigating the murders. Ian Holm was in it too. Very well done and atmospheric.
by Anonymous | reply 266 | December 23, 2020 8:51 PM |
I thought From Hell was entertaining but it centered around the freemason/royals bullshit that has been thoroughly discredited
by Anonymous | reply 267 | December 23, 2020 8:57 PM |
Me too, R265. I have a really comprehensive book of those times which delves into not only the murders but society at large, what was happening with regards to poverty, immigration, women's rights etc. It was informative, creepy and really interesting. A series that tackles the murders through this lens would really fascinate me.
by Anonymous | reply 268 | December 23, 2020 10:15 PM |
If I ever won a zillion dollars in the lottery, I would have all of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels (British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, largely in the Mediterranean but with side trips to nearly every continent) filmed in lavish detail. Russell Crowe was *perfectly* cast as Capt. Jack Aubrey in "Master and Commander," but we'd have to start over now.
by Anonymous | reply 269 | December 23, 2020 10:21 PM |
R263 We also need a film of Edward II and his great love Piers Gaveston. Edward’s father King Edward I brought the handsome and fierce swordsman Gaveston into their household when the Prince was a teen so Gaveston could be an “older brother” and good influence on the effeminate young prince and instead Edward got dickmatized and fell madly in love with the older and more masculine Piers.
by Anonymous | reply 270 | December 23, 2020 10:27 PM |
R270 Was Jarman’s version too avant-garde for you?
by Anonymous | reply 271 | December 23, 2020 10:33 PM |
Is that the one where Annie Lennox keeps turning up randomly and singing, R271? I think I've seen that one before.
by Anonymous | reply 272 | December 24, 2020 1:57 AM |
Bring back a few more seasons of Rome and A French Village, and I'm good.
by Anonymous | reply 273 | December 24, 2020 2:02 AM |
Yeah, they've made a film about British kings including Edward II, and Henry II and all the Tudors and even the wretched Queen Anne, but never James I!
I mean, his story has everything from the unification of kingdoms to the writing of the King James bible to the Gunpowder Plot to the male favorites, it's a story with something for everyone! Especially us! Let's get the people who made "The Favorite" on it.
by Anonymous | reply 274 | December 24, 2020 3:45 AM |
I just don't care about James I. Once Elizabeth I was dead they weren't interesting anymore.
by Anonymous | reply 275 | December 24, 2020 3:47 AM |
Romanovs even if only Nicholas and Alexandra.
Most of course only know the family from the last czar and his wife, but the Romanov family overall is very interesting.
In college was assigned to read a huge book on Romanov family (it was in French but think there is an English version), some of it was hard going but still interesting.
If anything else world needs a break from endless dramas about the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, oh and you can chuck the Saxe-Coburg Gotha, Windsor, Windsor Mountbatten family into that lot as well. It's always the same lot; Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, Victoria.....
by Anonymous | reply 276 | December 24, 2020 4:03 AM |
I agree, especially re: The Tudors. One of the reasons I loved The Favourite, apart from it just being a fantastic movie, was that it dealt with a monarch you don't see portrayed so much. The Tudors have really been done to death.
by Anonymous | reply 277 | December 24, 2020 4:08 AM |
You can add Louis XVI and his queen Marie-Antoinette (or her alone) to that request.
Their lives in particular during the revolution leading up to judicial murders are far more than most short films and other media have given world.
Marie-Antoinette in particular is far more complex than even that Sofia Coppola gave the world.
As with the Romanovs there are treatments in local media (film or television) that do a better job of fleshing things out. But as they nearly are always in native languages and not widely distributed.
Ute Lemper (who many may only know from her vocal performances) gave an excellent Marie-Antoinette in "L' Autrichienne (then French slang for "Austrian bitch" used against Marie-Antoinette at time of revolution).
by Anonymous | reply 278 | December 24, 2020 4:19 AM |
yeah!!! we just lvoeth edramam a!!!
by Anonymous | reply 280 | December 24, 2020 4:22 AM |
There probably isn't an English actress in decades that hasn't played Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots or Victoria. That's how much the role has been done to death.
Best IMHO was Glenda Jackson, everyone else is a poor reproduction.
by Anonymous | reply 281 | December 24, 2020 4:37 AM |
Flora Robson was a great Elizabeth I, in Fire Over England and The Sea Hawk.
by Anonymous | reply 282 | December 24, 2020 4:52 AM |
R281 Miss Emily Blunt has made it her life’s ambition to play all three.
by Anonymous | reply 283 | December 24, 2020 6:21 AM |
There probably isn't an English actress in decades that hasn't played Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots or Victoria.
Um, Jenna Coleman is English. She plays Victoria in the current series of the same name. Ditto for Judi Dench in a movie a couple of years back.
There's a new Elizabeth/Mary movie coming out, but the actresses playing the queens are Irish and Australian.
Don't know why they'd have to be English, but you know...
by Anonymous | reply 284 | December 24, 2020 7:35 AM |
[quote] Annie Besant
[quote] Eleanor of Aquitaine
[quote] Marie-Antoinette
[quote] Chairman Mao’s wife
Yes, R218, R276, R278, R225 yes! But all these great women must be portrayed by Africans.
by Anonymous | reply 285 | December 24, 2020 9:25 AM |
I thought there’s some musical that we’re missing out on that Hamiltonalized the cast and took care of that?
by Anonymous | reply 286 | December 24, 2020 1:55 PM |
[R136]: See TV miniseries, “Little Gloria Happy at Last” (1982), about the custody battle between her mother Consuelo Vanderbilt and her aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who is wonderfully played by Angela Lansbury.
[R140]: “Lady Jane” (1986), with Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes, directed by stage wiz Trevor Nunn. Kind of dull account, though Patrick Stewart has fun as her conniving dad. Not a success.
by Anonymous | reply 287 | December 24, 2020 3:07 PM |
Would love to see a TV series about the life of Kathleen, Marchioness of Hartington (nee Kennedy), JFK's favourite sibling.
by Anonymous | reply 288 | December 24, 2020 3:14 PM |
[quote]The old television version of Jonestown with Powers Booth as Jim Jones is surprisingly well done.
I agree. That was a great mini-series. A few years back, there were stories about HBO optioning a Jonestown miniseries. I have the feeling the project has been shelved.
by Anonymous | reply 289 | December 24, 2020 8:02 PM |
New York City in the 1940s or 1950s with an emphasis on the Golden Age of American Musical Theater. The stars like Ethel Merman, the chorines, the secret homosex, the money behind the productions, the housewives who dragged their husbands to "Bells Are Ringing" and what their lives were like. Lunch at Schrafts, dinner at Sardis, the chorines eating at the Automat or Ronzoni Spaghetti House.
by Anonymous | reply 290 | December 24, 2020 8:57 PM |
Yes I did see Little Gloria Happy At Last...read the book too. But I found Gertie fascinating and the mini series is due for an updated version. I'd like to see a mini series that deals with all those Vanderbilts. It gives context to the fight for Gloria. Also think the times were a fascinating period in American history.
by Anonymous | reply 291 | December 30, 2020 10:18 PM |
[quote]or a take on the black people who summered in marthas vineyard.
Oprah Winfrey produced a tv movie about this; it was called The Wedding. It starred Halle Berry, Eric Thal, Lynn Whitfield, and a few others I can't remember. I believe the setting was in the 1940s or 1950s.
by Anonymous | reply 292 | December 30, 2020 11:43 PM |
Sometimes there are little moments in history that I'd love to see dealt with on screen, but there isn't really a story to them as such, so it's not really possible, or it could form the background to a story, maybe. Like the travels or young people, sometimes hippies, around the world in the 1970s, some of those stories interest me to read about. Like Joni Mitchell going down to Crete etc. They'd make a good background to a story anyway. My mother wasn't a hippy, but did travel the world with a couple of girlfriends in the 1970s and she has some funny and crazy stories and interesting stories. My grandparents did their world tour in the 70s too and kept getting caught up in coups. They were in Greece for one and my grandmother's diary is hilarious to me because it's so HER. Casually mentioning tanks in the street and having to maybe escape through Yugoslavia along with the sightseeing she was doing, like they were all one and the same.
by Anonymous | reply 293 | February 7, 2021 11:18 PM |
The life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. She's always only mentioned in connection with her second husband, Henry II, but she was ferociously intelligent, extremely well-educated, courageous, and lived a very full like very much like that of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, who always seem to be the topics of film and book deals.
I think it's time Eleanor's life got the film and book deal.
by Anonymous | reply 294 | February 9, 2021 6:01 PM |
I'd love to see a movie about people who are oblivious that something momentous is about to happen. For example, life in Hiroshima and all the people going about their daily lives, arguing with ne another, going to work, children playing hospitals doing their jobs, etc. And then BOOM! The Atomic Bomb explodes. Or maybe the same scenario for Pompeii. Except that those assholes knew and didn't leave.
by Anonymous | reply 295 | February 9, 2021 6:09 PM |
^*very full LIFE
by Anonymous | reply 296 | February 9, 2021 6:22 PM |
That's a great idea R295!
by Anonymous | reply 297 | February 9, 2021 7:04 PM |
There was a blackmail ring in the 60s that targeted prominent gay men, including military top brass, politicians, famous entertainers....I'd like to see something about that
by Anonymous | reply 298 | February 9, 2021 7:09 PM |
R298 It would be a great project for the people who did The Americans.
by Anonymous | reply 299 | February 9, 2021 7:58 PM |
R299, that would be awesome!
by Anonymous | reply 300 | February 9, 2021 10:19 PM |
The occupation of Alcatraz in the late 60s.
by Anonymous | reply 301 | February 15, 2021 5:34 AM |
Alexandria in the 1930s. I would love to see a good miniseries made of Lawrence Durrell's "The Alexandria Quartet." Vincente Minnelli made an inferior version of the first book, "Justine," fifty years ago, but I would want to see the whole thing made.
by Anonymous | reply 302 | February 15, 2021 5:42 AM |
Montgomery Clift biopic...I thought it was in production...what the F happened to it???
by Anonymous | reply 303 | February 15, 2021 5:53 AM |
That'd be very interesting, R302. I couldn't get into the book unfortunately, but I would love to see that era brought to life. People I am close to have family who hailed from Alexandria back when it was more cosmopolitan, and the stories they passed down that I've heard would make a fascinating series.
by Anonymous | reply 304 | February 15, 2021 10:08 AM |
I saw this movie a while ago called Pascali's Island, with Sir Ben Kingsley, Charles Dance and Helen Mirren from back in her siren days. It was good. I like the locale, I liked to intrigue and the time period and I think it was on Cyprus and the Turks and the Pasha or WTF ever was involved. It may have been on the eve of WW 2. Not sure but try to see it if you can and tell me you loved it.
by Anonymous | reply 305 | February 16, 2021 12:44 AM |
To build on R8, a series focusing on communities going through mass hysteria could be interesting in many circumstances:
- Spring Heeled Jack - The Mattoon Gasser - The Halifax Slasher
or situations of weird visitations/supernatural things taking place in communities. I really enjoyed The Enfield Poltergeist. A series on a place where a UFO 'flap' took place, like Warminster for example. If there are enough individual stories it could be good. Or Point Pleasant. I know they did a movie on that, but the actual incidents that occured over those 13 months were so much greater than just Mothman, and even in his book Keel feels he's gone so paranoid that he can't tell you what may have been real, what was lies, and what was crazy people being crazy. I think that would be a good one that is also very creepy - voices on the phone and eternally grinning men turning up at night etc. And at the same time, humourous - Princess Moon Owl turning up to do a radio interview, sounding like 'a man doing a bad aunt Jemima impersonation'.
Actually, that will be my vote - a proper series on Point Pleasant and what began as sightings of the Mothman and went incredibly weird until the falling of the bridge.
by Anonymous | reply 306 | February 20, 2021 10:01 AM |
Datalounge demands a biopic of the Mad Empress Carlotta of Mexico!
We'd also like a tv movie of Paraguay's disastrous war where a large majority of the male residents were killed in pursuing the madness of a dictator's dream.
Then maybe a mini-series about the Habsburgs
Citizen Genet about a controversial French figure in early American history
by Anonymous | reply 307 | February 20, 2021 5:04 PM |
The rise of the buffoon Napoleon III, the first modern dictator
by Anonymous | reply 308 | February 20, 2021 5:12 PM |
Dick like a tater
by Anonymous | reply 309 | February 20, 2021 8:17 PM |
Anyone here read a book called The Splendid and the Vile? WW 2 London, the Blitz, with a focus on Hitler and Churchill and what both of them were doing. Hitler was "This close" to bringing the UK to its knees. and then made the remarkable decision t o instead, go after Russia...which fucked him up. Interesting insights on Goebbels and the gang, and on the Brits' side Churchill trying SO HARD to bluff his way thru and keep up everyone's spirits. I had no idea the Blitz was so devastating and how many hundreds of planes came over. Incredible take on what we generally think of a well known event. It would make a great movie because the focus is so narrow, covering a specific event over a specific time period.
by Anonymous | reply 310 | February 20, 2021 9:28 PM |
R310, have you seen "Darkest Hour"? It was about Churchill during the Blitz, and was pretty darn good. Gary Oldman won an Oscar for playing Churchill, which he deserved.
Devastating scene where Churchill begs Roosevelt for aid, and Roosevelt waffles and says he can't, well, maybe he can sent some stuff to the Canadian border...
by Anonymous | reply 311 | February 21, 2021 12:02 AM |
R311 that definitely makes me think that I'd like to see more historical dramas that aren't as black-and-white in the way they portray things, but show the messy reality that is international relations. There doesn't even have to be judgment in that, but just a portrayal of how things are. More of this stuff could even have a flow-on effect, helping audiences get out of a binary mindset. Or in the worst case I suppose it may create more "everyone sucks" misanthropy. I dunno. But I find the gray areas so interesting to watch.
by Anonymous | reply 312 | February 21, 2021 12:09 AM |
How about Richard II of England, the king who was overthrown by his own nobles?
There's a Shakespeare play, of course, and that can be used or it can be made without the poetry, or with a more realistic story of vicious power politics.
by Anonymous | reply 313 | February 21, 2021 2:38 AM |
Wasn't it Edward the 2nd who had the Gay lover who was murdered after being tortured?
by Anonymous | reply 314 | February 21, 2021 2:39 AM |
Yes, R314, and there was a film "Edward II" made in 1991, with lots of male nudity and Tilda Swinton as Queen Isabella. It's a film of the Christopher Marlowe play, and is pretty good.
Incidentally, someone could make a hell of a movie about EII's son Edward III, who was made king at age 14, when Edward II was killed. His mother Queen Isabella was made regent and let her lover Roger Mortimer run the country, and Edward III had to stage a coup to get rid of Mortimer and rule in his own right. That could make a damn good 2 hour movie, huh?
by Anonymous | reply 315 | February 21, 2021 4:27 AM |
I think a very exciting series about the nobility of the Slovenians would be a proper subject for a TV series. The Slovenian country is buttifill. It has many places of great history. Thousands of years ago, and then even hundreds of years ago, there were invasions by Mongols to rape Slovenian women. Slovenian women were known all over the world for their great beauty and for their strength. They were also intelligent. So much so they were geniuses that this information has been hidden from the vorld. So, this is what I am proposing. I am also preparing a GoFundMe page to raise millions of dollars to start making such a project and I vill encourage everyone to send money.
by Anonymous | reply 316 | February 22, 2021 3:05 PM |
I have a real thing for the interwar years. If it's set in the 20s or 30s then 9/10 I will want to watch it. I know they did it as a TV movie already, but they left a lot out and passed over things pretty quickly, so I would be interested in a proper mini-series version of Christopher and His Kind.
by Anonymous | reply 317 | February 25, 2021 9:42 AM |
Another vote for Cold War type stuff. Lots of great stories could be told, and it has the bonus of not having the kinds of technology we have today. There's something more involved and gripping when people can't just be tracked by their phone, you know? But instead are hovering somewhere in secret with their one-time pads, listening to numbers stations, getting around with fake passports etc. If I'm making sense.
by Anonymous | reply 318 | February 26, 2021 11:40 PM |
OMG, "The Nightingale" is traumatic to watch
Another vote for the rise & fall of Napoleon; he shows up so often in literature, but I can think of any production that explains him as a person.
While it has been *done*, I'd like to see a good version of "War and Peace" and that recent claptrap with Lily James does.not.count; it's this huge, historical epic/soap opera - so why are the movies so bad?
by Anonymous | reply 319 | February 27, 2021 12:09 AM |
The Nightingale is set in the state I live in. I would normally watch it, just to see a story about Tasmania, but nuh-uh. No way. Don't need to see that kind of misery.
by Anonymous | reply 320 | February 27, 2021 2:56 AM |
[quote]The Nightingale is set in the state I live in. I would normally watch it, just to see a story about Tasmania, but nuh-uh. No way. Don't need to see that kind of misery.
In the movie, it's an incredibly beautiful area, but the story of how the indigenous people were run off their land, brutalized & enslaved....yeah, I'm sure it's true, but I just don't have the stomach for it. The British really ruin everything, don't they?
by Anonymous | reply 321 | February 27, 2021 9:53 AM |
The history is awful R321, definitely. There was a genocide here (there are no full blooded indigenous Tasmanians left) and people really struggle with acknowledging that. I work alongside the Aboriginal community in some aspects of my job and the stories are heartbreaking. We're currently doing things like acknowledging the true owners of the land and giving certain places dual naming, but it's so little compared to what happened to them.
We were a prisoner island initially, once the British got here. It's a really dark history on a really beautiful island. These days it's wonderful in so many ways (we sped along into progressiveness after taking forever for example), and I am so grateful to be here during covid (we are living just like normal except we don't travel so much and are reminded everywhere about hygiene). I just hope things keep improving, especially with our indigenous population.
by Anonymous | reply 322 | February 27, 2021 10:15 AM |
Court intrigue and glossy love stories under Muhammed V, Sultan of Granada (1353–1391)
by Anonymous | reply 323 | February 27, 2021 10:44 AM |
The Ancient Greek Olympics on HBO - and to depict it accurately-showing ALL of the Greek athletes COMPLETELY NAKED.
by Anonymous | reply 324 | February 27, 2021 12:06 PM |
It's never been absolutely verified, but the 19th century Queen Mother of Turkey was a French woman, and may have been the heiress Aimée du Buc de Rivéry who went missing at sea. Whoever Sultana Naksidil had been when she was young, she became the wife of one Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and the mother of another.
The story of a French heiress who's sold into slavery by Barbary pirates and who became queen of a great empire could make a hell of a movie, huh? Especially since nothing is known for sure about the real woman, not that Hollywood has ever cared about historical accuracy, so they can thrown in anything that'd make a good story.
by Anonymous | reply 325 | February 27, 2021 3:30 PM |
Mine would be more personal. My parents were married in the mid-1950s. I'd love to see what life was like for them (Mom 24/Dad 29), as they started out in a life together.
by Anonymous | reply 326 | February 27, 2021 4:06 PM |
Speaking of pirates, we’ve never gotten a great movie about any of the female pirates like Grace O’Malley, Mary Read or Anne Bonny. What did their lives look like.? There is also the whole history of African Americans finding freedom and some level of equality on the Whaling Ships, which would be a lot more intriguing than another slavery or Civil Rights film.
by Anonymous | reply 327 | February 27, 2021 5:00 PM |
I once saw an old movie on TV about Jean La Fitte, the pirate who saved our asses during the War of 1812. Fascinating story. Charlton Heston was in it, and so was Yul Brynner in his tight pants, and it was called The Buccaneer. IMO someone should remake it. It was a good story.
by Anonymous | reply 328 | February 27, 2021 5:10 PM |
Aww R326, that is really sweet.
So, until a few seconds ago I didn't even know anything about female pirates existing, and now I plan to fall down the wikipedia rabbit hole. Sounds fascinating! I would definitely watch a series on that.
I also agree with R327 that it would be great to have stories of black Americans that isn't solely slavery or civil rights; in fact them finding freedom on whaling ships is a really interesting concept!
by Anonymous | reply 329 | February 27, 2021 8:03 PM |
Historical accuracy has been mentioned a few times in this thread which reminds me of a video I saw recently on the subject. For those interested, I would be curious to hear your views on what she says here. It is an hour this video, so I understand not many people will probably have time to watch it, but if you do and are interested, here it is.
I'm not quite sure on my thoughts. She's correct in many ways, but I'm also not sure about some of the things she says too.
by Anonymous | reply 330 | February 27, 2021 8:07 PM |
Since transgenderism is all the rage, HERE'S a historical trans story that'd make a hell of a movie!
Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Éon de Beaumont, Chavalier d'Eon, later the Chevaliere d'Eon, was an 18th century French nobleman who became a spy, and who used female dress to worm his way into the confidence of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, and others. Somehow, he pissed off the Powers That Be, and was exiled, and only allowed back into the country on the condition that he live as a woman for the rest of his life. either because that's what s/he wanted or because they wanted to eliminate his original, now-suspect identity. Either way, as a woman he was still a master swordsperson, and won tons of fights in fencing and dueling.
by Anonymous | reply 331 | March 3, 2021 7:11 AM |
^That definitely sounds like it'd make for a great movie!
by Anonymous | reply 332 | March 3, 2021 7:27 AM |
Whoops, here's the link about the Chevalier/e d'Eon.
by Anonymous | reply 333 | March 3, 2021 7:38 AM |
Motown
by Anonymous | reply 334 | March 3, 2021 8:09 AM |
I love so many of these and have WW them.
However i'm on R180something and (am about to go to bed but) just want to say i would LOVE to see a limited series (or drama, whatever) for the Romans in England and how that all transitioned. i'd love to really understand how that all happened. don't judge me...i'm not a huge history buff but i have developed an interest as i get older.
by Anonymous | reply 335 | March 3, 2021 8:20 AM |
There is something interesting in that, I agree R335. I imagine it being a kind of case of Britain being the "wild wild west" of the Roman Empire, though perhaps I'm completely wrong, I know very little about that part in history. But good choice!
by Anonymous | reply 336 | March 3, 2021 8:24 AM |
Piggybacking on R336, for those of you who saw the recent movie Dig, a serviceable historical movie, the Sutton Hoo treasures transformed what was believed to be known about what the Anglo Saxon period was like emerging after the decline of the Roman Empire in Britain. It was much more sophisticated, worldly and interconnected with the continent than ever believed. And the elaborate burial practices alone would make a fascinating visual and plot point for a film about these lesser know people.
by Anonymous | reply 337 | March 3, 2021 8:33 AM |
Thanks R337! I should watch Dig, people keep recommending it.
by Anonymous | reply 338 | March 3, 2021 8:41 AM |
Thanks, r337, i'll look it up.
I'd also like to see a limited series on how Britain went from the process of Victorian to flappers. i was watching a Netflix series today (Murder Maps) and they mentioned it but how that Britain thought it was extremely cheap and trashy, yet, there they went. women had to do a lot of the work men did when they went to work into WW2 and ended up getting voting rights (after age 30!) . i think that would be a bit interesting as well.
All of these need to be worked on instead of the stupid different incantation shit.
by Anonymous | reply 339 | March 3, 2021 8:44 AM |
i should go to bed. last sentence wasn't anything to do with this thread. sorry!
by Anonymous | reply 340 | March 3, 2021 8:54 AM |
R330, I've only begun watching it and, having arrived at her explanations of epistemology, I'm ready to bash in my head due to her inane arguments. Even the idea of "affective epistemology", at least as presented here, seems absolutely idiotic because it leads to today's political and tranny insanity; basically, it boils down to "I feel it, so it's true to me, so it has to be true." Alternative facts can suddenly become truth because someone "feels" like they're subjectively true.
I don't really feel like giving her more of my time but, on the other hand, it's a bit like a train wreck in progress and I'm kinda curious where it ends up.
by Anonymous | reply 341 | March 3, 2021 9:46 AM |
Yeah, no, she's full of it.
First, she starts with the "affective epistemology" bullshit, then she points out the self-evident fact that history as a discipline is depending on the available sources and the interpretation of these sources (no shit, Sherlock!), and then she starts with the typical humanities bullshit of "well, it's all relative to what 'lense' and 'biases' you bring with you anyway." Which isn't wrong per se, but of course completely overstated.
Basically, she's undermining people's trust in thorough historical research because "it's all biased anyway, therefore my queer-feminist-marxist reading of historical sources and facts is just as valid as the one of professional and very thorough experts in the field."
🤮
by Anonymous | reply 342 | March 3, 2021 9:57 AM |
James Buchanan & William Rufus King, a love story, while the country careened toward civil war
by Anonymous | reply 343 | March 3, 2021 10:04 AM |
Anything with orgies and naked guys but no fake dicsk.
by Anonymous | reply 344 | March 3, 2021 11:10 AM |
[quote]Anything with orgies and naked guys but no fake dicsk.
DL in a nutshell.
by Anonymous | reply 345 | March 3, 2021 11:15 AM |
Thanks for your opinions R341/R342, I was hoping someone else would take the time to watch the video and to give an opinion on it. I'm afraid I'm not well versed enough in the area to be able to explain why I felt unsatisfied with many of her arguments, I'm glad someone else was able to. I think I was slightly concerned where in part there was the implication that people who are for historical accuracy are really closet racists, which I found a bit concerning, because I don't think that's true.
by Anonymous | reply 346 | March 3, 2021 6:30 PM |
R318, if you don't mind subtitles, you should check out the Deutschland 83/86/89 series. I binged all three seasons this past weekend on Hulu. It's a German TV series about the East Germans and their espionage activities in the 80s as things behind the Iron Curtain started to fall apart. The lead actor is a cutie too.
by Anonymous | reply 347 | March 3, 2021 6:43 PM |
Thanks R347! I have seen Deutschland '83 but I didn't realise the second and third series had come out! I will have to get onto that!
by Anonymous | reply 348 | March 3, 2021 6:45 PM |
R347 Interesting, I remember The Lives of Others being one of the standout films within the period of a couple years, disturbing and heartbreaking. How does the series compare to the movie for those who have seen both?
by Anonymous | reply 349 | March 3, 2021 6:49 PM |
I've not seen "The Lives of Others", so I can't speak to that. But Deutschland is a spy-thriller series in the vein of The Americans. D83 deals with the period in 1983 when the Soviets were convince that NATO's war exercises were actually a cover for a nuclear first strike against the Eastern Bloc. It was the closest we came to an actual nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis. D86 is more about East German activities in Africa, specifically its support of the ANC during Apartheid. Intertwined with that is East Germany's growing international debt problems and the nefarious things being done to mitigate that. D89 starts with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the struggles inside the East German apparatus to losing power and its resistance to reunification with the West.
by Anonymous | reply 350 | March 3, 2021 9:34 PM |
I hope that bitch aunt gets what's coming to her. But don't tell me, I will definitely watch seasons 2 and 3.
by Anonymous | reply 351 | March 4, 2021 6:58 AM |
I just found the trailer to this French movie. I know the French monarchy has been done but a story about the final days of France’s grandest monarch looks so interesting. Plus, I love his wig! I’ll have to breakdown and rent this. Something interesting in seeing a powerful person stripped to their mortal form.
by Anonymous | reply 352 | March 22, 2021 4:33 PM |
I’m reading a Sontag biography and the emergence of the Pop Art scene in NYC and the intellectual social climbing going on would make a very interesting series. Most of the key players are dead at this point, so I would think you could cover much of what went on. I also like the idea of the Factory being only part of the story instead of front and center. As much as I am fascinated by it and the glamor it presents, much of the drug use seems to have made it a bit boring. It’s amazing how many gay men she fucked.
by Anonymous | reply 353 | March 22, 2021 5:35 PM |
Yeah, it's funny but when I see portrayals of that kind of thing, R353, I feel like the people are telling us: "look, aren't we so edgy and outside the the norm and interesting?" and I always kinda think: "meh. You seem more desperate to find yourselves interesting and extremely concerned with what other people think of you than anything."
Could be some very interesting stories in there all the same. Sontag has always seemed like a nutbag to me, and seeing as she's dead, they could really show the way she was.
by Anonymous | reply 354 | March 22, 2021 7:59 PM |
Lana Tune bio pic. Focus on the murder of Johnny Stompanatto and tell it in flashbacks.
by Anonymous | reply 355 | March 27, 2021 7:23 PM |
There's an odd period between roughly 700 and 600 BC. The Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians around 700 BC, and almost certainly a bunch of people poured into the southern kingdom of Judah. Judah fell about 100 years (maybe 150 years?) later, but this would be a dramatic period when I suspect the Bible as we know it was written, or at least part of it, with Israeli stories and Judean stories getting mixed and matched together.
For many here, anything Biblical will be offputting, but even if you hate it, it has had a huge impact on history and it would be interesting to see these two connected but different peoples coming together to create the myths we still very much live with today. Plus the Israelis were probably more cultured, more sophisticated, more literate and more numerous than the Judeans when they first arrived, which kind of turns the traditional "refugee" story on its head, and it would be interesting to see that playing out. At least to me.
by Anonymous | reply 356 | March 27, 2021 7:45 PM |
I sort of agree with r308, but in part because I don't think Napoleon III really was a buffoon. I think he was actually kind of a skillful politician but of course could never be THE Napoleon and would always suffer in comparison. And of course eventually made a disastrous decision that destroyed himself, but for 20 years had a pretty good run.
by Anonymous | reply 357 | March 27, 2021 7:53 PM |
R356, I wouldn't actually mind seeing something like that personally, provided it showed a more historical perspective rather than a religious one, if you get me. Like, I find how humans develop mythologies, where they come from etc, really interesting, and it is interesting seeing how so many stories in the Bible weren't true but were allegorical or intended to be inspiring for people at the time. For example, there is no evidence at all the Jews were slaves in Egypt or that the exodus ever happened, but they were slaves in Babylon and the exodus story was no doubt created as a source of inspiration for a people who were in dire straits at the time ("We escaped once before, we can do it again."). So that'd all be fascinating. I imagine it would be very controversial though, because many religious people really take offence at their stories being challenged.
I suppose what I'm saying is, stuff like you were talking about isn't off putting to me necessarily, but I want to see it from an historical perspective, without the "and God is really real!" angle, you know?
by Anonymous | reply 358 | March 27, 2021 8:19 PM |
totally agree with you r358. Looking for something based on reality, not fantasy. I personally think a lot of the Bible was pure invention, and that whole idea of inventing a history for an entire people, pretty much out of thin air, fascinates me too.
by Anonymous | reply 359 | March 27, 2021 8:30 PM |
so just to talk to myself, I kind of would love this multigenerational old-fashioned miniseries, with the kid that flees Israel, maybe he's a young scholar/priest, uptight, fussy, kind of obnoxious clutching his old scrolls, and hating this foreign land with its foreign ideas and its weird belief that they have the only true temple in Jerusalem when everyone knows the real temple is in Israel. He hates all this shit and struggles every day. It's his son that realizes that actually there are real possibilities here. The Kings of Judah are inventing a new history and it's time the Israelis jumped on board that thing and started incorporating their own myths and histories into the narrative. Something exciting is happening here and Old Dad is missing it and has to stop clinging to a past that just ain't coming back. And finally the grandson inherits both of these traditions and gets the unfortunate fate of seeing the Kings of Judah slipping into exactly the mistakes that brought down the Kings of Israel, only this time it's Babylon. Once again, Dad doesn't see what is really going on and the grandson gets to live out the same fate as grandad, sadly. I think it could work and I think it could teach a few things.
by Anonymous | reply 360 | March 27, 2021 10:19 PM |
Random/anonymous gay sex in NYC in the 1970's.
by Anonymous | reply 361 | March 28, 2021 10:09 AM |
That's be kinda depressing though, wouldn't it, R361? We know where that lead to, after all...
by Anonymous | reply 362 | March 28, 2021 10:13 AM |
It would be great to see a documentary about the Ceaucescus, and have an actual plump old European bitch play Madame Elena, not Judi Dench with a cod accent or Helen Mirren in a fat suit.
by Anonymous | reply 363 | April 19, 2021 11:32 AM |
Not a TV series, but I think the pursuit of young Cleopatra to reclaim the Egyptian throne from her brother would make a good movie:
At age 18, Cleopatra VII and her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII, aged 15, inherit the Egyptian throne together. Since Ptolemy is underage, he is appointed a regent (a person who rules in place of the child monarch) named Pothinus, the villain of the story. Heavily influenced by the treacherous Pothinus, Ptolemy intends to become sole ruler of Egypt, with Pothinus acting as the real power behind the throne. Thus, Cleopatra is banished from Alexandria. She is followed by her faithful, devoted servants Iras , Charmion, and Apollodorus. In exile, Cleopatra plots her return.
Meanwhile, the Roman general Pompey seeks sanctuary in Egypt from his rival (and former ally) Julius Caesar, with whom he has been fighting a civil war. Pothinus pretends to befriend Pompey, but he murders the general in an attempt to appease Caesar when his army arrives in Alexandria. Caesar is not impressed and vows vengeance for his former friend. Cleopatra proves more successful in winning Caesar's favor. She arranges for Apollodorus to sneak in a huge rug to Caesar. When he unrolls it, he finds Cleopatra inside. They become instant lovers, and Cleopatra convinces Caesar to aid her in her quest.
Thus, Caesar and the misguided, teenage Ptolemy go to war in a splendid, battleship sequence (i.e., climax). Ptolemy is drowned in the siege, when he falls overboard and is weighed down by his armor. The Romans eventually vanquish the Egyptian forces, and Pothinus is executed. Caesar restores Cleopatra to the throne and proclaims her Queen of Egypt by placing on her head the royal headdress.
That's pretty much the story in a nutshell. A sort of female Lion King, if you will.
by Anonymous | reply 364 | April 19, 2021 3:33 PM |
^That would be interesting, but I have to say after all the recent talk about Cleopatra, all I can see is it becoming a big shit show over who the actress would be that is playing her, haha. But your post, and that of R363 make me really wish for the days where character actors would play these parts as long as they were right for them, rather than celebrity casting.
by Anonymous | reply 365 | April 19, 2021 8:56 PM |
A series either set around the European horror boom in the 70s, or with it as part of the background, would be interesting to me.
by Anonymous | reply 366 | April 24, 2021 12:24 PM |
I've only recently started to look into this particular area, but I find it so interesting: If there was a way to make a really good miniseries from the French Revolution, through the Reign of Terror, and then to Napoleon, I would watch the shit out of it. Not sure where the best place to stop it would be though. Napoleon's exile and the Bourbon restoration? France obviously did become a republic eventually, but not until a number of years later.
I find French history from the Revolution up until now all pretty interesting though.
by Anonymous | reply 367 | July 18, 2021 3:08 AM |
Just started reading The Sacred Band by James Romm and can tell it begs for a miniseries.
by Anonymous | reply 368 | July 18, 2021 4:14 AM |
That could be a really interesting one, R368. We don't often get to see such portrayals of homosexual characters.
by Anonymous | reply 369 | July 18, 2021 4:47 AM |
The Haitian Revolution could be a good one too. The first successful slave revolt, ending in independence.
by Anonymous | reply 370 | July 18, 2021 4:51 AM |
R370 I thought there was a film project being planned about that by Don Cheadle several years ago. I wonder what happened to it?
by Anonymous | reply 371 | July 18, 2021 12:23 PM |
Oh is that so, R371? I hadn't heard of that, but I'd definitely be interested in it if it were to happen. I wonder what happened to it too?
by Anonymous | reply 372 | July 18, 2021 12:30 PM |
Actually, I just checked and the Don Cheadle project was about a Haitian millionaire by the name of Hamilton (No, not Alexander) and it was not about the Haitian Revolution. So yes, I agree the history of the island of Haiti would be a fascinating story to tell.
by Anonymous | reply 373 | July 18, 2021 12:41 PM |
A miniseries based on the Rougon-Macquart novels of Émile Zola, integrating the stories into each other, letting us see what’s happening to Jean Macquart and Ettiene Lantier at the same time, for example.
by Anonymous | reply 374 | July 18, 2021 10:20 PM |
R319, have you seen the Russian War & Peace from the 1960s? I don't know how I would react to it as an adult, but when it was shown on US TV in 1972 it impressed the hell out of me. Oh, and it's over seven hours; it was shown over the course of four nights.
by Anonymous | reply 375 | July 19, 2021 12:33 AM |
Criterion has the Russian War and Peace on blu-ray. It’s worth it.
by Anonymous | reply 376 | July 19, 2021 12:57 AM |
The Minoans. It's a civilization that we know so little about that was literally in the center of the world.
by Anonymous | reply 377 | July 19, 2021 1:06 AM |
Are they the ones where the women were bare-chested, R377?
by Anonymous | reply 378 | July 19, 2021 11:47 AM |
I remember they had a Minoan woman leading the parade at the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics in 2004. I heard later that the American broadcast censored her, haha.
by Anonymous | reply 380 | July 19, 2021 8:44 PM |
Why did they let their tits hang out like that?
by Anonymous | reply 381 | July 19, 2021 8:47 PM |
They were supported by the clothes, weren't they? Or did they actually freely hang?
by Anonymous | reply 382 | July 19, 2021 9:09 PM |
[quote]Why did they let their tits hang out like that?
Why not? Men were half-naked or naked all the time as well, so why shouldn't the women show their goods?
by Anonymous | reply 383 | July 19, 2021 9:11 PM |
I can just picture Minoan women shaking their bare titties like this Italian teacher on FAMILY GUY.
by Anonymous | reply 384 | July 19, 2021 9:28 PM |
You know, eve since I saw the movie, Hidden Figures, about the African American women who worked in the U.S. Space Program, I have been interested in discovering more of this type of historical drama. I am really tied of the slavery movies. Harriet was important, so was 12 Years a Slave, but it seems like from an historical perspective filmmakers can't seem to moved passed it. There must be a lot more stories out there. I was reading, for example, about the Black soldiers who liberated some of the concentration camps at the end of WW 2. I had no idea. Of course I didn't know there was a tank division in Patton's army that fought in the Battle of the Bulge that were Black, or that the bomber escorts were Black airmen from Tuskegee.
by Anonymous | reply 385 | July 20, 2021 3:43 PM |
Minoans wore a variety of complex garments that were sewn together in very much the same way that modern garments are made. Unlike the classical Greeks who followed them hundreds of years later, the Minoans sewed skirts and blouses that were shaped to the body of the wearer. Crete is located in the southern Mediterranean and has a hot climate, so heavy clothes were not needed. Ancient Minoan men wore only loincloths, which were small pieces of fabric wrapped around the waist to cover the genitals. However, even these small garments were made with much attention to detail. Loincloths were made from a wide variety of materials, such as linen, leather, or wool, and decorated with bright colors and patterns. Many had a decorative pagne or sheath that covered and protected the penis, and some had long aprons in the front and back with tassels or fringe. While early Minoan men usually went bare-chested, in the later years of the Minoan civilization men often wore simple tunics and long robes.
The first modern scholars to study Crete were astonished by the design of the women's costume, including blouses and skirts that closely resembled modern women's clothing. Minoan women wore skirts that flared out from the waist in a bell shape, with many decorations attached to the cloth.
Later designs were made from strips of fabric, sewn in ways that created rows of ruffles from waist to ankle. Women also wore close-fitting blouses that were cut low in the front to expose the breasts. A tiny waist was prized, and both men and women wore tight belts made of metal, which held their waists in. Some historians believe that these belts must have been worn since early childhood, forcing the waist to stop growing.
The figure of the Minoan woman, with large breasts, large hips, and tiny waist, was very similar to the female shape that came into fashion during the late 1800s C.E. , when women laced themselves into tight corsets to make their waists small and wore hoops under their skirts to increase the size of their bottom half. Some experts believe that Minoan women must have also had some sort of framework under their skirts to support the bell shape. In fact, so close were Minoan fashions to popular French fashions of the 1800s that one of the women in an ancient Minoan painting was nicknamed "La Parisienne" (the woman of Paris) by those who discovered her.
by Anonymous | reply 386 | July 20, 2021 5:34 PM |
R385 Exactly! This is what these SJW morons don't get. Stop trying to recast black people into traditionally white parts, but instead make new movies/shows about the African-American experience. There is so much to tell! Simply casting a black person in a traditionally white role is just lazy diversity; just a way for the people (mainly white women) in power to express just how 'woke' they are.
by Anonymous | reply 387 | July 20, 2021 7:48 PM |
it seems there are only 2 types of movies about African Americans producers think audiences want to see: Either it's "historical" meaning it's about slavery; or it's a movie about some young Black man who gets killed or imprisoned.
by Anonymous | reply 388 | July 21, 2021 7:54 PM |
I'm starting to see a lot of pushback online against these sort of trauma movies being the only expression of movies about the black American experience, which is good. There are so many great stories to tell, why always focus on the one type?
by Anonymous | reply 389 | July 21, 2021 8:27 PM |
There are many wonderful ideas in this thread. But unfortunately, nowadays, the series are all wokes. I've deleted Netflix because of their progresssit propaganda, so I don't think I'll watch any new series as long as Hollywood is under the wokes dogma. I want real artists at the helm as it was done 5 years ago. That is to say, excellent screenwriters, great directors, real talented actors and no politics but historical adaptations based on History and not on an ideology. I don't to see the talentless: They/He/she/whatever rewriting History to brainwatch people.
by Anonymous | reply 390 | July 21, 2021 8:30 PM |
A lot of great ideas here. I'd love a good mini-series about the real Vlad and Countess Bathory. A lot of historians are now thinking Bathory was scapegoated by the patriarchy that saw her as a threat. She was very wealthy and the men owed her a lot of money which they didn't want to pay.
Storyville would be a good one too. Whores, madams, gamblers, sailors, aristos and musicians all interacting in the elaborate golden palaces in a tiny spot in New Orleans.
by Anonymous | reply 391 | July 21, 2021 9:16 PM |
Alexander the Great
by Anonymous | reply 392 | July 21, 2021 9:17 PM |
[quote]A lot of historians are now thinking Bathory was scapegoated by the patriarchy that saw her as a threat.
I've read about this too, and it wouldn't be a surprise. I mean the whole bathing in the blood of virgins thing seems a lot less likely than a power struggle.
by Anonymous | reply 393 | July 21, 2021 9:18 PM |
I love Alexander and I'd welcome a decent treatment of his story. Oliver Stone and Colin Farrell ruined it, so we need a better one. Maybe a mini-series with really good actors.
But there is another controversial Greek worth looking at: Alcibiades. He was Gay. Actually they say he was Bi, but he was really Gay. Anyway he was pretty complicated and brilliant, and known for his beauty and his ruthlessness..
by Anonymous | reply 394 | July 22, 2021 12:35 AM |
I think all ancient Grrek men were bi in the sense they could dally with men and even have consorts but they were expected to marry and have children.
by Anonymous | reply 395 | July 22, 2021 1:17 AM |
I would like to see a limited series about the music industry payola scandal in the 50s and 60s. Alan Freed, Dick Clark, the mafia, congressional hearings and lots of great music.
by Anonymous | reply 396 | July 22, 2021 1:25 AM |
Has the Spanish Civil War ever been done? I'm not hugely into military stuff, but there would be a lot of interesting stuff going on here, not least with the famous people who travelled there to fight.
by Anonymous | reply 397 | January 2, 2022 9:45 PM |
r57- I recently was in Hawaii for work, and one of our local guys briefly filled me in on that time and it's heartbreaking.
by Anonymous | reply 398 | January 2, 2022 9:59 PM |
I find topics like that so interesting, but yes, so heartbreaking as well R398. Humans, eh?
by Anonymous | reply 399 | January 2, 2022 10:19 PM |
Have any of you read the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini? 16th century sculptor, most widely known for his Perseus. It's quite hilarious, filled with egotistical competitive artists (Cellini at the forefront), wars, plots, revenge killings, sodomy, art, and the Medicis.
by Anonymous | reply 400 | January 4, 2022 2:58 AM |
^Never read that, R400, but definitely sounds like it would make for some great reading!
by Anonymous | reply 401 | January 4, 2022 6:20 PM |
r385, less glamorous, but in a dramatic time period, the WACs who kept the mail moving during WWII could provide backdrop to a short dramatic series. American Black women traveling to Great Britain, some country girls, some city girls, still facing racism but in a less repressive country - add romance and rivalry and I'd watch.
by Anonymous | reply 402 | January 5, 2022 5:32 PM |
The Chinese RR worker subject was touched on in the series Hell on Wheels.
[quoteHatshepsut, Female Pharaoh of Egypt.
The problem I see with going this far back is historical accuracy since a lot of mystery surrounds the daily lives of early pharaohs. Not that it wouldn't make for a great story.
by Anonymous | reply 403 | January 5, 2022 7:01 PM |
The days after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa and Stalin went into a nervous paralysis as it dawned on him he'd been crossed.
by Anonymous | reply 404 | January 5, 2022 7:18 PM |
[quote]The problem I see with going this far back is historical accuracy
Historical what, now?
by Anonymous | reply 405 | January 6, 2022 10:09 AM |
[quote]less glamorous
Honestly for me, that's where a lot of the interest lies. These "small" stories of things taking place in extraordinary times can be really interesting. Especially as it's not rehashing the same thing over and over again. If we have to have more historical dramas based in WWII, much better to have them on things like this, I feel.
by Anonymous | reply 406 | January 7, 2022 8:31 PM |
The Galapagos Affair is ripe for an adaptation, I'm actually surprised it hasn't been done yet. It kinda has everything in it people would love (you know sex and violence) and it's also not as well known as a lot of other stories, so I could see a lot of people getting really wrapped up in it.
Do people know the story? I don't think I could explain it well here, compared to others. I'll add the link to the Fresh Hell podcast who did a pretty good summary of the whole thing over two episodes. But basically:
It's a story of the island of Floriana in the Galapagos in the early 30s, and the weird people who moved there for a better life. A medical man and a woman with MS who is being treated by him in Berlin, decide to divorce their spouses and move there together to live off the land. They are obsessed with Nietzsche and intellectualism. They remove their teeth and move to this island, where the rumour later is that they shared a set of dentures between them.
Their story gets out, and a family move there after reading about them, but they do not get along with each other. Then there's the arrival of a "countess" from Europe, with her two male lovers in tow. She's a woman who dominates the whole island (in addition to her lovers), wants to build a hotel there and create the "new Miami" and is generally hated by everyone. In the midst of all this, possible murder happens. And not just once.
This is a batshit, true story. I really recommend people reading or listening up on it.
by Anonymous | reply 407 | January 8, 2022 11:07 PM |
And Part Two, where it gets really crazy:
(and apologies, it's spelled Floreana, not Floriana as I put in the above post)
by Anonymous | reply 408 | January 8, 2022 11:09 PM |
It would be great to see a documentary about the Ceaucescus, and have an actual plump old European bitch play Madame Elena, not Judi Dench with a cod accent or Helen Mirren in a fat suit.
How are Judi Dench and Helen Mirren not European?
Even if the UK left the European Union, last checked Great Britain and Ireland are still considered a part of Europe.
by Anonymous | reply 409 | January 8, 2022 11:15 PM |
Romania under the Ceaușescus was partly the inspiration for The Handmaid's Tale, so it could be quite timely to do something on them at this time.
by Anonymous | reply 410 | January 9, 2022 2:00 AM |
I've had two thoughts here today:
- I'd love to see some historical drama of a really uplifting, humans at their best type story. I think it would be really appreciated in these times.
- I'd also love to see some historical drama of when the people stood up to the elites and were successful. I think people would appreciate seeing something like that these days too.
Two vague ideas here, but I can't actually think of good examples of those two things right now.
by Anonymous | reply 411 | March 12, 2022 9:43 PM |
A sumptuous bio pic on Prince Yusupov. It needs to be a bit dirty, and they need to take some historical license and make sure Yusupov is sympathetic and charming enough to carry the narrative and that he has hot male lovers. I suspect he was quite the priggish snob from his late teens on. But I want the bio pic to be very glamorous and chic.
by Anonymous | reply 412 | March 12, 2022 9:49 PM |
^The lives of Russian emigrés could certainly be interesting. I often wondered how many of them survived.
by Anonymous | reply 413 | March 12, 2022 9:54 PM |
Read one of Yusupov's biographies about his life as an exile in Paris. But the interesting stuff all came in his young life, when he was a cross dressing fabulous teen with more money than the Tsar.
by Anonymous | reply 414 | March 12, 2022 10:07 PM |
Would like to see more stories about LGBT history
by Anonymous | reply 415 | March 12, 2022 10:21 PM |
^Any stories in particular, or just more of a focus on them. I think it would be great for highlighting the number of historical figures who were gay.
by Anonymous | reply 416 | March 12, 2022 10:26 PM |
I would like to see the Johnstown flood, especially to see the special effects of the wall of water stripping everything in its path and the debris at the stone bridge burning for three days with the entangled people trapped within it.
by Anonymous | reply 417 | March 12, 2022 10:32 PM |
I'm an historian. There are quite a few periods I'd like to see...
1. The French Revolution cries out for a good dramatization.
2. The early modern period: Wolf Hall was fantastic. The Earl of Essex's life would be a great subject.
3. The Tulsa Race Massacre
4. McCarthy hearings
by Anonymous | reply 418 | March 12, 2022 10:39 PM |
That must be such a cool job, R418. Do you specialise in any particular area?
I totally agree with the French Revolution. Would be especially interesting seeing how it would be received in these times we're living in.
So the early modern period begins around 1400, yes? I had to look that up, I'm afraid.
by Anonymous | reply 419 | March 12, 2022 10:44 PM |
The stormy and dramatic history of pre-Yankee California.
by Anonymous | reply 420 | March 12, 2022 10:44 PM |
There are certain times in history where it seems like so many people who were something at the time or would be something at the time converged in a place, and I often think it would be interesting to watch something based on these times. I'm thinking of certain times like:
- Paris in the 1920s
- Berlin in the late 20s/early 30s
- California in the late 60s
- New York in the late 70s/early 80s
by Anonymous | reply 421 | March 19, 2022 6:07 AM |
Armenian genocide, for one. It would probably piss off Turkey but, who cares.
by Anonymous | reply 422 | March 19, 2022 6:12 AM |
R422, I think that is an important story to tell. And I agree with you, in fact I don't think pissing off some people with the truth is ever a reason not to tell it.
Do you know Diamanda Galás, and her album Defixiones? That was inspired by stories from the Armenian Genocide.
by Anonymous | reply 423 | March 19, 2022 6:14 AM |
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